Feature Article by: Julian Seddon
For a hugely-detailed review of the kit parts, check out Les Venus’ initial Here Now review.
The gallery and pdf…
Our thanks to Martin at Coastal Craft Models for supplying our review sample. That build’s scheduled for a bit later, so in the meantime here’s a kit that purchased directly from Coastal Craft. Here’s their contact info:
73 High Street
Wombwell
South Yorkshire
S73 8HS
01226 345635
coastalcraftmodels@gmail.com
Instructions…
Before we start work, let’s take a look at the instruction pages. These are not a sequential set and only some parts of the construction methods are detailed in them.
Click on the Thumbnails below to enlarge the images.
Pages 7–9 list the parts, while page 7 helps a lot with the brass frets.
Page 8 shows most of the wheelhouse and weapons parts; the pics are a little fuzzy but mostly decipherable.
Page 9 is a close-up of most of the parts shown on the previous page, from this the parts are clearer. I don’t see why they needed page 8!
Page 10 shows the top deck hatch, explosion vents and cowl vent positions. We also have another look at the torpedo racks and prop shaft mounts; why here?!
Missing is a picture of the join between deck and hull. This will come up in my assembly pics, but, to a less experienced modeller, this may prove a problem. More on that later.
Page 11: Watch out for the racks’ relationship to their torpedo tube – they are handled; have a careful look at the position of the tube on the rack.
The handling racks come with base plates, which have to be cut at an angle. The piece that drops down beside the deck fittings have to be angled. This requires careful handling, if you are to avoid breaking them. I think a close-up of the cut rack would have been useful to have within the instructions.
It appears from the instruction photos that all the deck assembly is taking place before the hull is married to the deck. I would not advise this, as there is quite a bit of fiddling (at least on my kit there is!) to put them together (as you’ll see later). It would be very easy to dislodge the deck parts during this.
I will deal with the later pages as I come to them.
Reference
I am using three primary reference sources…
- The Internet. There are a number of websites that deal with the Vosper craft. If you start with Vosper 72ft MTB, you will find more and more stuff that you can dig into
- The useful Squadron book on the Vosper craft (below left). This covers more than just the 72ft craft
- The plans from Model Dockyard (below right), which help with some of the positioning.
Let’s get building…