The last couple of days have seen the upper surfaces masked and primed. This was followed by several coats of my mix of pale green and red Vallejo acrylic through the airbrush. Once dry, a light coat of Matt lacquer applied to protect the paint finish before starting the washes and weathering. A lot more weathering to come once I’ve painted all the black edge strips ect.

I also finished staining and varnishing the transom “ORCA” lettering, made an exhaust and drain plate from plastic card and tube.

I reckon we are about a week away from finishing, ballasting in the bath before she will be ready for the lake once lock-down is over. In the meantime, please stay safe my friends!

So, after hours of searching I think I’ve found the solution to my crew of the Orca. I ordered 3 Tamiya 1:14 scale truck drivers of eBay at a fiver each. I think with a little cutting after assembly, repositioning of limbs and copious car body filler to fill the gaps, change features and add some clothing like caps, glasses, beards ect, they will pass as Hooper, Quint and Brody! Watch this space!

The weathering is almost complete on the hull, although I’m not completely happy with the outside of the hulls weathering above the waterline. I shall work on that some more this week. The deck antislip panels are just painted and weathered pieces of sandpaper stuck on with double sided tape. Portholes are in, pulpit finished with its characteristic rigging and braces. Just the little jobs to do plus weather and fit mast and rigging. 3-4 days till finished I reckon?

Quint’s starting to take shape! Started with a few basic cuts from the original seated figure, glued back into a standing position and then filled gaps with scrap plasticard and good old P38 car body filler. Reason for us8ng P38? It’s cheap, sets in a few minutes and sands and grinds well with the Dremmel. Baseball cap is simply “green stuff” with a plasticard peak. Moustache and quints curly bonce hair is more P38 which I will carefully shape later. Plan is for him to be carrying the harpoon rifle and once painted he will stand at the end of the pulpit.

A nice day sat in the conservatory mostly painting today.

Finished painting quint, or at least what appears to be an older greyer version, but he will do! 😂😂

Made some gunk for the chum buckets, once painted, added some blood spatter and stains to the transom, quite please with the result!

Other jobs included making the remaining window glass, weathered and installed and mounted the harpoons on the outside of the side windows.

Getting close to finished? Remaining jobs include weathering, fitting the mast and rigging, fishing rods, shark cage, some deck ropes, and 2 more crew figures. Next week completed I reckon?.....

The last few days has seen steady but slow progress, but to a point where the boat is structurally just about finished!

Finished weathering the mast before fitting and setting about rigging to get it all true and square. The brass turnbuckles are just brass tube and wire loops soldered in, cost nothing to make, don’t need to function and saving a fortune on ready made ones which cost a bomb!

The wooden rigging blocks are again all hand made from scrap wood. That way no hunting for the right size ect and once you get going, you can make one every 10 minutes! Stained and varnished, brass loop added, good to go!

Just so you don’t think I’ve forgotten, Hooper and Brody are now on the bench ready to modify into various poses, fill, bring, sand, paint ect.

Bar the crew, remaining jobs to complete are the cage, fishing rods, various coils of deck ropes, fit rudder, fit prop, ballast, leak check, radio check and that’s about it. Unless of course you guys can think of anything else to prolong the build?

Just a little done today. Finished making the dive cage frames from plasticard strip, and the roof section had some wire gauze added which I had lying around. Will finish painting them tomorrow but I’ve included a picture showing them in place.

Also made the “floaty Flaggy things” from a piece of balsa for the float, dowel and the flag is just silver foil with a layer of modelling tissue white glued either side and shaped whilst damp. Then finished with acrylic paints and washes.

The only other bits today were the 2 out rigger rods either side of the hull.

Tomorrow I’ll get back to Hooper and Brody now that I’ve decided on the pose I am going to try and model them into.

Today has seen Brody’s figure cut up and re-glued into a position showing him crouching at the transom “chumming”. I’ve even given him a cigarette Which is seen in the film. He will eventually have a mug in his hand, but apart from that he needs to set overnight before I fill, sand and paint. His glasses will be made from soldered brass wire.

Other jobs has seen the cage finished and installed, the start of adding ropes and those “corky “ things up towards the bow and I’ve made a grappling hook from soldered brass wire.

Tomorrow finish Brody and start on Hooper!

Finished modelling and painting Brody today and I think he looks about right in position by the chum buckets about to say “your gonna need a bigger boat”!

Finished the rope work including weathering and got Hooper modelled into a position that will look ok on the helm in the flying bridge. A lot of dremel work tomorrow to get him ready to prime and paint. Once he’s done, all that remains to do is finish making 4 fishing rods that fit in the rack behind the cabin, add ballast in the bath as necessary and then the big reveal!

So, after a few days decorating I’ve managed to get the “Orca” finished! Finished painting Hooper and made a few extra rods and a boat hook to go in the rack at the back of the cabin.

I will take some proper pictures once on the lake with my big boys camera and lenses, hopefully in the not too distant future? She’s had a leak check in the bath, no issues, but 2 kilos of lead ingots to get her sitting at the top of the algae line has practically doubled the finished weight. No chance of her going over with that amount of lead. I’ve just set the lead in place with silicone sealant as I had some eft over (not pictured)

A huge thank you to everyone who has watched this build and even more thanks for all the praising comments. If I’m honest, I’ve not only enjoyed this build more than most of my previous but I’m chufffed with the outcome. A lot of my models have gone on eBay in the past, this is a keeper!

My next project is.........? Lesro/SLEC 35” Pilot boat bought as a basic kit from eBay. This will be on the building board in the next day or 2 and I shall document this from scratch. Most of the extras needed have arrived, are on route or will be scratch built.

So, now that rescrictions are slightly better, took the "Orca" to the lake this morning for a trial run and it went very well. Conditions were lovely, a little chop on the water and sunshine.

I ran her for about 30 minutes, top speed is very scale like on a 540 brushed motor. Checked battery on return and well over half left, so run time could be an hour plus! Completly dry inside as well, thats a bonus!

The only mod ive done since returning home was to add about 300g of lead in the stern as she was sitting slightly nose down at top speed, just didnt look quite right? Next time out I shall try and get some video. but overall very pleased with how it looks on the water, the speed and even with the tiny rudder, turns well and again about scale.