So off we go again....! as promised at the end of my pilot build blog, next up would be the Lesro Atlantic 21 RIB in 1:12 scale.

This model is long discontinued and when one does appear on ebay, prepare to part with over £200 for a complete kit! There is a guy on ebay selling the moulded parts and a few of the pages from the instruction sheets (not all of them I add) and I hit the buy-now button on one of those as always wanted to build an inflatable RIB. I was very pleased with the quality of the parts supplied, all look to be mouled well as are the vac-form parts, its now just a case of identifying what is what! Whether these are genuine parts from the old lesro moulds or 3rd party, I dont know, but the quality is good enough to not need to question their origin.

I was planning to build this for display only as at 1:12 its not big and will really only be suitable for flat calm conditions. However, I have decided to build it functional, going brushless so we shall see what the final result will be?

The Evenrude dummy motors are shortly to be reproduced by Dave "Mastman" Watts and I have pre-ordered a pair. I have already ordered a Coxswain from DK Figures and plan on only adding the one figure. My motor will be the D2826 1000kv driving a 30mm 3 blade brass prop, 2 or 3S lipo to be decided. I have found one build on another forum that the builder managed to build to functioning Evenrudes but I will stick to the single internal motor as orginally intended by Lesro.

Doug has been kind enough to send me a link to some great photos for the details, but I am really desperate to find a copy of the orginal plans if anyone has a set out there? my main issue will be getting the frame for the self righting airbag right. So, any input as we progress will be appreciated as always, especially when I come to forming the frame parts from 4 and 5mm brass tube.

today I’ve spent a couple of hours starting to prepare the 3 main pieces. I felt it important at this stage to get the cutting of the 2 inflatable halves and the hull cut correctly as the integrity of the whole model will hinge on these being right. the cut lines were marked with a permanent sharpie before i took a fresh bladed stanley knife and started cutting.

I removed the main excess first, before scoring the marked lines carefully several times before removing more material. at this point I have cut the hull down to the correct marks and removed the outer film that was included similar to lexan model car body shells (think of the disaster if you didnt know it was there and painted it to find all your painted hard work just pealed off!). It is also important to wash all parts in warm soapy water to remove any residue, releasing agents ect.

That will be it until Thursday, hopefully by which time the propshaft will be here as that will need to go in along with other internal components early. once the 1.5mm deck is on and the hull is glued to the sponsons, it will be come dificult to get at things! another item that will need carefull though will be the motor mount which I will probably make, adding a comercial one might be awkward due to the space but we will see?

Today has seen the arrival of the motor, ESC and Coxswain figure from DK Figures. Still awaiting the propshaft and at some point I am going to have to consider the battery options, as to whether to go for 2 x small 2 or 3S lipo's in parallel or for 1 single battery. This is going to be determined by the very limited space under the deck!

Anyway, onwards with the build. It was a nice day weather wise so perfect for doing a lot of cutting, trimming and final sanding of the 2 sponson halves and the hull outside, keeping the mess out of "eye shot" of the Mrs! Following this, all parts were washed in soapy water.

First part glued was a transom doubler and whilst that was setting, it was time to measure and cut the deck from 1mm plasticard sheet. marking out the removebable deck piece dimensions was a little bit of guess work due to lack of good reference, but it looks about right. again, all parts sanded for a good finish and then the deck support lip was cut from a separate piece and glued on using Revell plastic cement. Certainly for large sheet parts, there are various makes of glue, but Revell's has always been a good bond along with Tamiya ultra thin on smaller parts. The deck was then glued into the hull and the use of many clamps to keep in position whilst setting followed by a second fillet of glue on the joint an hour later.

Last job of the day was to glue the bottom sponson half onto the hull which will get a reinforcing fillet of glue later. Tomorrow all joints will be cleaned up and P38 filler in any remaining gaps. I shall seal the inner joint with silicone before adding a plasticard strip to hide it all.

The more i look at the pieces I bought, the more i feel that it was a stupid price to pay for so little!. The included instructions where only partially complete with missing photocopied pages and after emailing the seller who promised he would send some more plans ect, I've heard nothing from him.🤔There are a lot of shaped parts not included that will take a bit of making, the sheet parts are easy from plasticard.

I read somewhere that possibly SLEC will be making an Atlantic 75, now that would be something?

After listening to the sound advice re: the silicone sealant, I sealed the inner join between hull deck and sponson with a 1mm thick strip of plasticard and after this was dry and and sanded, gave it another bead of cement for belt and braces. The hull has been sanded and filled in the one spot that needed it at the bow, and i reckon once painted, we will have a watertight seal?

I spent some time making the sponson support circles from 1mm plasticard which have also had triangular fillets fitted both sides.

I wanted to make and complete something! so, I built the transom support bracket using the photos that Doug sent for reference. I added my scale bolt heads then primed, silver sprayed and lacquered it. It will be fitted after painting the remaining parts.

Last job of the day was to make and fit the Evenrude outboard motor fixing plate and the rear of the transom.

Hopefull tomorrow will see the top sponson half fitted!

Hi guys, I’m looking for any hints and tips on bending brass tube without if possible spending a fortune on a gadget that may get limited future use. At some point I will be making the framework for the rear Atlantic 21 frame. I’m planning on using 5mm brass tube for the main uprights with 4mm tube for the cross members. The uprights need a 90 degree bend in them and I would like to bend without flat spotting them.

Will it work if I make a wooden jig to the correct shape and anneal (heat to red hot and cool naturally to soften) the tube then bend round the former? I’ve also read somewhere to pack the tube with fine sand before bending?

Any advice as always appreciated 👍

firstly a very big thank you to everyone who popped in with their hints and tips for bending the brass tube, im sure there is enough there for me to hopefully produce and nice bend for the rear frames.

