A rather nice feature on the NMM model are some brass trims on the rear pillars of the cabin and I found a ‘photo of one of the real boats that clearly shows the trims so I decided to add these to my model too.

The brass sheet I used for this is only 0.3mm thick and can be fairly easily be cut by scoring heavily with a strong knife blade and then snapping. The cut edges show no sign of deformation and are easily smoothed and finished with a file.

The strips are about 6mm wide and each strip was trimmed to fit the upper part of the cabin pillars and the lower curved portion formed by careful bending over a suitably sized former.
They are held in place with a few spots of superglue and after a final cleaning with fine emery paper were brush painted with a couple of coats of clear lacquer.

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I did consider making my own rudder from brass tube, rod and sheet but I realised that a standard commercially available rudder could be easily modified to simulate the rudder type used on the real boat.

I ordered a ‘large’ size standard rudder from ModelBoatBits along with the prop shaft and prop that were needed for the model and then set about modifying the rudder.

As the blade of the rudder is held in a slot in the rudder post by a couple of small 'rivets' it was an easy job to just punch them out and separate the parts. The rudder blade was then rotated 90 degrees and a single new hole drilled through to fix the blade in the new position.
I re-shaped the blade a little to more of a rounded profile before fixing it back onto the shaft with the original rivets. I also used a small piece of brass rod to fill the exposed original rivet hole and all the parts were soft soldered together.

The new rivet was filed down flush with the blade and the whole part burnished and finished with a coat of clear lacquer.

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I wanted to install a main power switch on the model so that the battery could be pre-installed and connected ready for the lake but at the same time the battery needed to be easily replaceable at the lakeside. The problem I faced was where I could fit and conceal a switch for this, and have it easily accessible too.

The answer, I decided, was to disguise the switch as a cabin feature that I intended to include in the model detailing anyway, and the boats steering wheel was the ideal candidate.

I started by sketching out a design that would incorporate a battery box and switch as a complete sub-assembly and with a workable design I began by constructing the battery box from 3mm ply.

The switch mounting was formed from 1.2mm aluminium plate for which I made up a card template to determine the right size and angle of bends required to obtain the ‘slope’ of the top panel. Once formed and drilled the switch plate was fixed to another ply panel on one end of the box and fixed in place with screws.

I found the XT60 connector mounting PCB on the Hobbyking site and it is perfect for my needs so the alloy mounting plate was drilled with clearance holes for the connecting pins and the heat shrink tubing that further insulates the soldered connections, and the PCB is fixed to the plate with a couple of M3 screws and nuts.

The switch is rated at 12v 25A and I disassembled it to remove the operating toggle so that I could remove the taper on the shaft and reduce it to a 4mm diameter to take a brass tube that forms the new steering column.
The plastic steering wheel was picked up from the SHG stand at the Thornbury model show and is a perfect scale for the boat and it’s a perfect fit inside the brass tube too.
The switch contacts were bent to give some clearance for the wiring. A cautionary note with these switches, don’t solder any wires directly to them as the heat from the iron will also melt and deform the plastic case too. This causes the internal contacts to move and lose their firm ‘snap’ contact and potentially compromise the switch rating. I discovered this very quickly but thankfully I had ordered two switches, as they are not expensive, so I had an immediate replacement that was then wired with spade connectors.

The switch assembly was finished with another XT60 connector that mates with the power cable that goes back to the ESC via a 15A blade fuse. The whole switch and battery assembly is fixed to the deck floor with three woodscrews and so the whole assembly is removable for maintenance or modification if required.

When I glazed the cabin I made the port sliding window movable (but with an end retaining stop) so that I could quickly access the ‘Steering Wheel’ switch without having to remove the cabin from the boat. A battery change will involve that but as the whole cabin is retained by six small but very powerful neodymium magnets this is very quick and simple matter anyway.

The whole battery box and switch will later be ‘boxed in’ with a false control panel with a throttle control and dials, and this will also be on magnetic retainers, with the battery section as a separate removable part for an easy battery change.

