Recent FB posts of the Aerokit's RAF Crash Tender got me interested in restoring the old one in our basement. I built this one with my Dad, 57 years ago in 1962, when I was 15. I found it again when packing up my parent's house and it’s been in my basement since! It's in terrible condition and I'd probably be better off starting from scratch, but that misses the point. I’ve also included the old Aerokits brochure from that year! For years I have only built scratch built models and want to try to add more detail, including a finished interior. To illustrate what I’m trying to do, I also included a picture of the wheelhouse of my last winter’s project, a Wesmac 46S lobster boat. A bit of bio: I am English, but sailed to the Caribbean when I was 24. I lived in The British Virgin Islands for the next 9 years, moving to the US in 1981. We currently live in Maine and I've been in the yacht charter business all my life. I build a scratch built boat model generally over two winters. Summer is for real boats!

This project was started in November 2019 and these pictures and texts are taken from past posts, so expect the first ones to come in quick succession, slowing down drastically when we reach real time!
Looks more like I'm destroying the RAF Crash Tender than restoring it! The thin plywood was originally attached using glue and tiny (4mm long) nails (I remember tapping them in way back then). Judging by the ease everything came off, the glue was not as strong 57 years ago! Rather than fiberglassing the outside, I ended up painting a thick layer of fiberglass resin along all the inside joints. Some were so bad, resin leaked out! The model has spent years in damp basements and even had things dropped on it!
Drilled 4 holes in the enclosed bow section to reach the bow joints using a syringe. The whole thing is far more solid and I think watertight, though of course a little heavier. The engine bed plywood was delaminating, so built a new one. Now that I have the layout and profile plans of the original RAF crash tender, I've concentrated on the interior. Painted the inside of the hull black, in case any part of the hull turns out to be visible. Made a drop in module for the wheelhouse + steps to the forward galley, and two modules for the sick room behind it. The challenge was that they have to be temporarily removable for painting etc! The other challenge was the bulkhead that passes right through the wheelhouse! I cut as much of it out as I dared, leaving one upright piece (painted black) that the helmsman figure will slot onto (see wheelhouse detail picture)! The big surprise in researching this is how small the original was. 46 feet and half of the boat is engine room and aft cockpit, with a big fuel tank between the sick bay and engine room. The wheelhouse has barely enough room for a couple of standing figures! In the picture of the helmsman, note how far back the wheel is from the instruments. He's almost standing against the bulkhead. Enjoying the research and trying to make everything as authentic as possible, although I have slightly changed some things. For instance, I moved the access between the sickbay and wheelhouse slightly to stbd so the figure wouldn't block the view into the wheelhouse, which will of course be sealed when the roof goes on. I might leave the escape hatch in the wheelhouse roof open!

Motor, shaft and rudder in. Made a motor mount from a piece of steel as these motors have a lot of torque! Used an E-flite #15, 950kv, driving an Octura 450 three bladed propeller, 1.97” dia x 2.7” pitch. Had to cut the shaft and shaft tube to move the motor back. Sleeved the tube with brass. May have to experiment with motor/prop once in the water, but had these in the shop and have used similar before.

Built a fake engine room which easily lifts out for good access to the motor, batteries and electronics. Modeled the Meteorite engines as they would have been uncovered and visible, but because they will normally just be seen through 4 ports and a hatch, I didn't concentrate too much on detail. Clay was roughly spread over a balsa block and fired. This was then sanded into shape. The spark plug leads etc were brass tubing. The smallest tubes for the leads were a tiny 0.05” in diameter! I also made the sick bay bunk cushions in the same way. After finding this site and discovering so much more information on the original craft, I wish I had done the engines in more detail!

The four drop-in modules for the wheelhouse, forward galley, and a pair for the sick room behind it, all had to be temporarily removable for painting, wiring etc., which was a challenge! I did this before discovering the wealth of information on this site and though I looked and asked my other groups for interior color information, I finally just assumed everything in the RAF/Navy was grey, which turned out to be wrong! Everything is firmly glued in place now, so that's the way it has to stay, but I don't think it's a problem. Now just trying to get the outside reasonably correct!

