Just finished spraying Dickys hull with the lighter blue I acquired. Tell me what y’all think then I’ll own up to what I painted her with….😁

Hi y’all. I decided to start slowly building up some of the upper deck structures while waiting for the (hopefully) right, or “closer to right than what I have now” paint to come in. I had already started building up the aft deckhouse, and was in the process of building up some of the smaller detail pieces when I decided to look at the gun tub, and realized that the Sackville has her aft gun tub almost at the very aft end of the house, whereas the kit boat, the Snowberry has hers about 2/3s of the way fwd. AND….the gun tub sits on a rounded, tapered mount which is molded into the roof of the aft house.
*Cue sad music…an empty whisky bottle is on the workbench..the modeler reaches for the wheelhouse,holds it in his hands and screams why? WHYYYYYY!!?*
Okay, so I’m being a bit dramatic. And…I can’t bitch. This is all on me, as I was, and still am bound and determined to build Dicky, simply because I want to run up to my buddys 1/72 scale U-Boat and yell “Give’em hell Dicky!!”
Anyway, I’ve decided to go forward with Dicky. To that end I had to cut the mounting post off of the roof, which left a roughly 12mm hole that I’m having to fill, plus the scuffing around the hole from the er….ah..”procedure”. I cut a piece of 2mm thick plasticard to fill the hole, tacked it in place, then backed it up on the inside of the roof with an approximately 1” square piece of the same plasticard, then sanded and filled. Once dry I’ll sand and paint.
There yall have it. I have a very long way to go. I dont have any plan views of the Sackville as she sits now, but I’ve found a few good renderings, pics, and one scale model donated to a museum to go from. This boat will likely not be perfect, some details may be omitted for easier building and servicing, not to mention my sanity, but in the end, I hope to present y’all with pics of a Flower class that co-starred in Greyhound.
Pray for me yalll…🤣
Cash
PS: the first pic is the scale model I’m using for reference.

Hi y’all. It’s been a bit since the last update. I wanted to get the hull painting done before moving on as I’m building this in sections before final assembly…hull, aft deck and superstructure, fwd deck and superstructure. This way I’ll be able to make sure she’s watertight, I’ll have access to internals, and it’ll be easier to get the ballast right. So, I ordered my paint, including a light blue from Tamiya. It’s not that light. Looking at my hull vs the Sackville that blue is about 3 shades too dark. Since I’m building “Dicky” from the movie Greyhound, and the Sackville was used for the cgi model of Dicky, I at least want to get it close. I have a different shade of blue coming in Tuesday, and a test piece painted with the Tamiya light blue ready to check compatibility.
Cash

Hi y’all. Nothing really interesting this week, as I spent my time going over the hull and making sure that the hull is as leakproof as I can make it. The hull was initially assembled with ca. I’ll use traditional plastic cement on smaller or non critical joints, but I feel more secure with ca. Once the hull was assembled, I recoated all joints. Then the fun began. The area just forward of the motor is covered with thin ca soaked fiberglass with a light epoxy coating over that. The joints under the tube and rudder bush are covered by the thin epoxy used to set those parts in place. I then used sheet plastic to build up a strip level with the middle side hull flange joints, then glued a strip over that to help spread the load. The whole flange from one side to the other was coated in filled epoxy. I used baking powder and thin ca to pack the bow joint, then coated that with filled epoxy. Lastly I covered the fwd hull seam with fiber glass, tacked down in the middle with thin ca, then coated with 30 minute epoxy squeegeed thru the glass and liberally coated with the remainder of the epoxy. I’m going to leak check the hull soon.
Cash

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