There's a hole in my wallet

Alice Upjohn
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Day 2 – Time to spend some money.

Despite not buying a single kit I still managed to damage my bank balance today . My plan was to get all the difficult to source parts for two boats, a 1/24th Brede Lifeboat and 1/12th Cygnet fishing boat. The later is easy, all I needed was the propeller – everything else is pretty standard.

The lifeboat though is a different kettle of fish. I want to do a proper job on this with all the detail possible. The prototype has twin props and tiny little rudders. If the model is to go around corners, some steering via the motors seems like a good idea. Action Electronic provided just the stuff. I laid out the plan and he suggested the kit. Props came from Prop shop while shafts and couplings came from Scoonie. A radar unit was found on Anglian Models stand hanging from the Robbie fittings rack,

While I don’t plan to start the boat for at least a couple of months, this show is the one chance I have of getting all the bits at one go. In fact I think I’ve bought the majority of the bits I need for next years boat modelling today.

One of the most impressive parts of the show had little to do with boats and a lot to do with people. As it’s Remembrance Day, a 2 minute silence was observed at 11am. Over a thousand people were in the hall and all fell silent at the appointed time. I know there are ceremonies around the country but being somewhere where people chose to observe the silence is particularly moving. By chance I found I was looking at a German fire boat and a warship of some description at the time. Poignant.

Anyway, the photo shows the winner of the “Model Phil would like to build” for this event. It’s a Metcalf Mouldings “Alice Upjohn” lifeboat. This looks fantastic. It’s 1/12th scale but still a manageable size. At £325, the kit is not badly priced considering what you get – over 800 parts including several hundred whitemetal fittings. The detail is superb. Maybe next year…

More photos here.