Here you can see a completed mast with a brass tube crosspiece, mounted in the hinges and held up by the strut.
Now is a good time to add the card side shields as well. I've given the cabins a spray of paint to help me see where the blemishes are...
To do the radio aerial, make a three-sided balsa box as shown, then put a bit of plastic scrap in a drill and sand the top half-round.
While it's still in the drill it's easy to push a pin through the centre of the plastic. Then epoxy the plastic into the box, push a brass wire into the pinhole, and there's your radio aerial...
Here I am assembling the bridge rear with its seat, and the instrument panel.
Sand and paint these off the model, then glue in when all the detail has been added.
You can see that the copper wire sticks out of the back of the exhaust a bit. This will get pushed into the balsa of the Transom, and hold the unit in place while the epoxy is drying...
Make 6 of these, all the same size. As you can see, I found it easier to paint them before gluing them on...
The exhaust pipes are made from 1/8" brass tube flattened in a vice. Cut a small outlet pipe for the base, and on the top cut another stub exhaust as shown.
Put a hole in the side of the stub exhaust, and bend a bit of copper wire into it.
The wire goes into the Silicone tube, and you bend the tube into a life-raft shape. Push the ends together and the copper wire will hold them joined.
So long as you have cut the tube vertical and cleanly, the join will practically vanish....
The mast from the front - and the other card side-shield...
Here it is bent, and a dab of superglue makes the ends practically invisible.
The balsa oval is sanded down all around the edge as shown, then superglued to the oval. And that's a very realistic life-raft...
The copper wire holds the stub nicely on top of the bigger flat expansion box. A dab of solder will hold this easily.
Now we have got most of our fittings made up, we can start to paint the hull. To make it easier to sand, we won't put the rails on until the surfaces are reasonably flat. Here is a spray of primer sanded down to show all the ripples from the several coats of sanding sealer that I applied earlier...
The life-raft is so simple!
Take 3.7 inches of Silicone Tubing, 7mm outside diameter, 3mm inside. Easy to buy off EBay. Cut an oval of balsa, and a 5" length of thick copper wire...
