I'm nearing the stage when I need to consider the painting process and as I intend to do all the painting in the workshop where I can control temperature and humidity I really don't want overspray and dust going everywhere so I am going to construct a ventilated and lit spray booth big enough to take the model.
But first I made a simple spraying turntable to avoid handling the smaller items while painting.
I bought a 'lazy susan' bearing from eBay and mounted it on a plywood base and then used an old circular chipboard side table top as the platform.
Quick and inexpensive to make but it should make spraying smaller parts a bit easier.
In the last picture is the fan unit that will go in the roof of the booth.
Next...... making the spray booth.

After considering all the H&S aspects and conducting my own risk assessment (seriously !) and writing a method statement 😉 I am building myself a spray booth.
The base for the spray booth is a steel framed folding trestle table that I already had in the workshop and is of ideal dimensions for the job.
The framework for the booth is regular 25mm x 38mm softwood from my local DIY store.
No elaborate joints here at all, just a few screws and plastic corner blocks and a few bracing fillets to keep the frames square and rigid.
The idea is that I will be able to remove/discard the cardboard panels from the top and sides to de-construct it and pack it away until it's required again. The cardboard is just fixed to the frame with a heavy duty staple gun.
An MDF panel with a suitable sized hole was made to hold the fan unit in the 'roof' and the flexible ducting routed to the workshop (garage) door (wooden) and connected to an exhaust vent mounted through the door.
The fan unit is a brushless bathroom ventilator wired to a simple switch on the side of the frame, it can move more than sufficient air volume quite safely in the presence of propellants and solvents from the aerosols.
I also fitted a 1metre LED strip-light to the same circuit to illuminate the interior. The finishing touch is an old shower curtain with a weighted hem that I had lying about to form the 'fourth wall'. it's suspended so that there's a 50mm air gap at the bottom for the air flow path.
I bought a 3M 4521 Maintenance-Free Organic Vapour/Particulate Respirator for about £18 from Screwfix to wear whilst spraying. The mask filters are not replaceable so when I've finished all the painting it will be binned !
The mask is so exceptionally effective at filtering that I am able to stand at the booth and work INSIDE the booth with the curtain behind me to confine the vapours and dust and reduce the risk of dust etc. settling on the fresh paint. For those concerned for my health I can assure you that FOR ME this works perfectly safely and is very effective. So much so that there's no smell at all while spraying and I only get the slightest whiff of solvent smells in the workshop after removing the mask as all the nasty stuff is blasted out of the workshop from the enclosed booth.
I expect some controversial opinions on this but in practice it is actually far safer than spraying paint in a confined area without any protection and ventilation at all, which is possibly what a lot of chaps (including me) have done or continue to do !
Now I can get some painting done...

Now that the spray booth is constructed I decided to put it, and the painting turntable to the test.
Although the booth is big enough to take the whole boat I thought I'd start with something small and so I chose the cabin roofs and hatches for their first coat of white primer, the turntable allows me to rotate the piece to get an even coverage and these initial results are quite pleasing 😀
After the parts are touch dry I hung them above the convector heater in the workshop to speed up the drying process.
The paint is Halfords white primer and I will use two primer coats with a rub down with a medium abrasive pad (similar to a 'Scotch-Brite' pad) between each before applying two coats of Halfords 'Appliance White' gloss with a rub down with 1200 grit wet & dry between coats.

As the spray booth seems to be working as planned I next decided to put some primer on the deck and superstructure.
Not much to say about this really, it's not a particularly creative or rewarding process but as this is the foundation of the paint process it's as important as the final coat and thus worth getting right from the outset.
After masking off the various openings and the hull I put down the first coat of Halfords grey primer.
I pre-warmed the can in a bucket of warm water for a short while and gave it a thorough shake for the prescribed two minutes and it seemed to go on very easily with an even coating. The booth is quite roomy and very easy to move the can around to get into the difficult areas without removing the boat from the booth to turn it around.
A second was applied after about 15 minutes and the whole thing left to dry in the booth.
I'll tackle the hull next but first I need to mark out the transom for some detailing and drill a hole into my precious hull for the water cooling outlet.
Last picture is yours truly, first and last time you'll see me, much better looking with the mask on I've been told 👋

The real boat had some detail on the transom which I would like to incorporate on my model, these are the two main engine exhausts and the pump engine exhaust and there are also two small drain outlets from the rear cockpit.
As my ESC is water-cooled I want to use the pump engine exhaust detail as my cooling water outlet.
I have used brass portholes as the basis for the exhaust details as they look very similar to the real thing with the rivet holes around the circumferences, the two main engine exhausts are 8mm internal diameter and the pump exhaust is a 6mm internal diameter type.
I first removed the rear flanges of the larger portholes by rubbing them flat over some wet & dry paper so that they will sit flush on the transom.
I left the flange on the 6mm porthole as it will help locate the assembly in the transom.
I used a 6mm external brass tube set into the smaller porthole with a very short protrusion on the external side and about 25mm to pass through the hull to leave 20mm inside the boat to connect the flexible silicone water tube to.
Once I was happy with the positioning of the details I drilled the single hole for the water outlet and slightly countersunk the outside of the hole to allow for the small flange on the rear of the port hole
The tube was fixed into the porthole with a light smear of epoxy and when set the assembly was given a coat of etch primer and a couple of light light coats of black gloss and then set aside as I won't fix it in place until the hull has received it final coats of black gloss.
I also etch primed and painted the two larger exhaust pipe flanges ready for glueing to the transom.
If I can find a couple of even smaller brass portholes, perhaps 3mm, I may also fit them as the cockpit drain ports in the finishing stages.
The hull will get a couple of overall coats of clear lacquer to seal this transom detailing and the lettering decals as well.

