Hey everyone,
As this is my first post, I may aswell introduce myself. I'm 16 years old and currently live in Australia, however I was born in England. During many a trip to Weymouth as a young boy, I slowly became in love with the RNLI lifeboats, particularly the Severn class. I have been building plastic models for around 7 years now, and last year I decided I was ready for a challenge.... to scratchbuild a Severn!
My first idea was to build the boat in the popular scale of 1/12th, however after a demand from my mum , I was forced to 'scale my thoughts down'. After careful thought, I decided to build it at 1/25th scale which gave me a total length of 69cm. After looking through the plans that I purchased and referring to my little airfix Severn, it was time to start my build. I first started by drawing the keel and hull frames onto MDF. Once these were all cut out with a jigsaw, they were glued into place. I then glued balsa struts around the top sides to form the shape. Once the frame was complete, it was was time to start planking. I used strips of balsa, aswell as rectangular pieces. Once this was done, I began applying several coats of multipurpose filler so that I could get 'the shape'. Once it was sanded and I was happy with the shape, I started to apply the fibreglass cloth and resin. I gave it a couple of coats and then gave it a couple of days to fully harden.
The next part was to make the surface smooth as the fibreglass cloth isn't. I applied a couple of coats of car body filler, which as well as smoothing out the surface, but it also adds extra strength. After this was sanded smooth, it was time to apply the first coat of primer! After the primer came the underside red, then the blue. I masked off the hull and sprayed the white waterline, then the yellow and red trim line around the sides (unfortunately I got carried away with the painting and didn't manage to take any pics of this process at all!). once this was complete, the deck was spayed in the appropriate grey colour. The last thing I neede to do to the hull at this stage was to add the black rubber fendering around the edge, which I used window sealer.
I've attatched some pics of the hull build, however not all of the steps I took pictures of.
L