Apart from the wheelhouse and sick bay wall lights, the bulbs are hidden to provide shadow lighting. A bulb shows through the drop in engine room floor when in place, but is hidden between the engines when viewed through the ports. Navigation lights work. The wires protruding from the wheelhouse bulkhead are for a masthead light and a spotlight. Steering servo drives rudder via two sheathed cables.

Working on the RAF Crash Tender's helmsman. Like the engines, I started with a rough wood core. This slots over the remains of the bulkhead in the wheelhouse. Added clay over the core, which I fired, then used a Dremel, file and fine sandpaper to shape. Just started painting it. A patient in the sickbay and a doctor are also in the works.

Finished the wheelhouse on the RAF Crash Tender. Sadly I had done this before joining this site. I don't know why I missed the drawing of the wheelhouse bulkhead, as I used several of the other photographs. It would have helped for the wheelhouse, but at best this model is still a rough approximation!

Put a chart table (with a chart of The Solent) in to hide the piece of the old bulkhead I had to keep. The helmsman slots onto the remaining center part of the same bulkhead.

Cut the wheel out of 1/8” Bass wood sheet, using two hole saws (1”and 3/4” - it took 3 tries!) sanding, then strengthening by soaking back in CA glue. The center is a wheel from a servo, cut into spokes. Attached the wheel to the helmsman as it's easier to align the dashboard up to the wheel than try to adjust the man’s arms to connect to it!

The compass is a piece of doweling, with the edges rounded off, then the end drilled. Used wood filler to fill the drill hole, shaping the recess with a finger, then painted and added 'gimbals'.

The close up camera is cruel! The wheelhouse will be permanently enclosed so everything will only visible through windows and overhead hatch, which will help!

An unfortunate downed airman is in the sickbay! The concerned medic will be sitting on the opposite berth and is in the works! Like the last figure, I made a rough balsa core, adding clay and then firing both. Used a Dremel and fine sandpaper to make the final shape of the figure. The blanket was shaped and finished before firing as it had to be so thin to show the shape of the body. I fired it on top of the figure with tin foil separating them.

Fitted the windows (what a time consuming pain!). Original photographs show that only the wheelhouse windows have surrounds, so decided to cut, file and sand the plastic to an interference fit directly into the wood (might add surrounds to the wheelhouse later). They don't need glue but will probably add some fine CA when the protective paper is removed. To speed things up, glued 4 pieces of plastic together along a surplus edge, so could cut out 4 blanks at a time, but then the work began.

Used the original wheelhouse beams, but cut them far thinner to be more realistic. Replaced the old deck (minus those wretched tacks) as a base and was going to cover with a nice, individually planked deck, but just in time learned from this site that the original deck was painted in non-skid grey paint, so individual planks would not be visible. Reluctantly I covered the sub-deck with 1/16" Bass sheet, using only 4 pieces total, to minimize joins and produce a smooth surface for a decent paint job. Added a rub rail.

Made the deck lifting rings from picture hangers. Added rails inside the rub rail. Painted decks with a green primer. Couldn’t find masking tape narrow enough for the edges and other areas that would not be covered in non-skid, so set up a jig to cut from a wider roll. Didn't know you could buy a textured spray paint but found one from Rust-oleum (brown). Has a wider nozzle so comes out fast. Shake it well! The decks will eventually all be a uniform darker grey, not brown non-skid! Had to redo the cabin sides a slightly lighter grey, which involved removing the interference fit windows (one was so tight I cracked it). After all this, the two greys dried almost the same color, inspite of being different in their charts.

Forward cabin tops done. Green primer, brown textured paint for the non-skid, then matte clamshell topcoat (essentially white with a touch of grey). The hatch slides open to show a bit more of the interior. The hatch doors are always open, but the area above them is closed off when the hatch is closed. The two filler caps are from the base of a canvas snap. Attached them to a Dremel shaft and touched them against a file at high speed to reduce the flange evenly. Filled with glue, painted them silver, then 'distressed' them with CA glue! Not accurate but hopefully people will recognize they are filler caps!

Completed the cabin top of the RAF Crash Tender's engine room. As before, green primer, brown textured non-skid, then matte clamshell white topcoat. The two hatches open to give a restricted view of the 'engines'. They can stay open or snap closed. The tiny hinges are normally used for the flaps on larger model aircraft. The rod for the netting rails is actually brass welding rod which was just the right diameter.