Hi Peter.
Good to hear you got the B&D stand 👍.
Please do remember that you will only be able to shape things with files and abrasive paper, don't attempt to use any form of cutting tool, it's not like a lathe in that respect, and always wear some eye protection too 🤓
Robbob.

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HaHa ...they'l soon find a new home 😆.

Hi Inkoust.
Thanks for following my blog, I hope you are finding it useful.
Robbob.

Hi Dave.
Sorry to disappoint you all, there won't be any crew figures on this model, and no WPC's swinging their handcuffs alluringly😜
In my view they're the one thing that never look right either in scale, uniform or posture.
Meanwhile get that old boat out and give it a new lease of life Dave, with or without Doug's suggested crew 😉
Rob.

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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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Hi Stephen.
Much relief that this site is up and running again, I was getting a bit concerned 😓.
The club's website that I built (stalbansmes.com) is also hosted on 1&1 and I've not had any problems (yet) but it's the kind of thing that worries me will happen one day 😨 , so I back it up at least once a month.
Robbob.

Hi Dave.
The level of detail that we put into our models is a personal thing and it's by no means meant as a challenge to other modellers to match, and it is foremost a matter of personal satisfaction.
There should be no expectation that your own efforts have to match that of others, although I have taken inspiration from seeing other similar models built to a far higher standard than my own and chosen to emulate them because I like to challenge my own abilities with limited tools and skills. As model makers I'm certain that we are very accepting of other peoples work however well it is executed and I'm full of admiration for anyone who puts the time and effort into constructing something to the best of their abilities and exhibiting it for all to see. Remember that those that judge or criticise have often never gone to such efforts. Show off your models with pride 😀.
Kindest Regards.
Rob.

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Hi Colin.
They say the Devil's in the detail and there's a bit more yet to come 😈.
Cheers.
Robbob.

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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I too would welcome the facility to re-order the pictures after upload, a 'drag & drop' feature would be great for upload and re-ordering if that is possible.
At present the first picture uploaded becomes the index picture for the update but very often it's not the best one for the job so a selectable index would be great too.
(But I think I might be asking a rather too much) 😜
Robbob.

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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Hi Mike.
I really don't do enough silver soldering to warrant the investment in anything bulky and fragile that you describe and I just happen to have a mat in my plumbing kit and that has been perfectly OK up 'til now 😁
The last bit of silver soldering is on the flagstaff and I'll be posting a blog update very shortly on that.
Rob.

Hi Peter.
Thanks for your kind words, the Black & Decker horizontal drill stand is no longer made as it only fits the old style of B&D drills that used a 'yoke and stud' means of fixing to their range of accessories. Most current current drills have a collar that is used for attaching to accessories and they are utterly useless 😝. But if you have an old style drill you can still get the attachments on eBay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Black-Decker-Horizontal-D...
You can also find the vertical stands there, and old style drills too!
B&D also made a wood turning lathe attachment. A very rare item.
I have considered a small engineering lathe but I don't have room in the workshop for one and with a couple of exceptions (thanks bro) I've been able to get by without one. 😁

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Black-Decker-Horizontal-Drill-Stand/264280430020?hash=item3d885755c4:g:1O0AAOSw68ZcsKPF.

🔗

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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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Crikey...😮 looks like you've got plenty to keep you busy for quite a while.
Enjoy your retirement 👍😁
Robbob.

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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The mast on the drawing supplied with the kit is rather simplistic and I want to reproduce the mast in a more authentic style so with reference to the NMM ‘photos of the museum boat I set about modelling it.

The timber mast is held on the cabin roof in a metal socket and I produced this from some 6mm & 7mm brass tube and some brass bar for the base.
The tubes were cut to length and assembled onto a brass bar which was previously drilled to take a 3mm bolt with some flux paste between the parts and a nut and bolt used to clamp the parts together. This was all silver soldered together, the bar cut off and the temporary bolt removed and the base reduced to a circular form by filing and the piece cleaned and polished.
The mast is a short length of 6mm dowel with one end turned down to 5mm to fit inside the brass base tube.

The mast head is formed from some obeche hardwood shaped to replicate the original with a 6mm hole bored through the base piece to take the 6mm dowel mast. I used a spare 6mm porthole that I had surplus to a previous project as a supporting flange that also adds an interesting detail to the mast.
Lastly a fillet was added between the mast and the base and the whole piece was then finished with a few coats of Teak stain.
A filed down the head of a 3mm bolt so that it would fit into the brass tube and superglued in place before glueing the dowel mast into the base.

A plasticard disc was made to fit between the mast base and the roof and reinforcing plate fitted to the inside of the roof for the securing wing nut to bear on.
The light fitting is standard part available from various suppliers, mine came from RB Model in Poland along with some other brass fittings for this boat.

All of the tall fittings on the roof will be made to be removable for safe storage and transport.
Next up...the Searchlight.😁

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Wot..? all the way from Pearl Harbour...I don't fink so 😉

The fittings supplied with the kit include some bollards for the deck but I’m less than impressed with them and decided to make my own by adapting some brass handrail fittings intended for locomotives.

As readers of my blogs will know, I don’t have a lathe but there’s a lot that can be achieved using a horizontal bench drill and files.

