Hi y’all. I haven’t posted the video yet, but the Patriot ran well, stayed dry, and pumped a lot of water, luckily I got her maiden done before the wind hit 22 or so gusting to 35. We had some drama but all turned out well. So, I’ve said this before, I like to keep my bench busy…building is therapy for me, and my wife lets me have 6 or so hours on the weekends and unless I’m needed for something or there’s a family emergency, about 2-3 hours a week on average. I’m going to use a lot of that time over the course of the next 3-4 months I think. Maybe more. Let me explain. About 2 Christmases ago I was searching for something for my Christmas present. Now, sometimes I give my wife a list of things I would like to have and I am pretty good about budgeting money for gifts, food, donations, etc. Also…I’m intrinsically cheap. Blame my mom. That woman could stretch a penny clean around the house…and to her credit, I don’t remember ever going without anything I needed or wanted growing up. She and my dad drilled that into my head, which I promptly forgot the first few years of adulthood. Anyway, the budget was settled. Looking thru EBay I found a new in the box Revell Flower class corvette kit. I had read of several conversions that were done, all done differently, all ran and performed well…and it’s not the Tecnic kit, which isn’t cheap…if you can find one. It was an earlier kit after Revell bought the rights to the Matchbox kit…and the price was extremely reasonable. So I got it for Christmas and it’s been in my project stash for a couple of years. Now, she’s on the bench. This kit is pretty nice, there’s tons of parts to her, over 1000. There are things I’ll have to address going forward, like making railing from brass wire instead of plastic, what to glue down vs what’s removable, but the first thing to do is build the stand. Now, the stand provided is fine for a display model, but just a little sketchy for an rc model. The for and aft rods that connect the ends are just plastic styrene rod. I had 2 hardwood dowels and a piece of 6mm cf tubing that would work. Later on I’ll build a proper stand and cut the dowel and tubing away to put back in the wood/brass/whatever stash. But for now, it works. The hull is a 4 piece affair, you have fwd port and starboard halves, and aft port and starboard also. Now, I built 2 sides then assembled the hull, thinking about it now it might have been a good idea to build a fore and aft section then complete the hull, as I had some minor fiddly alignment issues, but was able to resolve them fairly easily. Once that was done I added the chine rails, then decided on internals. Hers where you have to stop and think about what you’re going to do. The aft deck has a good sized opening, maybe 10x4 or so. Not huge, but workable if you plan things out. All my equipment , running gear,etc is built into this hull with that in mind, as I’m going to make the aft house removable for aces and battery changes. Looking at the instructions this looks like a good way to go. I may have to make a compromise how the foscle and bridge connect to this, but from what I can tell this will work. I thought I had a Fineline stuffing box but I only had a standard box in my stash, so I had to carefully drill and ream the propshaft exit to fit the box. I added a greasing tube, then scuffed the tube and the inside of the hull, then glued it in place with copious amounts of epoxy mixed with microballoons. I heated the mixture with a heat gun till it got runny, and poured it in, around and under the tube, the heating makes the epoxy runny enough to get into nooks and crannies, but it also makes it fire off quicker so you gotta be quick. I built the rudder next. Instead of making a rudder from brass, I opted to use the kit rudder and modify it into something useable. I had a Robbe rudder tube in my parts bin, but I was out of 3mm brass stock. Luckily I remembered that I had a short 3mm steel shaft that I wasn’t using for anything. It was bent at an angle, cut to fit into the rudder halves. The shaft was centered, the angle boxed in with wood strip, then filled epoxy was laid in both halves and clamped together. Works like a champ. I used a piece of 1 inch thick balsa, drilled to fit the rudder tube. I glued a piece of 2 mm sheet on top to prevent splitting, sanded the bottom to reasonably match the hull contour, then once lined up epoxied into place. I decided on a 650 KV Zippkits outrunner for power. This motor is wound for tugs and workboats, and it hauls my Taucher Wulf around with no issues whatsoever..bench running I’m pulling less than 1 amp at full chat. I made up a motor mount and once jigged up I tacked down with ca, double checked motor to shaft alignment then epoxied it down. I then made up a rudder servo mount from scraps and an electronics shelf just fwd of the motor. I’m still on the bench about the receiver placement there though, as it’s awful low in the hull, and 2.4 doesn’t like being surrounded by water. That might change. That’s where she’s at now. Next up is reinforcing the hull joints, making a battery shelf then loading the hull up with ballast to the waterline and a leak check. Then..,the real fun begins. Cash

Hello, I've been given this ship and would like to refit and refloat her. I don't have any info on the ship but I plan to out fit with new parts mostly 3d printed. Would anyone have any info on the ship or maybe the time lines she represents, (1960s ?). Thanks for any info

A friend of mine has asked me to make him a Hopper type barge to tow behind his tug. He already has a scratch built shoe box, but it does not tow well and doesn't look the part. I will be 3D printing it and I have designed it in FreeCAD. Attached is my first attempt. I should mention that it has to fit in his transport box. It is, length-542 x beam-150 x depth-120 mm. The sections are glued together and use the 1.75mm filament as location pins. The bow section can be used as a stern.