Again, not a particularly exciting stage of the project so there's not too much to say here. 😑
The hull is ready for its primer coats, but I first masked off the hull around the water pickup tube flange, skeg and propshaft and gave them a coat of etch primer to ensure that subsequent paint layers stick properly and after that had dried I put down the first coat of Halfords grey primer after pre-warming the spray can in a bucket of warm water.
The second coat went on about 20 minutes later. I will leave the primer to dry and harden for a few days before I flat it down in preparation for more paint.
In the meantime I'll start doing some work on the white metal fittings, hopefully that will be more interesting to read !

As the painting process will take some time between stages I have started work on the white metal fittings, starting with the mast, on which I want to put a functional navigation light.
The mast, as supplied, is in two parts that need to be jointed, and using a brass tube for the upper section instead of the solid casting will allow some wires to be incorporated internally.
I started by adapting a brass dome head nut that I happened to have to hand by rounding off the flats and boring some cross holes through it.
The internal size of the nut is enough to take a 3mm white LED so I filed the top of the LED flat and 'frosted' the body with some abrasive paper.
The wiring was then soldered to the LED and heat shrink applied for insulation.
The brass tube was cut to length and a slot filed into the lower part for the wiring to exit.

I made a fitting from some 1.5mm copper wire formed into loops for the rigging which will attach to the top of the mast, all this was epoxied into place on the main body of the mast.
Hiding the wiring invisibly down the mast legs is not possible so I just superglued it in place, one wire per leg, and when painted it blends (sort of!) into the leg profile and is not too conspicuous.
The feet of the mast legs were hand drilled with a 2.5mm bit in a pin drill and 3mm stainless steel studs wound into them, the white metal is so soft that the stud self-cuts its own thread.
I have cut and shaped some plasticard wedges to go between the metal feet of the mast and the cabin roof so that it sits properly on the sloping roof when bolted down on the studs.
I will need to find some 1/12 scale rigging blocks and cord at a later stage and perhaps an RAF ensign flag if I can find something suitable, I think BECC have a range.

My decision to include functional lighting and a rotating searchlight in addition to the usual throttle and rudder functions meant that I had to revise my initial choice of radio kit from a two channel system to at least a four channel system.
My final choice was actually a Turnigy TGY-i6 six channel system from Hobbyking. The reviews I read during my research were very complimentary and it certainly fitted within my budget, I actually view it as extraordinary value for money at £44 for the TX/RX combination, my last R/C system was a MacGregor single channel 'clunk-click' system for £20 back in 1970-something when that sum was my weeks wage! 😯
The programming options are predominantly for aircraft and helicopter modellers but that's not a problem as there's all the basic programmable options in the menus that I need.
I think I ordered the wrong 'type' of transmitter as I want the throttle on the left with a centre spring return and the rudder on the right stick, a quick strip down and butchers at the internals has shown that I can transpose the stick/pot/gimbal assemblies very easily to suit my preference and swap their functions in the menu options.
The standard of construction is remarkably good for such a low cost piece of technology, speaking as someone who has seen and worked on the insides of innumerable bits of broadcast TV kit.
The transmitter has four assignable switches, I'll use two for the lighting circuits, and one of the two pots will be ideal for my rotating searchlight.
The rudder servo is a Futaba S3003 standard servo with plastic gears, I think anything more would be overkill.
I also bought a couple of Turnigy R/C switches to control the lighting circuits and NiMh battery packs for the receiver and lighting supplies as I didn't want to feed these from the main batteries.
I cobbled it all together on the bench for a quick test and it all works just as expected including running up the motor through the ESC, I have a programming card for that and I will need to set up the ESC before it goes in the water.
The main battery packs are two 9.6v 5000mAh NiMh packs by Vapextech which are wired in series, they sit on a bearers on either side of the propshaft aft of the motor, the receiver battery pack sits between them and all will be strapped down with cable ties.

Back to the painting now, starting with the wheelhouse and forward cabin roofs that need a couple of coats of white primer over the grey primer which has been flatted down. The two coats of white primer were also flatted down and left for a day to harden before the first coat of Halfords ‘Appliance White’ gloss was sprayed on. This initial gloss coat is to see how the gloss goes on and to reveal any surface defects. I still need to drill more holes for some white metal fittings and make some tapered circular spacers for the searchlight and aerial bases so the final gloss coats will go on after that. After the first gloss coat dried I could still see some wood grain ‘grinning’ through the finish so I expect I’ll need to put on a few gloss coats with a thorough flatting down between before I achieve the level of finish I’m aiming for.