15 Posts
7 Followers
114 Likes
HMS Macedonian: a working RC model in 1:36 scale
I've been into the Hornblower series of books since elementary school, but it was C.S.Forester's The Captain From Connecticut that lead me to Horry. The first story published has Hornblower in command of the 32 gun frigate Lydia. I've always wanted to build a model of Lydia, but, of course, there were no kits or plans to be had.
My friend and I have a 16 foot Windsprite daysailer, hull #1 of 16 built, which we named Lydia. In the picture, the 20-something girl in the 40 year old boat is also named Lydia.
After starting on Constellation, i was thinking of donating or selling that model, so I wanted to build and RC square-rigger I would keep. Lydia came to mind again, but I what plan to use for a fictional ship? I decided on a British frigate and since the lines for one were in Chapelle's History of the American Sailing Navy, and getting a copy would cost under $10 US, so that's the boat I went for; HMS Macedonian of 38 guns. At 1:36 scale (like my Constellation) she would measure...
Beam: 13-1/2" (34.3cm)
Length on spar deck: 55" (140cm)
Length of the hull: 59" (150cm)
Length over the rig: 85-3/4" (218cmcm)
Draft: 6.7" (17cm) w/o ballast keel, 10.2" (26cm) w/ballast keel
Making her a little smaller than "Stella."
Later, after I'd already built the hull, I found out Lydia, of the novels, was based on the Perseverance class of frigates. One of the pics attached shows the profile of the Perseverance in front of that of the Lively class showing how small she would have been by comparison. Actually, if I had built Macedonian at 1:48 scale (which is what the plans were) she would have been very near this size.
Anyway, what's done is done, and while I don't have the ship of my fictional hero, I have a ship that was one of 16 ships built to that class. Built at Woolwich Dockyards, England, in 1809, and launched on 2 June 1810. In October of 1812 she encountered, fought, and was captured by the American frigate United States. Captain Decatur of the United States was intent on preserving his battered prize, and after two weeks floating in the Atlantic, she was repaired enough to sail to the US. She was officially taken in to the American Navy in April 1813, though she spent the remainder of the War of 1812 blockaded in the Thames River in Connecticut with United States. She was decommissioned near the end of 1828, and broken up at Gosport (Norfolk Virginia)
While not a glorious history, full of battles, the Lively Class did have great histories in battle; Lively, Resistance, Apollo, Hussar, Statira, Horatio, Spartan, Undaunted, Menelaus, Nisus, Crescent, Bacchante, Nymphe, Sirius, and Laurel. Ships that fough at Lissa, Naples, intercepting the Spanish Treasure ships, and more.
My model is a representative of a great class of frigates of the Napoleonic Wars, even if it isn't HMS Lydia.
๐บ๐ธ Jerry Todd
1 hour ago
2 Posts
7 Followers
22 Likes
Trawler
Haven't been working on my deep- sea trawler for a while. I needed to build some railings on the deck, but didn't want to wait and buy them and pay tariffs on them at an American hobby store, so I got some brass rod here at a local hobby store and soldered some up. I also decided to use the lifeboat kits for the ship. Next step: painting railings. Also need to do all the rigging yet.
๐จ๐ฆ GARTH
2 days ago
6 Posts
3 Followers
51 Likes
Something a little different-Horizon Harbor Tug
Hi yโall. I turned 65 last month, and in preparation for celebrating making it this far without getting myself seriously injured or spending time in jail I sold a few boats and cashed out some excess pto so I could do something I normally donโt doโฆspend more than usual for my birthday.
So, I had a budget, and my goal was to use as much as possible from my savings from boat sales without disturbing the family Kitty much if at all. I was successful, came in under budget, my wife got me two kits and I picked up this-the Horizon Harbor Tug.
Now, Iโm not usually a RTR or RTF kind of person. The few times Iโve purchased a hobby grade ready to run or fly model Iโm usually disappointed. Butโฆthis boat has been praised by modelers of all stripes, and Horizon has kept it in production for 4 years, which I think is some sort of record, as usually Horizons scale offerings last maybe a year, 2 years tops. Also, we have 2 members who are dedicated builders of tugs and submarines that love them to death. So here goesโฆ
I was not allowed to touch my birthday presents until my birthday, so I had time to figure out what I wanted to do with the Harbor. Once I got her on the bench, I gutted her like a fish.
