Airfix 1/72 RNLI Severn Class Lifeboat.

[Deadman Disciple]

 

Ive had this kit for a year now & now its finally time to build this kit.

 

Bought it for a bargain price of £10 from the same tabletop seller that I bought both The Munsters kits from, so he did me a deal to reduce the price from £20.

 

Starting on the hull, glueing the 2 sides & the rear plate to the keel along with the small bow thrusters assembly, I had to use tape to keep the 2 sides in place & let the glue dry.

 

Once I took the tape off after the glue dried, I noticed a small gap all the way down the sides, so I had to fill those in & once dried they sanded down a treat.

 

Being warned here that the lighter color decals are quite transparent, I decided to primer in the grey & then spray white on top of that & leave white lines for the decals & the bottom white for the red paint.

 

Painting 5 coast of paint on the sides & keel, TBH I should have bought a can of red spray paint, but once I mount it into my sea base, not much of the red bottom will be that visible.

 

Then came the Midnight Blue of the upper hull, that took 2 coats, but once I took the strip masking tape off for the white, there was hardly any paint bleed, which I was really chuffed to see.

 

I then started the upper deck lip by painting that in the black & once dry I peeled the 2nd strip masking tape off & again hardly no paint bleed.

 

Now the hull is all done bar decals, its now time to start the deck work.

 

I started with the parting walls from the forward control/command area to the rear cabin & painting those in light grey, then the rear cabin bench in light grey & black for the seat & back rest.

 

The fire extinguishers are actually built into the wall, so I painted those red, then all the many seats mounted into place & painting those in black.

 

Then I mounted in the sidewalls & painted the inner square walls in orange, getting ready for the dashboard.

 

Ive also bought some 1/72 Revell Nato Pilots to act as crew, with some slight modification & painted those ready to be mounted into the seats.

 

Cheers,

 

Wayne.

Edited November 26, 2016 by Deadman Disciple

[Bigdave22014]

Good luck with this build, mine is still ongoing.

Contact Airfix for a new part 30, as the build needs two, but they only supply one! Got mine within a couple of days, so good service.

[celt]

My kit ended up in the bin due to my inadequencies,I will follow this to see how it should be done.

[Deadman Disciple]

 

Going back to the lifeboat, starting with glueing the lifeboat crew figures into their respective seats.

 

Once they dried, I lowered the completed dashboard with some Screens I printed on my sons computer & also doing a North Wales & Holyhead map to fill in the empty space on the dashboard.

 

So that means I will be building the lifeboat to Holyhead, as I went there when I was a kid.

 

I then started on the superstructure.

 

Using the interior walls as a guide, I glued the walls into the upper front windows section & the rear wall with the hatch & taped them all together whilst the glue dried.

 

Once dry, I was able to simply lift off the partially completed superstructure & glue in the panel underneath the front windows section.

 

Once all that was done, I noticed a critical error.

 

Part No 43, the plans call for you to glue it to the deck (which I did), but this should be glued into the superstructure first.

 

Anyways, undeterred I started installing the lighting kit I bought from America.

 

Drilling a hole & glueing the 3mm led into the roof & testing it with my 9v battery the cabin lighted up.

 

Then I went into a little bit of a panic, wondering where to hide the the black resistors (as they were quite thick), but I then saw the plans would save my bacon.

 

The upper command deck console hid the resistor once all glued in & a panic was averted.

 

Feeding the wire down into the inside of the roof & drilling away the top in the interior wall upright, the wires will then be fed through below the deck.

 

I glued in the roof & the rear bulkhead pieces into the side of the superstructure.

 

I then masked off the interior & got it ready for primer.

 

Spraying primer, then white & the Halfords VW Brilliant Orange to the outside of the superstructure, it came out a treat once dried.

 

Then I took the tape out of the interior & got to work painting all the interior walls.

 

Black for the forward cabin & light grey for the rear of the cabin & a little silver around the led to help reflect the light around the cabin.

 

Painting the window frames on the outside of the superstructure in silver & those small block above the windows in white, then came the windows.

 

After being warned by Big Dave about the windows not being very clear, I got some thin clear plastic sheeting from the recycling at work & using the glue n glaze, I had to hold them in whilst wearing white cotton gloves for 15 mins, whilst the glue dried.

 

But once dry, the sheeting is a helluva lot better & the clarity is perfect.

 

I then glued the completed superstructure onto the deck, using my clamps to hold it down & then masked it off to finally spray that No .43 part & the hatch lid.

 

Now its almost ready to be glued into the hull.

 

Cheers,

 

Wayne.

