It must have been in the early '70's when my father and brothers built this model. It had a car blower motor, a home made server to steer (see picture), and my eldest brother built the RC system. We had fun on many boating lakes on holidays in North Wales, and I've decided to refurbish her, and get her on the water again. She was named "Endeavour", as my mother said it took a lot of endeavour to build her! I think I'm going to fit the missing chine and gunwale stringers and repaint her as a Fireboat - of some sorts! I'd like to go modern with the RC, motor (brushless?) and metal geared servo. Any advice - particularly on motor sizing would be appreciated. I saw a similar Fireboat on the water at Southport Model Boat Club open day recently, with an 850 motor, which seemed to sail very nicely

Made the framed glass portion of the skylight. They're hinged so I can get a finger inside to flip the power switch on or off. They're made from clear plastic from some packaging, basswood, and brass wire.

I have decided to go with the Fig 1 Hull. This is a L105 x W150 x H105mm section, four required. For anyone interested the cost per section (in the UK) are: Time for print: 133 minutes (Printing at 125mm per second) Electricity : £0.08 PLA material: 26 metres @ £1.49 I am going to do some weight calculations as I am sure I can reduce the height of the hull by 25mm.

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:-

I have now started to build this Mountfleet (Model Slipway) Kit. Firstly I decided to sort out the power system. 2 x RE540/1 geared motors (6:1). The propshafts supplied with the kit and the 4 blade brass props, also supplied.

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.

Hi Shipmates Well my projects are moving very slowly - here is a list of where I stand at the moment. Cheers Pat

Collected this one last week, it came from the Ron Wem collection - have a look at his site as he made loads of amazing boats. I also bought the Aquataur A600 and the mould for the Broom 30 Hull. Sadly, Ron died early this year so his family are moving on a number of his boats. KoH is a very decent representation of 1950s Norfolk Broads Cruiser. The model was built about 25 years ago and needs some updating, the interior requires finishing. Have already replaced the motor and ESC as the motor started smoking when tested. Model is 1:12 and is 43” long. As with the full sized boat the wheelhouse roof slides back and the windscreen folds down to get under the low bridges of the Norfolk Broads. Here she is in her just collected state, will update as progress is made. https://www.ronsboats.co.uk/my-models

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.

Picked up a nicely laid up glass hull of the Smit NEDERLAND. Spoiler alert; it won’t be the NEDERLAND.

I'm building a Venice water taxiboat from scratch. The hull has been build from triplex covered with mahagoni stripes. There is still a lot of work to be done, but technics are working and I hope to get here on the water in the comming week.

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