One of the things I had decided to do was not to have a link cable from the hull to the wheel house to power the lighting and radar.

With this in mind I also wanted to have all the lights to work on the wheelhouse, I removed the interea to give me assess to the inside of the wheelhouse and then started to run all the lighting cables to a central point inside. The Gran of wheat bulbs I have used are from robbe they are 12volts not 6 and are used as the truck light set for robbe truck kits.

I laid all the cables from the mast area in some small dia black cable heat shrink so they would not be so noticeable as they came down the mast supports, and this also makes it look as the same as the real Severn.With the cables now all inside the wheelhouse I made some Small adjustments to the intereria to aloe the cables to pass through to the underside of the wheelhouse, with this done I refitted the interior.

I then sorted the cables out by testing each one as to which cable went to which lamp, this then left me with a + and - set of cables, I then fitted a set of 5 small switches inside the wheelhouse just inside the rear door, this then means with the aid of a small piece of flat wood dowel I can switch the lights on and off as required thought the rear door.

I have used a Robbe geared motor to run the radar as this runs at about the right speed and is also small enough to fit inside the radar vac forming base unit.The power supply for this is a 4.8 volt receiver pack, which I have mounted inside one of the air vent boxes at the stern of the wheelhouse, with the positive wire going through one of the switches I have fitted.

Stern Center hand rail.

 Well I can tell you now you will need to take a week off to make this up because I think it is the hardest part to make, you have been warned!!!

 One thing to check before you take on this master piece of work, is to see if the lifeboat you are basing you model on has a three section stern hand rail or not, I mean by this that when 17-21 was built she did not have the hiab fitted this was done at a later date so they used the launch the y-boat on the skied rail system, this was also fitted to the Arun class lifeboats, the deference can be seen by looking if there are two bolts joining up the center top hand rail to the corner ones.

 The other Severn owners that I know have all spent the same amount of time in making it, one of the main problems is there is not much information of it on the RN LI drawings, but if you take you time and check you pics you should be able to work it out.

The first part to make up is the base plate that it all sits on you can scale the size of it from the plan drawing I cut mine out of one piece of brass plate. With this done I then cut out the angled supports that are supplied in the etch bass, this will give the the radius that you will need to make up the long center loop, make the loop from solid brass bar not tube the radius is too tight and you will only end up getting kinks in the tube. Also remember to warm up the brass bar with the blow lamp first and let it cool this will make it softer to work with.

 With the long loop now made I then cut the short support bars that is sits on and silver soldiered it to the base plate, I then made the longer supports and fitted those at the same time, also fitting the angled supports as well, also a note to remember that there is a curve on the stern deck so keep a check on the base as it is made up, I must confess that although I did this at some point it lost its curve so when I had finished it I had to make up some small wedges to take up the gap when I fitted it to the deck but I only know that!!

 Next I made up the lower front hand rail this is not hard to do just takes a bit of time, this I soft soldered in to place. Well you should now have a master piece of your work in front of you so I will say to you know well done.

Kick Rails.

Now if you have got the kit you should have a set of alloy tee section kick rails, these run down both sides of the deck from bow to stern, then up by the steps and finish with a short section by the center hand rail on the stern.To say they will fit straight away with out any work well they don?t, first thing to do with each one is to get out you blow lamp, you will also need a piece of soap, warm them up starting from one end and work you way along the whole length to get them warm, checking with your piece of soap by gently rubbing it on the alloy to see if it melts, if it does then leave it to cool down when its cool you will find that it is much softer to work with, this way you will be able to shape the kick rails to follow the contours of the hull.

When you are happy with them all you can shape the ends with a radius do a final check on there fitting and get then painted ready for there finial fitting. I did not paint the underside of the kick rail as I wanted this to be ruffed up so as the 5 mim epoxy would have something to stick too. A note to remember is that the bow hand rails on the port and starboard are not the same in length the starboard side is shorter because of the Anchor.

