This is the bit that I have not been looking forward too very much as I recall making a real hash of it on my last attempt as an enthusiastic teenager .
I had read a few blogs and forum topics on this and there seem to be a number of techniques employed to do this including the use of pencils on blocks, bathtubs and talcum powder and lengths of elasticated string all of which I’m sure will eventually achieve the desired results but I think I’ll adopt a slightly more ‘Hi Tech’ approach.
First of all I don’t really know how the boat will sit in the water until it’s completely fitted out and finished and even then the waterline could look wrong so in the interests of scale accuracy I have decided to work from the Vosper drawings and do it ‘to scale’ because in reality this model will spend more time out of the water than in it so I’m not too bothered if the true waterline is a bit off.
As I’m quite a ‘DIY’ buff and I like tools and gadgets so I decided to treat myself to an late Xmas present and invest in a Bosch laser level, the model I chose has a self-levelling feature and projects very fine and totally accurate ‘cross hair’ lines. I know I will find this gadget useful for lots of DIY projects so I don’t mind the expense, (as I decided in self-justification!)
The Vosper drawings were used to scale from to accurately mark the waterline points on the bow and the stern and then the hull was placed inverted on the bench. The laser level was clamped to a stepladder about five feet away and then the hull was raised/lowered on blocks fore and aft to get the horizontal laser line to hit the bow and stern marks accurately.
The point at which the laser line crossed the rubbing strakes seemed to correspond with the same positions as per the Vosper drawing so I’m quite confident with the measurements.
A pencil was used to make a series of dash markings on the hull following the laser line.
The hull was then spun 180 degrees and levelled and the ‘laser guided’ marking process repeated.
Joining the lines across the transom and some measuring confirmed that the waterline was the same on both sides at the stern.
A final check was made by standing the hull on it’s transom and projecting a vertical line along the keel so that the projected horizontal line intersected the points at which the waterlines crossed the rubbing strakes, happily they did so within a couple of millimetres.
I applied some good quality masking tape around the hull, paying particular attention to the points where it crosses the strakes, in preparation to masking and spraying the ‘anti-fouling’ red oxide paint.

I have seen examples of this boat with a bright red gloss finish for the anti-fouling and as nice and shiny as it looks I have decided to be true to the original colour scheme as much as possible.
Red oxide primer is a very close colour match to anti fouling paint, apparently, so I found some Simoniz red oxide paint on eBay at a very good price. I’m led to believe that one paint maker (Holts ?) makes the same paint for Halfords, Simoniz and others, it’s an acrylic paint with a matt finish so there should be no compatibility problems.
Masking off the hull with a couple of layers of newspaper is quick and easy and it’s ready to go into the spray booth.
First coat on and it’s looking good, second coat after 20 minutes or so and I’m really happy with the results and the Simoniz paint is perfectly compatible with the Halfords primer.
For good measure I’ll spray a third coat after the first two have hardened overnight, I’ll give the surface a very light key with a fine abrasive pad first.
Then it’s on to the rest of the hull with the black gloss.

While the paint is drying on the hull there’s time to continue working on more of the white metal fittings.
The body of the small navigation light on the wheelhouse roof is just big enough to set a small 3mm blue LED into so I started hollowing it out with a fine drill bit in a pin drill.
The technique is to start with a small bit and by drilling one or two turns at a time and the backing the drill out to remove the swarf, this ensures that the bit does not jam in the very soft white metal, and then gradually increasing the bit size to the required diameter for the 3mm LED.
The wire for the LED was taken from a miniature transformer from a defunct power supply, this tinned copper wire is very fine and is insulated with enamel.
The legs of the LED were trimmed as short as possible and the wire soldered to each and insulated with some fine heat shrink, then the pair of wires were passed through some more heat shrink to form the connection cable and shrunk down.
The base of the LED was also filed down slightly to reduce it’s diameter for a snug fit in the body of the fitting.
After a quick test with a battery and dropper resistor the LED was epoxied into the body.
Before painting the LED was ‘frosted’ with a fine abrasive and the body cleaned up ready for paint.
I used some Humbrol ‘Maskol’ on the LED before spraying with some white gloss.

