After having to work for 3 days, managed to get a full day in today as “wifey” was away on a works party (no plus ones allowed! Bonus😂)

The postman bought me some Meng scale bolts in various sizes. Just a simple case of cutting them free with a new scalpel blade and they are good to go. They are simply fantastic, there is no way I could get such accurate bolt heads cutting hex rod as I’ve done in th past. So putting them to use, I replaced the bolt heads on the transom fittings and made the aft deck access panels with all the bolt heads, really happy how they’ve come out.

The rest of the day has been a case of adding more panels to the cabin, which is time consuming but well worth the effort, she’s started to really take shape now. I’ve added some extra scale details using reference pictures, but will add a whole load more as I go. More progress tomorrow……

I’ve had a Busy 3 days progressing the cabin structure to basic completion. The last of the panels are now fitted, glued, sanded, filled and sanded. What I’ve also done is studying lots of photos, added as many scratch built extra details that are painted orange. There are a couple more bits to add before final sanding and painting, hopefully the cabin will be complete next weekend. There will be a lot of detailing to add once the cabin is in its orange coat, but that’s a while away yet.

Whilst waiting for cabin panels to set, I set about building and completing a few of the fittings that include the towing bollards and I really wanted to build the upstairs crew entry door, so did so to completion. It also gave me the opportunity to add a lot of my new favourite Meng bolt heads!the kits parts are nowhere near cake accurate so modified where needed using reference.

Something else I discovered was a chrome permanent marker pen, available in 1mm, 2mm and 4mm. There are a lot of chrome parts on the Tamar and having tried this pen out on a sample, it’s the business! I need to see if any lacquer or clear coats dull it, but I’ll experiment with it. You can buy a 30ml refill, but that’s expensive at £20. Apparently the liquid inside the pen can be used in an airbrush, so may play with that too! EBay was the source and YouTube has plenty of videos on this stuff!

That’s it until Friday guys……

4 long days has seen most of the interior basics built. I’ve still got a few instruments to make and that will be it inside. I’ve installed a 3 light 12v in the roof which will come on via switch along with the nav lights. It illuminates nicely but not too bright, perfect on the mostly black interior.

The cabin was sanded, filled, sanded again and primed in white before 3 thin coats of VW Orange after having painted all the nooks and cranny’s with thinnned orange acrylic. This means that once you start painting the main coat, your not trying to fight what is quite thick paints into the corners and gives a nicer finish. I shall gloss laquer the cabin once all the decals are on as I’m waiting for the RNLI decals in the post. All the remaining hundreds of cabin parts that I’ve yet to make and paint will go on after the main lacquer coat as they are mostly a Matt finished including the window frames.

For anyone wanting to know how I got the rear upper deck floor so neat, I cheated! I cut a paper template, then made the floor from 0.20mm styrene before texture painting and a coat of grey primer and Matt varnish! For the eagle eyed amongst you, the rear cabin door is upside down, but fea4 not, it’s not glued yet! That’s it now for a few days, need a rest 😂😂

Now that the cabin has had its orange coats and lacquer, time to start making and adding all the details. About 70% I scratch made, the kit parts being the photo etched parts. Things like the kit cabin lights, mounting parts for the safety cable have been scraped as wrong and re-made.

As for the cat on the instrument combing, those that know the “Haydn Miller” in Tenby know? At the weekend I shall start making the multitude of aft cabin parts and the side parts including handrails, MOB cranes ect…