Spent most of the morning sanding, flating, sanding sealer, small amounts of filler where needle before a final coat of sealer and last sand. Left with a super smooth external hull!

I’m hoping to cloth the hull in no more than 3 pieces starting with the transom as seen in the picture. Might be a bit slow next few days as back in day shift from tomorrow, might be able to sneak it into work Saturday?

Mrs “H” is out tonight at a show, so thought I’d get the next piece of cloth on in the kitchen whilst cooking up a fray bentos pie all to myself!

So, managed to get all the glass clothing done at work at the weekend! So far, 1 coat of resin followed by 2 thinned coats to come.

Today has seen all the fenders/rubbing strakes added. it took some careful measuring to get positioned correctly but well pleased with the outcome. it paid to pre-shape them prior to fitting. I’ve added filler where needed and a couple of coats of sealer, all seems to be faired in nicely. May need some touch up after priming.

Also fitted the rudder mounts as today’s final job. Tomorrow should see the prop shafts fitted, motors mounted and will make the shaft struts. Postie arrived with some RNLI resin crew figures that will add a great touch when painted.

Today has seen the prop shafts and motors installed, all nice and straight and bind free. Once all
That was epoxied in and set, I made a pair of prop shaft struts from plasticard and tubing, not that it provides a huge amount of support but adds to the scale appearance. I also fashioned some approx scale sized rudders using standard off the shelf rudders, removing the blades and making new blades with 0.8mm brass sheet, pinned and soldered and painted in oxide red primer.

Last job of the day was to start building the cockpit floor and to give the hull another coat of resin.

First job today was to reduce the rudders by 1cmx1cm which I think not only looks better but should reduce the affects that have been mentioned in comments below.

Ive fitted the cockpit which I assembled yesterday. its not the best fit into the deck, however, I shall blend it all in with some balsa strip, sand, filler, sanding sealer hopefully for a seamless finish.

I have pictured the 2 x Hobbyking waterproof boat 30 amp esc. These are supposed to be water cooled, however I am not going to fit the tubing and start drilling water pickup and exit holes in the hull x 4 until I think that water cooling is going to be necessary. Once I have watt meter readings for 2S and 3S lipo, it will give me an idea what the ESC are going to be like. Of course if you guys think I need to go water cooling, please let me know! I have an Mtroniks W-tail mixer that will allow the motors to be synched to the rudders allowing the inboard motor to slow or stop when turning. Never used one before, so may need to some programming once hooked up, we shall see.

Last job today was to shoot a could of coats of red oxide primer on the lower hull to see what the resin finish was like. on the whole not a bad finish at all, just a could of tiny areas that need a little sanding for a faily blemish free finish.

today has seen the rear deck and cabin constructed. I lined the deck piece with some mahogany strip for a neater finish on the edge of the crapy liteply. Construction of the cabin was straight forward, this was followed by shaping, sanding, filling any gaps and a couple of coats of sanding sealer ready for paint. I have also added the railings and stanchions to the roof of the cabin as a start to the detailing to come.

I have ordered a book from Amazon which is a reference book of the Waveney Class lifeboats, so hopefully there will be ample photos for the detailing I hope to add as we go on!

so, having been at work all weekend, today saw a day off and a few hours to start building the foreward cockpit bridge thingy. There will be quite a bit of shape changing mods to this part as we build, simply because the Dumas kit is of the 44ft Coastguard cutter and the Waveney class Lifeboat has quite a few differences.

Changes to make include the windows, the rear walls to be extended to take acount of extra windows at back of cab, forward sloping front piece, engine intakes on both sides, and changes to the roof.

Still waiting on a reference book on "Waveneys" from ebay, should have been here by now! that will give me the change to start super detailing the exterior decs, cabins ect.

Last couple of days things have moved on nicely! I have done some more work on the forward cockpit adding window frames from plasticard, still a long way to go on that part of the build. Cockpit is still loose from the hull, will be glued on once all the extra detailing has been completed.

Have started to paint the exterior hull and add some decals. After several coats of grey and red primers with flating inbetween, have left the bottom of the hull oxide red. The blue is "Ford Royal Blue" which is a recommended match for RNLI boats. Some waveneys appear in a light blue, but I am basing mine on 44-003 which was the darker blue. Red and white trimlines added, bumper strips painted black, lettering was from eBay (search custom vinyl lettering). Finally a light coat of laquer to protect. several coats of laquer will be added at the end.

Not a great deal of action today, had to do some the as detailed by the “mrs”!

Added the forward cockpit coming roofy thing, shaped, sanded, filled, sealed and sanded again. Last thing today was to build a pair of simulated engine intakes.

My be a few days till more work now as back on shift

Last couple of days has seen some detailing added to the rear cabin using the Waveney Lifeboats book for reference. all bits n bobs have been scratch built and are the general bits that seem to have been added to most of the 22 Waveneys that were in service with the RNLI.

The cabin was was then primed before adding rivet detail using a cocktail stick and PVa glue blobs. The whole thing has had 3 coats of VW Halfords orange spray. Shall leave that to harden overnight before I detail paint the roof grab rail, add the black anti-dazzle panel and the name panels made from official RNLI vinyl lettering.

The whole thing will get a couple of coats of laquer and then will be considered finished!