Ragtag

I think that would be a non starter - unlike my Freight Rover minibus which is scratchbuilt I actually adapted an existing model to make the master for these so I suspect there'd be IP/copyright issues

Hi Phil, they're home cast yes. I hadn't really considered offering them for sale, especially as being based in Canada the postage would be very pricey.

This vehicle has been a must have for me for quite a while, needing a few in various guises for my Royal Mail terminal. I decided to bite the bullet and went with the post bus version first. While the castings need a little work to tidy up I decided they were good enough that a few extras could go into the model bus fleet.

A few tweaks to the track plan made and points ordered, cork laying to follow soon hopefully.

I have reason to suspect yours was abandoned on a rather rainy planet...

As one of the meaningful approaches I did end up picking up one of the Bratchell kits to convert when this didn't generate enough interest. I also notice CMAC are producing at least a bodyshell in OO so will have to see what can be made of that.

Not much progress over the summer as the outdoors is just too appealing, but with the colder weather setting in I've made a few tweaks to the track plan and started building baseboards.

I don't, though could produce more - if you're a Facebook user the Buildabus page has all the relevant details.

Hi Russell, I didn't, though I did release them as a scratchbuilder's aid with styrene parts, a cast bonnet and detailed instructions

Not much to report on the 'Mersey' kit, but I started a little detailing on the ILBs. From front to rear are a Y-class, D-class (IB1) and B-class (Atlantic 75).

About 3000 miles to the nearest RNLI station

Added a fender strip from styrene today, starting to look a bit more acceptable now I think.

It would have ended up in the bin, any type of vertical cut just splits the layers and leaves a very feathered edge which doesn't sand at all well - can't imagine splitting the entire hull would end favourably

Spent another hour on this one, and have got to a point where I think the cabin is decent enough to give the impression of a training boat (I used Watchful as inspiration), whilst the deck is now getting there. Work still needed at the rear to add the flying bridge etc.

That's my thinking too - a freelance effort at something similar to one of the training boats. Trying to get an even vaguely-accurate Mersey from it is just too much effort, I'll look into getting some plans and go down that route instead.

I was busy designing the replacement cabin for the Mersey and couldn't work out why it looked odd at the rear - turns out that whilst the length is spot on the beam is between 0.75-1cm too narrow (or a scale 2ft!) I'm at the point of just binning this and starting from scratch if I can find some plans as I don't think the 3d print will cut well vertically to widen it. As if to rub salt in the wound, the Shannon turned up to show what a 3d print ought to be like.

Perhaps, though the cost of the plans to get the hull shape correct would've been higher than the print. Anyway, as we all know you can get a medal from a Trigger's broom

Sat down tonight and had a look at my planned mods to the superstructure. Ultimately decided that nothing was going to overcome the extra few mm of height coupled with poor window sizing. The nice thing with the print is that a light scalpel pass will give a perfectly clean and straight cut without need for a straight edge. So - the cabin was binned, a few mm shaved off the height to bring things in line with a scale drawing I'm working from, then the front part reattached. The rest of the cabin will need to be scratchbuilt but I'm confident it'll look better for it. The one bit I'm worried about is the curved framing on the windows.

It may come to that though I've started rebuilding the rear into something that better resembles the real thing.

Right on all counts I'm afraid, I have plans to fix as much of that as possible. The front screens aren't actually straight on the kit, but nor are they as raked as they ought to be. In all honesty if I were to do another I'd use the hull and build the rest from scratch, but too late now!

Based on photos of the boat in question it looked out of position, I'll add a plasticard hatch in due course. I have a feeling the superstructure is over-tall but will be able to see better when the deck's finished - despite that I'll need to add a mm or two height to get the right profile. Front windows in the cabin also seem v. oversized but nothing a little styrene strip can't sort

That 141 has come out great, are you still leaning towards a Realtrack chassis?

Still plugging away at the Mersey, though it's slow going. The deck height is slowly getting there, though still a way to go with it. I tried shaping the stern to match the curved profile of the actual vessels. It looks better though not perfect, but having run out of material to shape it'll have to do. I've also cut away the inaccurate parts from the rear. Again, it won't be perfect as I'm not convinced the window spacing is 100% but hopefully it'll look better.

Having put it off for quite some time, today I decided to start attacking my 1/76 Mersey-class lifeboat. £18 is a bit of a steal for a 3D printed kit of this size, or so I thought. Unfortunately, the more I look at it the more inaccuracies I find to correct - most notable of which is that the hull is quite considerably too shallow. There are also some errors around the cabin windows and flying bridge, as well as an incorrect hatch. The deck is also too low. That being said, there aren't too many options out there for an all-weather lifeboat (especially if you want something smaller than a Severn) so I decided to see what could be done with it. I'll also be building a Shannon too at some point so we'll see how they compare. Work so far has mostly consisted of trying to smooth off the very 'stepped print and removing some of the more crude detailing.

Just a little update to say that I've found a Shannon-class kit on Shapeways - not cheap but does look rather nice.