The white metal fittings for the port and starboard navigation lights were hollowed out with a burr in a Dremel tool and a small hole made for the LED lens to go through.
After the wiring was soldered onto the LED’s and tested they were set into the fittings with some epoxy. I have pre-drilled the cabin roof and sides for all the fittings and there’s enough wire on each to go to the supply and switching circuit board that will be in the cabin.
All of the lighting, including the searchlight, is switched by R/C so I made a power distribution and switching circuit from ‘Veroboard’, my favourite prototyping tool for circuit development.
Following my initial drawing of the lighting circuits I laid out the component positions and cut the Veroboard tracks to suit. Each LED is fed through a separate correctly rated current limiting resistor.
One switched circuit controls the three navigation lights and the mast light and a separate switched circuit activates the searchlight.
I included a spare position on the first circuit just in case I found justification to fit the mysterious stern navigation light that appears in photographs of the 93 boat, research into this has led to a bit of a dead end but nevertheless it’s good to have the capacity to add another light elsewhere if necessary, perhaps the cabin interior, without too much re-wiring.
The large ceramic resistor is for the searchlight LED, it only needs to be a 2watt type but I couldn’t find a 3R9 resistor rated at less than 3watts in my bits box, it’ll do the job OK but it looks disproportionally large compared to it’s ¼ watt neighbours.
Both lighting circuits are switched separately by R/C switches from Hobbyking, these Turnigy receiver controlled switches are rated at 30v 10A max so they are capable of some heavy switching if required so my little lighting circuits present no problems for them.
One important consideration is that the negative supply to the lighting and the negative supply to the receiver have to be bridged for the switches to operate correctly, and this clearly explained in the instruction that come with the switches.
The Veroboard has pins soldered into it for the wiring connections, all will be soldered and insulated and the board installed in the forward cabin, I’ll also include a separate charge/operate switch for the battery supply close by.
Everything has been tested on the bench and all works as intended, as another will attest, it’s advisable not to do this on the lounge table in case of misplaced confidence in electrical design 😜

Now that the red oxide has dried and hardened it’s time to mask it off in preparation of spraying the upper hull black.
First I had to very carefully flat back the ridge in the red oxide paint left by the edge of the masking tape that might prevent the new masking tape laying flat.
I chose two types of Tamiya tape, the first is the very thin and flexible type to get the sharp edge and this was then overlaid with the wider flexible variety.
Once this initial masking edge was established all round the hull and at deck level I could mask up the rest fully.
As an experiment and to prevent any possible bleed through of solvents through regular newspaper onto my lovely red oxide anti-fouling I chose to mask with some ’Bacofoil’ which actually works very well for this purpose as it is quite strong and easily folded and formed to the hull shape.
I didn’t use too much of this from the roll, and my wife never noticed it’s absence from the kitchen whilst I was nicking it …result !
The hull was thoroughly wiped over with a tack cloth and panel wipe to remove any traces of contaminants that could spoil the paint finish and then it went into the booth.
The pre-warmed paint went on very easily but at one point I noticed a bit of blooming on the surface in a few places but much to my relief this soon disappeared. Even after only one coat the finish looked very smooth and glossy.
I left this first coat for a day or two to fully harden before wet flatting it down with an 800 grade abrasive.
The second and third coats were applied in the same way, each left to harden for a day or more before flatting with a yet finer grades wet & dry paper.
With the final coat on the finish greatly exceeded my expectations 😎
The masking tape and foil was very carefully removed to reveal a very sharp line where black meets red although this will be covered with the white ‘Trimline’ tape I bought from SHG Model Supplies at the Bristol model show in the summer.
After a further couple of days drying and hardening I gave the black paint a bit of a polish with some Halfords cutting/polishing compound.
I’m extremely pleased with this finish and at the same time frightened to death that I’ll ruin it in some way with a clumsy knock or in the lettering and lacquering stages 😓 …

In between coats of black paint there’s time to prepare more of the white metal deck fittings.
They all require a bit of a clean up to remove casting lines and flash, and this is easy to do with an assortment of small files, blades and a small suede shoe brush with brass wire ‘bristles’.
After a quick clean up with panel wipe I fixed them all to a piece of card with small strips of double sided foam tape to stop them getting blown around by the pressure of the spay can and gave them a couple of light coats of etch primer.
To assemble the anchor I used some 2mm brass rod with some brass ends made from some larger diameter brass rod, drilled and filed to a pleasing profile, a bit of plasticard was added to neaten the pivot point and the assembly was also given a coat of etch primer.
The cooling water outlet tube and flange and the dummy exhaust ports (adapted portholes) were primed also.
They’ll get a coat of black gloss before they are fixed to the stern.
I’ll tackle the fire monitors next…

