A few months ago my wife came across a Precedent Perkasa kit in a charity shop for £50. I've been restoring classic and vintage racing dinghies for the last 20+ years, have a collection of about 12 pond yachts and have a few r/c yachts, including a Vic Sneed Marblehead, an old 'A' class and a Robbe Jolle. I'd been considering a move into motorised boats for a while so the Perkasa kit looked like the ideal opportunity to start, and the money was going to a good cause.

I ended up opening it on the floor of the charity shop and saw that it looked like everything was there, but it wasn't until I got the kit home I was able to get it all out and check everything off against the parts list to find out that everything was there.

Luckily I have reasonably decent workshop kitted out for boat restoration and repair so work could commence.

You'll have to bear with me when you see the pics of the build. This is my first model so it was very much learning as I went along, found I had to buy some smaller tools than I was used to and did most of the build using Epoxy with micro balloons where appropriate before discovering the delights of Cyanoacrylate.

I'll put up a few posts in the next couple of days as I've finished the main build, now working on the details. Still have loads to do.

I was a little concerned that the timber might have warped as the kit probably dates from the early 1990s, so all the keel sections and bulkheads were cut out and checked. I think this have have been a later model as the tooling used to stamp the components may have been a little blunt so cutting skills were put to the test.

There was one sheet that had warped, mainly impacting on one of the bulkheads so this was dampened down and placed under some heavy tool boxes for a couple of days until it straightened out.

Once the keel sections and relevant double thickness bulkheads had been laminated it was time to fit all the bulkheads and bow section before adding the stringers.

So, next came the skinning. Probably the most frustrating part to do and the most satisfying when completed. Getting the chine right at the bow was a real pain - narrow laminates and balsa blocks. Had to spend a lot time looking at photos and plans of the real boat as the instructions have no information on the bow shape.

I was getting concerned as the timber used in the bow was very brittle, I suspect the kit may have spent years on top of a wardrobe in a centrally heated room so the moisture content was low. As it happens they all pulled in OK, though I did add a few screws to hold the bow section in place while the epoxy cured, screws removed after the epoxy cured.

The epoxy with red/brown micro balloons looks worse that it was. This is a fairing compound so sands really easily. The grey paint is a Hempel Multicoat, thin it by 50% and it makes a lovely primer, reduce the thinning to 20% and it is a nice satin topcoat. Multiple coats were applied and sanded back until the hull was as fair as possible.

With the hull built I wanted to fit the motor, ESC etc before putting the deck on.

Have to admit at this point knowing nothing about motors and ESCs. The last time I was involved in radio controlled motor boats was about 30 years ago when I built a 1:10 model hull of a Naval Picket Boat as a test bed for control systems for my PhD. In those days I had twin Hectoperms, a servo arm controlled speed controller and gel batteries to power a 240v invertor used to run a load of A/D and D/A expansion cards plugged into a 486 laptop linked to a GPS, fluxgate compass and log impellor.

I spoke to Dave at Prestwich Model Boats and ended up with a Brushless water-cooled 1100kv motor and 150 Amp ESC controller, this obviously meant running the plumbing for the water cooling. There's space either side of the ESC for a 5000Mah 3s Lipo, only one will be connected at anytime but the weight is equalised by carrying 2 batteries and the size of the model allows this.

I was a bit twitched about not having an off switch with the LiPo so there's an automotive cut off switch from an old Land Rover Winch, look a bit industrial but at least when the key is out the boat is dead.

I made the decision to use the IA6 receivers on all my yachts so if I have one fail I can borrow one from another boat.

With everything fitted and working time to epoxy on deck with loads of boxes of brass screws providing suitable pressure.

After the hull build and getting the deck on I finally started to uses CA rather than epoxy. Certainly sped things up when building the superstructure. The hull still needs the top coats but while I was moving it around the workshop thought I'd leave that until later.

The aft platform took a bit of getting right, the instructions were useless. I ended up steaming the piece that wraps around the transom platform.

Steam was also needed for the kick rail. The 1/8" x 1/8" timber supplied was extremely brittle and split even when steamed. The solution was to use new 3mm x 3mm obeche for the aft section and to make up a jig to laminate steamed 1.5mm x 3mm for the forward section.

At this point the decision was made to paint the hull black below the waterline, many Perkasas are red but I prefer the black, also the decks will be Nato green rather than the lighter, brighter green seen on many models.

In the words of Tom Petty, ‘Damn the Torpedoes’ has been the phrase of the month in my workshop.

I’m still working on the Perkasa’s superstructure but the recent cold spell has slowed progress in my unheated workshop. Fine for working on full sized boats but standing at a bench for more than 20 minutes has me running back to a warm house.

I’m using a mix of scratch built and items bought from Battlecraft for various components.