Stanchions

 So with the kick rails fitted and the rear hand rail fitted it was now time to start fitting the stanchions, first thing first is if you have the myzac one?s from Speedline then don?t use them as they are rubbish, you will need the brass ones which will not break.The stanchions are mounted to the kick rails buy three bolts with the nuts to the water side, well they are on 17-21 and I am sure the other Severn's are all the same. I have used 14BA bolts and nuts which you can get from EKP Supplies tel 01598-710892 so if you want some then give them a call they are very help full.

 The stanchion is mounted into a small piece of brass tube which is then mount on to its mounting foot, which is in the shape of a vee with the three holes drilled for the bolts.I made up a jig out of some flat tool steel to the same finished size as the mounting plate needed to be, you will need two the same, I  marked out the first piece and drilled the three holes with a 1 mm dia drill, I then put the first one on top of the other and drilled out the second one. With this done I put the bolts through  with nuts on the back and pulled the two pieces of tool steel together, then started to shape the vee with a steel file as I had marked on the first piece of tool steel.

With this finished I removed the three bolts got some water in a container and heated up both of the now copies of the vee mounting plate until they are cherry red and then put them straight into the cold water with this done you will have two very hard patterns of the mounting  feet. So the next job is to mark you brass plate out with all the vee and drill the holes through, then you can ruff cut them out, you can then sandwich 4 or 5 of the brass plates between your two jigs  put the bolts in and tighten it up, then put the jig in the vice get your file and start to fill the brass down to the tool steel as soon as the file hits the hardiness of the tool steel it will just slip, work you way round the jig until you have 4 or 5 brass plates the same size as the jigs take it all apart and clean up the edges of the vee plates you will now have vee mounting plates all the same size ready for the next stage. Now it is time to solider the tubes to the vee plates to take the stanchions just make sure you get them upright!!.When you have done that your brass stanchions should be a nice push fit into the tube. I then marked the distance for each stanchions on the kick rail, using a small clamp to holed it in place I started to drill the holes for the bolts with a 1mm drill as each hole was drilled I fitted it with its bolt and nut making sure each time I stared to drill the hole the stanchions was still up right, that should keep you amused for a bit me thinks it did me.

As I fitted each one I used a drop of super glue to fix the stanchions into the mounting tube when it was all bolted up. When they are all fitted I then took each one of one at a time and chamfered the bottom of the mounting tube to about 45 deg as the real ones, then clean them up and painted them all black.

Stanchion  wire.

With all the port and starboard stanchion in place I then set about doing the wire that runs through them, I have used stainless steel rigging wire from
Rob be part number 1321 it is 0.8mm in dia and comes on a 18m roll. I cut the lengths of wire longer than I wanted and at one end I have fitted a brass turn buckle which is sliver soldered, on I then made a small what I would call a carabena out of small tee pins which I had this I then passed through the threaded end of the turn buckle and then fitted it to the eye of the stanchion.

I then passed the wire through all the stanchion holes to the last stanchions and marked the length and cut it off I then removed the wire and covered it in 1mm black heat shrink, I then pass the covered wire back through the stanchion holes and then fixed the other turn buckle on the same way as before, but also checking that when I tightened the turn buckles up they both went the same way to make the wire tight.

Now I have used a bit of license by making them up this way manly because the quick release clips that should be fitted and you do get them in etched brass are to thin and in my book don’t like right so its up to you, I think it looks OK and it works .

I have had the idea of putting a wire package together as above it will give you all that you would need to do what I have done if you want to now more then e-mail me and I sort out a price.

Rear deck hand rails.

The rear deck hand rails I made up from bar and tube, I used bar for the stanchion and tube for the hand rail itself. I made up a jig as before only this time it was oblong instead of a vee, not much more to say on them, remember that there are also back plate on all the mounting flanges I made mine from plastic card and used the same method by using my jig.