The fire monitors are supplied in three pieces that need to be assembled, there is the pedestal, the main body & handles and the discharge nozzle (my descriptions, they may have a proper technical term!) 🤔
Before assembly all the parts were filed smooth, and cleaned with my ‘suede shoe brush’ to remove flash and blemishes and to give a key for subsequent paint.
I felt that just glueing the main body and discharge nozzle together would not be sufficiently strong so I bored out the centre of each and inserted a 4mm threaded stud to pull them together, some threadlock on the stud and then some filler at the join produced a good result. The hole at the end of the discharge nozzle also looks more authentic.
The pedestal was also bored out at both ends, the lower end for a 3mm stud and for a 2mm threaded stud at the upper end.
The arms need to be carefully bent to the correct angle, you only really get one attempt at this as the white metal will not stand repeated bending and will probably fracture quite easily.
I also added a small 'lever arm' feature to the bottom of the pedestal that appears in some photographs of the real item, this was finished with a hand turned brass knob.
The finished parts were sprayed with one coat of grey etch primer, a coat of white primer and finally two coats of Halfords ‘Toolbox Red’ acrylic gloss.
I assembled the two pieces when the paint had hardened and put a dab of red paint on the top fixing nut. The handle ends will also be detailed with some black paint or perhaps some black heat shrink.

Having decided to make the searchlight a working feature I needed to make a sturdier base for it as the supplied white metal item is far too weak and not up to the job.
This is another job for the man with the lathe......😜
I want the new piece to replicate the original as much as possible so I took measurements of the white metal part and produced a dimensional drawing which I e-mailed to my brother.
A short while later the item arrived in the post with another as a spare in case I messed up the first! 😓
I annealed some ‘D’ profile brass rod and formed it to the dimensions of the original cradle and set this into a slot filed into the top of the turned searchlight base.
Before silver soldering the cradle into place I spun the part in a drill and rounded off the base with some abrasive to a profile more like the original. I also filed flats at the cradle ends and drilled them, and the searchlight body, to accept some 2mm brass screws to join the two parts together.
The base has a 2mm diameter hole bored through to accept the drive shaft from the servo and a very small grub screw secures the base onto this shaft.
The 3 watt LED is already epoxy into the searchlight body but I will replace the wire with something thinner and bring it out through the back in some heat shrink tubing.
I'm hoping that this will be flexible enough to allow free rotation of the searchlight.😊

The reflector that I originally used for testing came from Maplins and was not a particularly good fit and it also produced a broad diffused light, but I found another lens from the same supplier that could be adapted to fit and would produce a much narrower 10° beam. The lens body was too long to fit into the searchlight body so I 'ground down' the lens on some abrasive to a size that would fit using progressively finer grades of wet & dry paper.
The lens was then polished with some cutting/polishing compound to restore the optical clarity.🤓
The original and modified lenses are shown in the 'photos.
The lens now fits perfectly into the searchlight body and produces a much narrower and focussed beam of light.
I cut and shaped a piece of 1mm clear perspex to form a protective cover over the lens to hold it in the searchlight body and make it waterproof.
The searchlight on the real boat has a 'tri-form’ protective cage with a centre boss (my description, there’s probably a proper name for it ), this part is not supplied in the white metal kit so I constructed one from some 22mm copper plumbing pipe, some brass pins and a hand turned and drilled brass rod for the centre boss.
These parts were ‘soft soldered’ together as silver soldering would be quite difficult because of the different heat gradients.
Before final assembly I will paint the parts gloss grey and secure the optical and protective lens with some canopy glue which will form a flexible seal and won’t ’fog’ the lens as superglue would, and then epoxy the 'tri-form' cage to the front.
Hopefully the end result will be well worth the effort and do justice to my brother’s lathe skills!😎

I have used a vinyl tape made by Trimline rather than trying to paint one. Starting at the stern the tape conceals the join between the red oxide anti fouling and the black gloss sides.
This is then continued to the bow but it has to cross the spray rail and this part gave me the most trouble. I ended up masking and painting the line at this point as I could not get the tape to conform to the multiple angles involved 😠 Visually it looks a bit odd and it’s far from perfect but I can’t afford to waste too much on it. Perhaps after some flatting down it will look better.
If anyone has a quick, simple and accurate method of doing this I’d love to know the secret 😞