The VMW Marlin Cabin Cruiser by Robbob Preface. At the time of writing, I’ve had the construction of this boat on ‘the back burner’ since July 2022. By then I had spent about two months on and off constructing the boat to a stage where I could consider applying a glassfibre cloth and epoxy finish to the hull. However I couldn’t spend any more time on the Marlin project as I had a more important project to undertake, which was to paint, decorate, refurbish and prepare our house for sale so that we could downsize and move to a new area now that our kids had all fled the nest. Fast forward to today (mid-April 2025) and it’s taken a while to get the new house and gardens into shape and settle in, with the emphasis on converting my internal garage into a great new workshop, I can finally pick up from where I left off. Introduction to the kit. This new model is the latest undertaking by Vintage Model Works, now famous for their very popular models of the RAF Crash Rescue Tender and Thames River Police Boat kits which are based on old Aerokits and Veron designs. The Marlin is a re-working of an original Veron design by the late Phil Smith in 1953. His son Colin Smith, who was also responsible for the re-design of the Thames River Police Boat, has made some changes to his father’s design to take advantage of more modern materials and production methods such as CNC and laser cutting. The photograph below is of a prototype built by Colin Smith to give you an idea of how the boat looks in finished form. And there is also a review of the Marlin that appeared in Model Maker magazine, November 1953. The size remains at 36” and it employs the same construction method as the original. The spacious cabins of the boat makes it very easy to accommodate all the latest control hardware required, not that the original was lacking in that area even when the radio systems used valves and large batteries and the propulsion was usually IC or a large electric motor. Even the pre-production sample the Vintage Model Works kit supplied to me is well presented with a full size drawing including a pictorial construction sequence and separate pages of building instructions. All the required materials are supplied in quality ply, balsa, strip-wood and dowel including clear plastic sheets for the windscreens, and various white metal deck fittings. The builder is of course required to supply their own adhesives and paint of choice, as well as the propulsion, drive train and radio control gear. In the latter respect I will likely restrict control to throttle and rudder and not add any lighting or other features. That has already been done magnificently by Mike Turpin. Construction. As with the Thames river police boat, another Veron design, construction starts with the assembly of a box structure onto which formers and bulkheads are attached to make the basic hull shape. I will be tackling this in the first part of my build blog which I hope you will enjoy following and I encourage you to ask questions, leave comments and hopefully some ‘likes’ as I make progress. Robbob.

Hi everyone. Back with a new build. I figured that I would use the hull I have laying around (from a Graupner Commodore) to build the boat I enjoyed as a kid. Our family boat that was a kit boat built by my father in the early 60's in the Yukon. She is a Glen -L Marine design called the "Gung Ho' She is 28' in length. My fathers boat was powered by twin Grey Marine Fireball V8's. That is me as a boy sitting on her bow on the lakes in the Yukon. Then in Prince Rupert, BC at the yacht club. Following are her study drawings. Our boat was not build exactly the same you may notice. More to come of course. Will be working on setting the hull up for twin rudders, etc. I will resin the cabin when the weather allows. Then build the upper windscreen and roof. Of course work on the interior of the aft cockpit as well. cheers and welcome to 2025.

Just wanted to show a series of pictures of the assembly of the Menk excavator M154 LC in scale 1 : 87 from Kibri. The excavator and the construction trailer will be placed on the pontoon I built in the near future. Then there will be a construction report.

Last year I was given a well-worn but mostly intact Graupner Ton 12 Krabbekutter kit by a neighbour clearing out his parents old home. I have decided to start it. Much of the wood is brittle and fairly well warped (but should be ok with some love and attention). The packs of smaller deck fittings were missing but I managed to purchase them on ebay (amazing that someone had the unused bags of fittings up for sale on their own). It is the first time I have built an ABS plastic hull. I have fitted a small MFA 2.5:1 geared motor I had aside for another project and a 2mm propshaft to a 30mm 3 blade prop. I will be using 6v and an initial test in the hot tub shows this will probably be fine. I’m not going to rush this project as I am also completing an RC plane at the same time but I will post pictures as the various elements take shape… so far I have installed the gear, built the wheelhouse shell and framed the underside of the deck.

This will be my first boat build at this scale, so who knows how it will turn out. I got a set of Vic Smeed's plans from Sarik Hobbies along with their wood packs for the model - I thought having some laser cut parts might be helpful. I grew up in Alness, so if the build goes well I'll probably paint it as 2757 which was based at 1100 MCU Alness/Invergordon in the late 1950's to early 1960's.

Hi Shippers Here we go this was quite difficult to do by myself holding the camera and operating the transmitter. Sorry but the are bits where I had to put the camera down whilst I operated the transmitter, this model took quite a while to do, same if you think I should have done something different or any suggestions if I do another model like this Good luck with the building

Details of my refit https://youtu.be/4iNNYhz81I8

After weeks of waiting for the kit to be delivered from Italy I re-ordered instead from Cornwall Model Boats and received it next day. The box was smaller than the one for my Riva but at a quick glance all the parts seem to be there. Now that I have received the kit for this motor sailor I can start to plan how to attach a detachable keel and a detachable extension to the rudder. There is an optional motorisation pack available which uses one motor but drives two props through a gear system. Myself and Roycv are thinking of using 2 separate motors but I'll check space available. Not sure whether with potentially 3 sails we can get away with one winch because it looks like space is at a premium. I must say the Amati Italian Runabout kit had very much clearer build instructions than this kit with lots of photos of various stages. Before I can start building this I need to resolve a problem with my newly fitted fireboat's fire monitors! Hopefully my blog will help to fill in missing information. It might be a slow build log because I'm limited with pains in my hands how much I can do at a time - so to those followers please be patient! Some photos of the box content:-

After seeing the tugboat last month and taking a bunch of photos, I am now making a wheelhouse of Miss Jenna that will fit the Ville Class tugboat hull I use for the two other villes. By using one hull I can interchange the wheelhouse to represent a different tugboat. Miss Jenna has some features that the others do not such as the stanchions and cable secured to the bulwarks. Those could be added to the existing model too. Her mast has many work lights, more than just lights for navigation and towing. Yellow vessel is Loganville and red n white is the Beamsville.