All of these features I had considered and planned at an early stage and so implementing them was quite straightforward.🤔🤓

Getting closer to completion now, along with the control panel cover I need to re-shape the brass rudder and also fix the waterline tape problem that has really annoyed me!😡 More on that in a later update.😁

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There’s no anchor supplied in the Vintage Model Works metal fittings kit and I thought it would be good to include one as an additional deck feature, again following the NMM model that I’m using as a reference.
First I made the chain hawse pipe from some styrene tube by heating and bending it in a former and then selecting a small part of it that has the correct degree of bend. This was then fixed to a circular plasticard flange and the base drilled to take a small brass shackle pin that the chain will fix to. A 2mm brass nut secures this pin to the hawse pipe. A couple of brushed coats of gunmetal grey finishes the piece. The deck was drilled to take the shackle pin and this piece is screwed into the deck without any need for glue.
The anchor is a Hall type anchor from Cornwall Model Boats and this needed a bit of fettling with files to improve the finish, it was then sprayed with grey etch primer and a couple of coats of satin lacquer. I drilled a 1mm hole through the bottom of the anchor for a retaining pin.
The chain, also from CMB, if fixed to the shackle pin in the hawse pipe with a slightly larger link made from some brass wire.
I made a retaining piece for the anchor to sit in that incorporates the anchors retaining pin, this is made from some scraps of obeche strip superglued together but I had to file a recess into it so that the anchor would sit correctly.
This was finished with some antique pine stain and a lacquer finish and fixed down to the deck with a couple of 1mm threaded brass rivets and a dab of superglue for good measure. Another brass wire link connects the chain to the anchor and the short length on chain will be tacked down to the deck with a spot or two of glue.
In retrospect the anchor and chain look very slightly too small in scale, the dimensions on the CMB site are a little misleading ☹️, but overall the piece looks quite good on the deck 😀

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A very brief description of something that took about two weeks to make 😐

The life ring is made from two laminations of balsa which are glued together with the grain at 90 degrees to avoid warping and then shaped into a ‘doughnut’ using various grades of abrasive paper to achieve the correct profile. This was quite a time consuming task to perform by hand and eye satisfactorily but there’s no other way to do it unless you can turn one on a lathe.

The ring was then given a couple of coats of sanding sealer, primed and finally given two coats of gloss white. I chose to use some red ribbon and white cord to finish off the piece and these were simply fixed in place with a few dabs of superglue.

The ring needs to be held on the roof by some means so I cut and shaped some thick plasticard fillets which are fitted with a retaining peg, these were painted with white gloss and set aside to dry while I marked out a template to put on the roof as a guide for drilling the holes for the pegs.

The fillets were superglued to the roof and the pegs glued and trimmed on the underside.
The life ring is a nice tight fit on the retaining fillets but I will also secure it with a couple of small screws through the roof and into the underside of the ring so that it is detachable along with all the other roof fittings.

Next up will be the anchor 😁

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Continuing to add detail to the model, the two white metal fairleads supplied with the kit were cleaned up with a file, sprayed with an etch primer and painted gunmetal grey to match the bollards. They are fixed to the deck with a brass pin and a dab of epoxy and the pin head blended in with a spot of gunmetal grey.

The Kent windscreen was made in a similar way as the one on my fireboat, the outer ring is a small slice of 20mm plastic conduit that was further reduced in thickness on my sanding plate and then painted black. The screen was shaped from some clear perspex and fixed into the ring with some canopy glue. I used a 2mm brass bolt as the centre fixing, the head of the bolt rounded to a dome in my makeshift lathe, this was also painted black. The whole assembly was then fixed into the port windscreen with the bolt, no additional glue is necessary.

The front sliding window on the starboard side is held in the closed position by a small threaded brass ‘stud’ with a ring on the head while the window on the port side is intended to slide back to an open position to so another stud was fitted further back. This is to allow access to an internal cabin feature that I’m developing😉.

Two slightly larger studs were fixed to the front of the cabin on each side and a further two fixed into the deck near the rear of the cabin.

All of these brass fittings came from RB Model in Poland.
https://www.rbmodel.com/index.php?action=products&group=001

The last two pictures are of the model that's in the National Maritime Museum that I'm using as a reference for detailing.

https://www.rbmodel.com/index.php?action=products&group=001

🔗

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As a police boat would need to have some boat hooks for retrieving flotsam and various ‘things’ 😝 from the river I adapted some of the same ready-made ones that I had used previously on my fire boat, they are available on eBay from ‘Battlecrafts’.

They come in a set of three with various hook ends and are nicely made from hardwood dowel with white metal end fittings.
I started by making up two paper templates, one for each side of the boat and drew out a layout of the wooden frame parts that make up the detail panels that will hold the boat hooks.

These were made mostly from obeche strip but with the topmost wide strip made from 1.5mm ply. The parts were laid on the template and a spot of superglue used to fix the pieces together. After a couple of coats of Teak stain they were epoxied to the side walls.
The boat hooks were trimmed to length and a brass loop end made for each and then both were finished with pine stain and the white metal ends brush painted with gunmetal grey.
Some thin brass sheet was cut and formed into retaining hooks with a threaded rivet to secure them to the deck sides.

