NeOmega Archer Class Patrol Boat HMS Smiter

[MalcolmR]

Neomega Archer Class Patrol Boat.

Received my model of the Neomega Archer Class Patrol Boat at the end of November 2025 and what a nice kit it is in the box but on closer inspection noticed that some of the most obvious details were not correct. How do I know, I spent 18 months studying and scratch building my 1/25 HMS Smiter. The parts that will need adding are the engine room intakes on the superstructure sides and the intakes on the upper superstructure fronts, they are both louver style and not grills as suppled in the kit.

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In 2012 I had just started on the hull of a my 1/25 P2000 class patrol Boat when HMS Smiter and HMS Charger came to the Whitehaven Maritime Festival, so I obviously went down to take some photos as I only live 5 miles from Whitehaven. I approached a person on the dockside next to the HMS Smiter smoking a cigarette and asked if he knew anybody on the boat. It turned out he was the ships commander (Lt. Gary Bickley), so I told him that I had just started to build a model of the Archer class at which point he called one of the ship university cadets manning the boat and told her to take me on board and let me take as many photos as I wanted. I was shown all around and took hundreds of photos. (aren't digital cameras great) As I was going down into the lower control room the decision to build Smiter was made for me as my foot slipped on the steps and Smiter SMOTE me on the shin. After returning to the dockside the commander asked if I had all I needed at which point he told me he came from Wigton which is just 25 miles away from my home and he was also a modeller. With the photos taken that day I spent the next 18 months scratch building my most ambitious model.

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My intention with my 1st model of NeOmeg,s kits is going to build HMS Smiter again as I first saw her at the Whitehaven Maritime Festival in 2012 in this smaller scale. The first thing I did was to make the mods to the intakes.

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The next thing was to figure out how to present/mount the model. As I wanted to display the underwater lines, I had the idea of using the ships crest I had. After mounting the boat on the plaque and now looking at it, I thought was it a boat? is it a plane? or is it a flying boat? so, I added a clear Perspex waterline which I think works. (different)

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Once the mounting/display was sorted it was now time to continue the building of the boat. The binnacle on the bridge looked a bit underfed so I made a new one out of a bit of sprue and added the frame that surrounds it.

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Started to paint the boat in sections as it was possible to do this and bring it altogether later. The hull was painted and the props and shafts added. Now these are VERY delicate (As are most of the fittings to be added) so I have tried a system to remove them from the printing supports. I gave the prop shaft's a coat of diluted PVA glue to see if it would help while cutting them free. Both came free and stayed whole to be trimmed and fitted so will be trying this on the mast system. (By the way NeOmaga supply both a PE mast and a 3D printed one which is not shown on the instructions. Nice if I can free it from the printing frame hence the PVA wash).

Watch this space for more on the build. The fun continues.

[MalcolmR]

The hull was mounted onto a building stand and the superstructure added after first painting the enclosed control room and adding windows. Curtains added on the crew windows to the rear of the superstructure. The rescue dummy was added to the rear superstructure

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When it came to choosing the boat I had decided to build I found that NeOmega does not supply enough numbers 2,s on the decal sheet with the result I had to rob my second kit of its No.2,s. If any of you who have purchased the NeOmaga kit and did not use the No. 2,s please could you send them my way as I want to make HMS Pursuer next?

PHEW. It worked. The experiment I tried for releasing and keeping the boats mast from breaking from the 3D printing frame worked or I was dead lucky. (ie;- coating the mast in thinned PVA). It's VERY fragile but became pretty firm after 0.002 brass rod added for the rigging.

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After testing the boat on the Smiter shield it looked as if it was overpowering the model so went back to a more traditional way of displaying the boat, so used the hull cut off waste to make the mounting plinths. The clear Perspex water line I had made for the shield display was tried and discarded.

By the way I found that NeOmega has got it right with the grills on the superstructure as I found some photos of some boats with the phot-etch items supplied by them. (My apologue's to NeOmega for my mistake)

£55 may sound a lot for a small kit but for the amount of modelling time for your money it's not really that much and you get such a nice model at the end. (If your eyesight holds up or you have a big magnifier, and you have steady hands).

Here's to the New Year and hope you all have as much fun modelling as I do. And let the fun continue.

[MikeV]

that is a cracking job as ever Malcolm, and you can't have better reference than a personal tour of the thing !

moral - always have your camera handy!