The first job was to reduce the diameter of the base to fit inside a couple of steel washers that were superglued together and then to the reduced base to form a large flange for the bollard. This was then spun in the drill and files used to radius the edges and blend them into the base.
Some brass rod was then used to form the cross piece of the bollard, some tape the same width of the ‘ball’ was used to protect the centre section and the outer end reduced to a taper with a file, finally the pieces were reduced to the correct length and the ends rounded off.
The cross piece was then superglued into the bollard base and then all four were given a coat of etch primer and then two brushed coats of Tamiya gunmetal grey.

There is another bollard on the foredeck and this is just a simple wooden post with a brass cross piece, it’s fixed through the deck into the underlying structure by a brass pin.

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At the moment he's selling insurance for Direct Line....😁

Anyone noticed the similarity between our Harvey Kitten and the actor Harvey Keitel ?......hmmmm....I reckon it's an alias🤔

That's a neat idea, I had to resort to wedges and packing pieces to form parallel surfaces for the clamps to pull against.
I assume you're using brass pins to fix the stringers onto the bulkheads too?
Rob.

Hi Steve.
And about time too.......😀👍
I'll be following this blog with great interest.
Robbob.

Hi Mouldbuilder.
Thanks for following my blog 👍
Yes, I'm quite pleased with the paint finish myself, although things didn't go so well after I applied the'Trimline Tape' for the waterline and lacquered the hull 😠....more on that in a later update.
Cheers.
Robbob.

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Some hardwood dowel is supplied in the Vintage Model Works kit for the handrails that would look perfectly acceptable for most builders but as I’m going a bit overboard with the detailing of my boat I chose to fabricate mine differently to look a little more authentic.

This involved selecting some obeche stripwood of suitable dimensions and carefully measuring and marking out the positions of the supporting legs and the spacing between them. Again I used some ‘photos of the NMM model as a guide for this.

Fortunately I had previously treated myself to a vertical stand accessory for my Dremmel drill and I used this as a milling machine with the addition of a suitably sized sanding drum and an improvised ‘fence’ attached to the base of the stand. After making a test piece I also chose to attach a vacuum cleaner hose to the stand to extract the dust as the process generates quite a lot!

Milling out the recesses in the obeche strip was a remarkably quick process but the subsequent hand finishing using abrasive paper glued around a dowel and some abrasive pads took a great deal longer to achieve the final profiles.

I was very pleased with the final result and so I applied several coats of Teak stain before hand drilling a 2mm hole in each of the supporting legs to take a plasticard rod which was superglued in place.
These form fixing spigots that will enable me to easily fix the rails through the roof without using epoxy or superglue on the roof surface but on the underside of the roof instead.
The legs at each end of the handrails were drilled to take 1mm rods as the legs are a bit smaller.

The rails were then laid out on the cabin roof and with the aid of some masking tape the position of each plasticard rod was marked and then the drilling centres marked with an indent through the tape onto the roof.
The fixing holes were all hand drilled through the roof and the handrails pushed into place before being secured with a drop of superglue on the underside.
When set the excess plastic rod was cut flush with the roof panel.

The finished result is very pleasing 😀 as seen in the last pic along with a sneak preview of the searchlight.

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Hi Ronaldo.
I did indeed make the searchlight on my RAF Crash Tender build rotate under servo control but to engineer an up and down movement as well, although not impossible to do, would involve quite a bit more mechanics than electrics to accomplish.
The available space in the forward cabin would allow for it but the cabin roof would need to de detachable to allow access to the mechanism.
Here's my build blog: https://model-boats.com/blogs/23951
Mike Turpin has also motorised the searchlight on his Crash Tender too and he has a removable roof with a very clever pantograph action to access the searchlight servo and mechanism!.
Check out his build blog too. https://model-boats.com/blogs/37275
Good Luck.
Robbob.

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

🔗

https://model-boats.com/blogs/37275

🔗

All the glazing on the cabin is fixed except for the forward windows on each side which are on runners for the crew to slide open.

The glazing supplied in the kit for these sliding windows is 1mm Perspex so I made some runners by laminating two strips of 1.5mm obeche strip, one of which was shaped beforehand to be narrower and thus forming a rebate for the window to run in. The upper and lower runners for each side were made in this way.

All the runners were then given a couple of coats of Teak stain before they were epoxied to the cabin sides, a temporary window template was used to get the spacing and positioning correct during this stage. A vertical piece was also made, with a rebate too, as an end stop which was also fixed in place.

The template was then used to produce the actual windows which both have a handle glued to the outer rear edge with canopy glue and both run very well but with sufficient friction in the runners to hold them in although I will fit a removable retaining pin at the ends of the runners to prevent them from sliding out completely 😠.

The two white metal navigation lights supplied in the kit were painted with some metallic silver acrylic and the lenses painted red and green, these fix onto some obeche pieces fashioned and formed to complete the lights, then both were Teak stained and epoxied to the top window runners.

In part 2 I will tackle the handrails for the cabin roof 😁.

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'Tis fixed.....👍😀

Hi Dave.
Would be great to see you at our show, details on the attached PDF.
Robbob.

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See attached.
Rob.

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