This build is also my first attempt at airbrushing, though I have used a rattle can for some of the larger pieces.

The first bits to get built and painted were the torpedoes and their stands. Three of the four torpedoes came out quite well, however the fourth one has caused loads of problems. I noticed that I hadn’t masked up the yellow tip very well as when I removed the masking tape there was a mist of black paint on the yellow. I thought I could just overspray it in yellow, hadn’t realised the masking tape I’d used had left some silicon behind, causing the yellow to immediately orange peel.

So, after sanding it back, degreasing it and masking the black (this time using Tamiya tape) I resprayed the yellow tip and managed to drop the torpedo onto the concrete floor. Twenty minutes later I’d found all the pieces and glued the 14 pieces back together again.

The torpedo now needed completely repainting, took a couple of attempts to get it right and had it at a point where the yellow tip was fine and the black body needed one more coat. Started to spray it again, dropped it on the bench and the yellow tip broke off.

After it was glued back together again it needed sanding back and it all repainted. I had it all done, standing in jam jar so the prop could be painted. Finished working on it, went to leave, opened the door and the draft from the door opening was enough to cause the torpedo to fall over with a thud and the prop end broke into three pieces.

After several weeks, and plenty of swearing the torpedoes are finally finished. Plenty learned along the way. Hoping the painting of the Bofors and Oerliken will be less stressful!

Now the weather has warmed up it is a balmy 16 degrees C (or 61 degrees F) in the workshop so its back to painting the Perkasa. With the boat upside down I took the opportunity to laminate a GRP cradle for a stand to be sorted later. Thought I’d better do this before the final coats of black and grey to the hull.

Having learned a lesson about masking tape when sorting the torpedoes I’m only using Tamiya tape, very impressed with the clean line it gives.

I’m still using Hempel for the hull - a mid grey Multicoat for above the waterline and black Multicoat for below the waterline. The advantage of the Hempel Multicoat is that if thinned it acts as a primer, with 5% thinning it is a semi gloss topcoat.

The final coats of grey and black went into the hull nicely, I removed the waterline masking tape (treated myself to a laser level for getting the waterline right) and finally have a sharp line.

The two parts of the superstructure had their final topcoats. The rear section needed a bit of attention as it had picked up some overspray from the yellow for the torpedo heads, another lesson learned - clear the bench of all parts when spraying.

With the hull painted the next job is to sort the inner edge of the toe rail, now so much easier using a selection of Tamiya tapes.

I have declared the hull and superstructure to be painting finished, mainly as I realised that some of the imperfections will be covered by other components or you'd have to be a contortionist to see to odd mistake.

I have spent a fair bit of time collating the various fittings. I've found that the Precedent plan and the fittings bought from Battlecrafts don't cover the full fit out. Was fortunate to pick up a couple of Vospers books and spent a lot of time looking at pictures of the Perkasa when in service and equipped with the torpedoes. this has led to a bit of scratch building of various fittings, cabinets, vents etc.

With the main painting declared finished, the next few weeks are going to be spent finishing off the fittings, painting and fitting.

I did however get the first batch on the rear gunnery platform and engine room. Feels great to get some pieces attached as the painting of the hull, superstructure and torpedoes have taken a lot more time than I thought they would. Now these parts are off the bench I have space to make the rest of the rear platform fittings and can think about the bridge controls and fit out.

Seem to have spent the last few weeks squinting, measuring and removing small components superglued to fingers.

Lots of progress with the smaller parts, the bridge is starting to look like a real boat. The job I didn’t want to do was fitting the windows. The big mistake I made was fitting the side windows before I made the decision to fit window frames, so the acrylic windows had to be cut out when I fitted the frames. This meant the replacement windows had to be fitted by applying canopy glue and inserted blind into the cabin sides.

The front windows were slightly easier to fit as there was more room to manoeuvre them into place.

The brass hand rails went in a lot easier than I thought they would, quite pleased with the results.

The bridge fit-out is coming along, mainly made from plasticard, I’ll be adding a few more controls later.

The trickiest part has been the construction of two pieces of the foredeck equipment, 50mm long with 12mm bracing pieces. Took a while to get them to be square, now in paint.


Loads more detail to add, should to starting to fit the deck gear once the workshop warms up a bit.

After seeing Garth’s video about stanchions I decided I couldn’t put off fitting mine. These are 2 hole stanchions and the lines are 0.7mm brass. I’ll paint the lines a metallic grey when they are all fitted - thought I’d scrape the paint off if I painted them before fitting. Still needs a little bit of fettling but quite happy how it went.

The starboard side and foredeck are coming along nicely. Bofors, Oerliken and rocket launchers are in paint at the moment, nice to get on detail on them. Hopefully can start on the port side in a couple of days.