The finished result fills a bare area on the well deck walls quite effectively.😁

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This is another fitting that needs to be detachable and the construction is very similar to the others.
The base was formed from some brass bar and ‘turned’ to the desired size and profile on my ‘Black & Decker Bodge lathe’ and then the centre hole was enlarged with a needle file at an angle to accept a 5mm brass tube which was silver soldered into the base. The piece was then cleaned up with some abrasive paper and wire wool.

A 2mm brass nut was press fitted into the base of a short piece of 4mm brass tube and soft soldered in place and this this piece was inserted into the base assembly to act as a threaded retainer and spacer. I continued making the flagstaff from some brass rod with a 2mm threaded end and some tubing to make up the diameter but having mostly completing it I decided that it just didn’t look in keeping with the boat ☹️....... and so I made a new mast from some 4mm beech dowel which I sanded to a taper and made a rounded plasticard ‘finial’ top button 😊......... much better.
A short piece of 2mm rod, threaded at the end, was cut to length and inserted into the end of the new wooden flagstaff and the whole piece was finished with three coats of antique pine stain.

Some thin brass wire was formed into a double loop and fitted around the top of the mast to form the upper fixing for the halyard and a short length of 5mm tubing with a brass wire loop soldered into it forms the lower fixing for the halyard.

The flagstaff base was painted with etch primer and two brushed coats of gunmetal grey before being epoxied into an angled hole bored into the rear deck.

The flag was made for me by Mike Allsop of Scale Flags & Ensigns to the correct dimensions for the boats scale. The halyard is actually elasticated cord finished at each end with some thin white heat-shrink tubing with another short piece at the bottom of the ensign to keep it in position.
The elasticated cord is in tension and as it’s fixed to the flagstaff top and bottom the whole assembly can be easily screwed in and out of the base with the ensign attached, the threading of the flagstaff is also set so that the halyard and ensign always ends up on the trailing edge 😁.

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Another cabin roof fitting is the radio aerial, this also needs to be detachable for transport and storage.

For the base I cut and formed a disc from some brass bar and ‘turned’ it to the desired size and profile in my makeshift 'lathe' (a Black & Decker horizontal drill stand) and then the centre hole was enlarged to take a 4mm brass tube which was silver soldered into the base. The piece was then cleaned up with some abrasive paper and wire wool.

A short piece of 3mm brass rod was then threaded and soft soldered into the bottom of the base to form the fixing stud.

For the aerial rod I used a short piece of 3mm tube and some 2mm brass rod, the tube fits inside the base tube and the rod in the centre, and this was soft soldered together into the base. Finally a piece of 3mm tube was soldered to the end of the rod and turned to shape it into a ball. The rod was also given a slight taper with files and abrasives.

The whole piece was sprayed with grey etch primer and when dry the base was brush painted with some black acrylic and finally some clear satin lacquer finishes off the part.
😀

The aerial fixes to the roof through a white plasticard base with a 3mm wing nut.

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When I built my RAF Crash Rescue Tender my brother made a searchlight base for me on his lathe from a drawing I supplied and at the time I asked for an additional one in case I made a hash of it. Fortunately I didn’t need it at the time and still had the spare one in my bits box and so it made sense to use this for the searchlight on the Thames Police Boat.

The new base was made in much the same way as the previous one, the detail is in my Crash Tender blog:

https://model-boats.com/blogs/23951

The white metal casting of the searchlight body is very well made and only requires a little fettling to remove casting lines and as this searchlight will not be a working one I used the prototype lens from my previous searchlight build to fit into base. A short plastic rod was push fitted into the lens base with a disc of silver foil at the lens end to enhance the reflection in the optical path. This piece acts as a support for the lens instead of the LED unit and is glued into the body which I had previously painted black internally.
A perspex disc was made to cover the front of the lens, and a ‘tri-form’ front piece was made from some 22mm copper pipe and some brass wire which was soft soldered together.
Before the front was glued in place all the parts were sprayed with a grey etch primer and a couple of coats of satin lacquer.

The finished assembly is fixed to the roof with a 3mm threaded stud and a wing nut to make removal easy with a circular plasticard base between the two.

The twin horns are from RB Model in Poland and they just needed to be sprayed with etch primer and lacquer before fixing to the roof.
The boat is now looking more like the real thing, just a little more detailing to add including the life ring, roof aerial, flagstaff and a few more deck fittings. 😊

https://model-boats.com/blogs/23951

🔗

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