[Bigdave22014]

Sounds like good progress Wayne. I've started fitting individual windows to mine (glutton for punishment...) and they look a darn sight better than the kit ones!

[Deadman Disciple]

 

Work continues on the lifeboat, starting with the wiring.

 

I drilled 2 holes into the bottom of the hull to allow the red & black wires through from the switch/battery wire.

 

The second LED, I decided to not to glue the clear window part into the engine room hatch & glued the LED through the open hatch window, to allow some extra light into the rear cabin & to add to the front led, as I was worried that as I painted the front cabin area in black it would overpower the front led not to shine as bright.

 

Then (also losing my soldering virginity) I soldered all the loose ends together, then wrapped the soldered ends in electrical tape & also glueing the wires into the underneath of the deck to tidy it all up a bit.

 

Relieved to see that both LEDs were working, I then glued the deck/superstructure to the hull.

 

The hull wouldnt allow a flush fit of the deck, so I had to stretch open the hull slightly & pop the deck into place on the small lip around the inner edges of the hull & I couldnt clamp the deck down, so I had to put my trust in my tape to hold the deck down whilst the glue dried.

 

Once all dry, I then removed all the tape & I noticed that the rear part of the deck had popped out slightly, but as the glue had dried, I couldnt so nothing about it, so I left it be.

 

I then sanded down the excess dried glue & topped up with black & grey paint around the edges.

 

Then came the delicate work on the railings.

 

I bought myself a Swann Morton knife from work, as my cutters were to big too cut the railings off the sprue without snapping the railing, I worked my way around the upper railings first.

 

The upper section, I started on the mast supports first.

 

Using my knife to carefully remove any excess sprue from the railings & slowly started to glue them onto the deck.

 

Working my way along the upper deck, I had to widen some of the holes only drilling slightly into the deck (not all the way through) so my Dremel took care of those.

 

Putting a drop of glue into each of my widened holes, I slowly started to lay the rails down & nudging the odd one back straight & let those dry.

 

Once all done, I started on the lower deck railing.

 

Id already pre-sprayed the front railings in black on the sprue & they mounted very well into the V shape holes that are already on the deck, but the railings on the centre, the holes had again had to be widened.

 

Glueing those 2 forward parts to get them to meet in the centre was quite difficult to line up & one is slightly higher than the other (but thats ok), so I let them dry getting ready for the rear railings.

 

Spraying the rear railing again on the sprue in white, again trimming excess sprue much like the front railing, but this time there was square notches on the deck, but I had to widen those using my knife & slowly glued all those into place.

 

The rear deck railing section had a extra rail that needed glueing on & once dry I glued that completed section into place, but it was slightly higher than all the side railing, but its not too bad.

 

I then glued the life-rings onto the railing, not trusting the glue alone, I used some white cotton thread to tie those on, feeding the thread through the bracket holes & tieing those down & used a drop of glue for extra security, ive noticed I glued one of the life-rings on backwards (Dozy Twonk)

 

Once all dry, I then started on the deck itself.

 

Glueing all the various bits & bobs into place, I was warned by Big Dave that there should be a second capstan head so I got in contact with Airfix & they sent me a second capstan straight away & glued all those parts into place.

 

Last but not least, I have also glued the upper deck safety screens into place, I painted those by hand with my Revell Orange & glued the front screen at an angle with the glue n glaze, let that dry & glued the 2 side clear parts into place.

 

So now, its time for decals.

Cheers,

 

Wayne.

 

Edited December 22, 2016 by Deadman Disciple

[Bigdave22014]

Going well Wayne, I've never been name-checked so much!

Although I could get the rear handrails to fit like yours, I wasn't satisfied with the lack of gap (nowhere to put the hands) so I used to wire.

The photos I have all show the rear trim tabs as shiny bare metal, the same as the actuator rods.

Good luck with the transfers - I thought parts of the kit were bad, but the transfers are so opaque you can read through them.

[Deadman Disciple]

11 hours ago, Bigdave22014 said:

Going well Wayne, I've never been name-checked so much!

 

Good luck with the transfers - I thought parts of the kit were bad, but the transfers are so opaque you can read through them.

Thanks Dave,

 

Its the problems that you were so kind to share, that has helped me a lot, so expect some more in the next updates.

 

Ive already noticed the white registry numbers on the hull are very transparent & the red/yellow stripe decals below the deck lip are also crap, so those im now going to have to paint them all on now.

 

Wayne.

 

[Bigdave22014]

4 hours ago, Deadman Disciple said:

Its the problems that you were so kind to share, that has helped me a lot, so expect some more in the next updates.

 

I like sharing problems. A problem shared is a problem two people can now moan about