The Harbor Tug comes with a barely hobby grade pistol grip radio capable of 4 channels, a combo brushed esc/receiver, an esc for the fire monitor pump, and a radio controlled electronic on off switch for the led lights. Power is a 700 size motor, this is all supposed to be powered by 3 cells. It does NOT come with the water pump, thatโs 60 dollars more, and from what Iโve seen itโs not as strong as I like.
So, I had to make a mount for my preferred motor, the Zippkits 650 brushless outrunner, thatโs coupled to the shaft with a good solid coupler. Esc is a HobbyWing 16BL30 30 amp unit. I had to do some modifications to mount my preferred Amazon sourced pump, which included drilling out the molded in water pickup and epoxying in a brass pickup, and changing the mounting location of the pump. Pump is powered by a 10 amp brushed aircraft esc-the original that came with the boat works well, but is set up for 3 cells, and doesnโt give me enough voltage at the pump. Originally I was going to use a FrSky 7 channel receiver, but I wanted to try my hand at telemetry. So I used a FrSky X8R so I could run the FrSky FAS40 module, which gives my real Tim battery voltage and current draw. I also added ballast to bring her up to 12 pounds, as the stock weight of 9.5 or so is seriously under ballasted.
Now, the first production runs of this boat had some issues, leaks near the stern and along the bulwarks were common. It seems to me that Horizon did what Joysway did with the DF65, and listened to feedback, as my boat ran dry. There was a bit of water in the hull before the maiden as I was checking ballast and leaks the day before, and there was no appreciable water in the hull after. All systems worked well, and the boat exceeded my expectations.
Now, yโall know me. Youโve seen my build logs. Probably wondering why Iโm loving a boat that I donโt have much time at the bench with. You see, the story doesnโt stop here, oh no, I have more work to do. The real boat this was modeled after is the Taucher O Wulf 8. Horizon put just enough detail to please the average boat modeler, and decaled it with an H on the funnel. My goal is to get her recognizable as the Taucher. I have to do some detail work, add some things thatโs missing, do some lettering, etc. The end game is a stand off scale model of the Taucher. So stay tuned, weโre going for a ride!
Cash
https://youtu.be/DIf4v8KvfSk?si=9Ya4HaEL1Sq_q__J
๐บ๐ธ Cashrc
3 days ago
32 Posts
30 Followers
430 Likes
The VMW Marlin Cabin Cruiser by Robbob
The VMW Marlin Cabin Cruiser by Robbob
Preface.
At the time of writing, Iโve had the construction of this boat on โthe back burnerโ 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 couldnโt 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 itโs 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 fatherโs 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 36โ 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 โlikesโ as I make progress.
Robbob.
๐ฌ๐ง robbob
3 days ago
45 Posts
24 Followers
336 Likes
A new build
I will, most likely, have to rename this Blog, at some point.
In the mean time...please do not expect much for a while as she is in her very early stages.
First a disclosure: This hull was built for me by another gentleman. It was delivered in a not quite completed state. Therefore I have spent the last two month working on it to get to it's present state.
So.. what is it? She is one of four ships in a class that was later enlarged to around eight maybe ten members of the class. Her main armament was eight 5"/38 caliber twin turrets. She and her class namesake sister were both lost during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. This ship is most noted due to the loss of an entire generation of one family, five brothers.
This should be enough for identification.
She is being built in my preferred scale, 1/48th or 1/4"=1'.
This ship was used for numerous camouflage scheme experiments and, sadly, there is little definitive documentation to pinpoint her second to last and last schemes carried. That said, my plan, subject to change without notice or reason, is to present her as she appeared following her New York Navy Yard overhaul, or perhaps as she may have appeared after repainting in Placentia Bay NewFoundland, 1942.
She measures out to 11' 3" and her power plant is to be two 24 volt Buehler motors.
Pictures of her and the build to follow.
Wish me luck please, she will not fit in my van....
๐บ๐ธ ToraDog
3 days ago