Postie bought the propshaft today, so felt that would be the first job to get that fitted. Im please to see that once the motor is mounted it that it will clear the decks underside, although not by much! Next i built a plasticard servo box with lots of internal reinforcement and fitted that above the propshaft on the centreline.

As I like to make and finish an item to keep me motivated, today I made the 2 fore frame deck mounts with my usual bolt heads!

Last job of the day as it needs plenty of setting time was to fit and glue the upper sponson. after much swearing and cussing, finally got it glued and taped following a fairbit of tweaking to get a reasonable fit. tomorrow morning I shall give the join an extra bead of cement follwoed by a third in the evening as I am going to pop down to Essex and see my dad inbetween. Monday will see the joint P38 filled were needed follwed by a complete sanding with wet n dry of the whole hull. I will then consider the hardest part of the build complete apart from the rear frame, it will then be onwards with super detailing and scratch building a new centre consol as the one in the kit is "Dog poop"!

It’s been a good day of progress today before going back to work tomorrow for 4 days of shifts.

finalized the electric instalation, firstly making a support box for the ESC which helps tidy away the wires. Next I installed the RX and bound to the transmitter and centred the rudder (dummy Outboards are infact the rudders!). Finally I fashioned a motor mount from 2mm plasticard and once eveything was aligned correctly using my solid dummy coupling, everything was glued in place with triangular supports for and aft of the motor mount. Its all nice and solid, nicely aligned and free running 👍. also completed today after adding a second bead of glue last night was to fill the sponson joint with a little P38 filler were need and sand back. The hull should be now completly water tight!

I then started to fashion some more exterior hull details. using Dougs reference pics, I managed to make some details for the transom from scratch. Also started to add some of the many sponson details, here I managed to use 4 of the vacform parts for the rear stowage bins and rope guides that were included in the kit.

Last thing today, although ive acutually been building it from this morning, was to make and complete the fore stowage bucket that will sit tight up against the front of the sponson.

Yesterday I was intouch with Dave "Mastman" Watts who is producing copies of the dummy outboard motors. Hopefully he will be sending in the next day or 2 and has kindly said that I can pay once recived and that im happy with them, what a guy! although weve not discussed price yet!

One point I would like to mention with regards the seller selling these on eBay. Im afraid to say hes on my "Dog Poo" list at the moment, ive emailed him twice as he promissed me some extra plans and I also asked him for some more info on the dummy motors, sizes ect, alas no answer?? I apreciate I paid well over the odds for this part kit, especially as I will only be using half the parts supplied as the rest is either not usable of just complete junk. Word to the wise, dont be so hasty in the future Simon, a fool and his money are soon parted! Still, once finished I think it will look the "mutts nuts"!

Next update at the weekend unfortunatly ....!

The 1300mah 2S 25-50C Lipo arrived today from Hobbyking and at £6.50p cheap as chips! Of course to justify the postage of a fiver I ordered a load of other non essentials, but all things that will come in handy one day! The Lipo is sold as used by those guys who fire plastic airsoft guns (not like us ex-soldiers who only ever fired the real thing!). However, size and shape wise, it could have been made to measure this model! I will of course need to swap the Mickey Mouse plug off the Lipo and replace with a ubiqitous XT60.

Im not sure what the run time will be like, but I will plonk it in the hot tub at the weekend and give it a run (good chance to test the watts too) to see what we could get until the lipo alarm kicks in. The battery only weighs 70g, so I will make up a little plasticard box and put some counter ballast lead in it for latteral ballance and maybe get a second battery when i put another order in with HK.

After much studying of all the google related reference pictures, I made a list of every detail I wanted to add to this little model, all to be scratch built. The plan is to add every scale detail I possibly can, onwards....!

The only kit parts I could use on the sponsons are the vacform bits And the grab handles that came as a long piece of formed plastic needing cutting into individual handles. , everything else is or has been scratch made from various sizes of plastic tube, sheets, rod ect. I’ve got to the point of only having a few grab handles to fit tomorrow and that will be the hull and sponsons complete less some metal D-rings that I will add after painting.

The kit supplied injection moulded centre console will go in the bin once I’ve used it to rough size a new one which I will start building tomorrow. Also pictured are the newly arrived resin outboards from Dave Mastman Watts. These will need a fair bit of work to clean up, glue, fill and sand, but better than @nything I could make.

I used the opportunity to give the model a dunk in the hot tub Whilst the “Mrs” was Soaking! I’ve added a ballast box to counter the lipo and the lateral ballance is perfect. On the watt meter on 2s I got 11amps on a 35mm prop and there’s more than enough grunt for this to shift at speed. No need for a 3S, it would take off! The ESC didn’t need any form of programming, forward and reverse out of the box, love it!

I think I’ve done as much detailing to the sponsons as I possibly can, study pictures as I might, I can find nothing more to add!

Therefore it’s time to start the deck work (“work” is a word we shouldn’t use in this hobby, it’s unpaid and a labour of love lol). I cut a new deck 1mm over width of the original cut out so that the deck sits on top of the fixed deck, this was then packed from beneath to sit in the recess. The real thing seems to have the centre deck proud too. I then took measurements from the injection moulded kit console to use as reference for building a more scale like one. The deck was marked, cut out and reinforcement pieces fitted to the deck as a guide to build the removable console. I then made the aft tunnel which is on the real boat but smaller in real life, mine has to encompass the rudder pushrods so is slightly over scale. Last job of the day and until the weekend was to start cutting the console sides.

The inner deck will be held down by 6 x 3-4mm screws allowing access to the main radio compartment in the future, but for normal use access to battery will be via the lift off console.