Hi y’all. 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 don’t do…spend 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, I’m not usually a RTR or RTF kind of person. The few times I’ve purchased a hobby grade ready to run or fly model I’m usually disappointed. But…this 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 goes…
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, that’s 60 dollars more, and from what I’ve seen it’s not as strong as I like.
So, I had to make a mount for my preferred motor, the Zippkits 650 brushless outrunner, that’s 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 doesn’t 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, y’all know me. You’ve seen my build logs. Probably wondering why I’m loving a boat that I don’t have much time at the bench with. You see, the story doesn’t 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 that’s missing, do some lettering, etc. The end game is a stand off scale model of the Taucher. So stay tuned, we’re going for a ride!
Cash

Hi y’all. I maidened the Harbor Tug 2 weekends ago, and she performed well above my expectations. Ran dry, power looked good, everything worked as advertised and looked good on the water. So I’ve spent a few days changing her livery to the Taucher O.Wulf 8. This is the first step to her conversion to a stand off sport scale model.
Now, a heads up. The lettering isn’t perfect, but it looks good. My first try was to use 1/4 inch die cut Chartpak lettering that I had to paint black. I’ll post a pic of that. It looked good, but the font on the real boat is much thinner. A new member of the NTMS, Richard Johnston, has a vinyl cutter, and he produced a much nicer font that’s much closer to the font on the O Wulf, and I looks really good! Only problem we had is the lettering is so small and thin, it did not want to release from the backing paper. So, I just used a piece of 6mm Tamiya masking tape over the letters, carefully peeled and prodded a bit with the very tip of an Xacto knife and once they released, it was a simple job to burnish in place.
The “W” on the funnel is standard Chartpak in black. The font isn’t as thick as the real thing, but looks the part so I’m satisfied. Only issue I had was getting the adhesive off the funnel, as the remover I had just wasn’t cutting it, so I carefully used lacquer thinner. I rubbed a bit too hard on the starboard side and rubbed thru the paint!! So, I had to clean that up, masked it, painted with Tamiya base white, sanded then semigloss over that. Unless you look really close you can’t tell what happened. Dodged a bullet there yall.
The real boat has the Cuxhaven crest on the front of the superstructure, and the port of Rostock is on the aft bulwarks both sides. I used the stick on letters for that, lining them up on wax paper then using a thin piece of tape to lift off and then apply to the boat like a decal.
The rails on this boat are all painted white. On the real boat, and some models I’ve seen, the hand rails either side of both companionways are painted black, the abruptly change to white at the top of the lower superstructure. I don’t know why but that’s the way it is. I carefully painted them with a small brush and acrylic paint, as I knew I was going to make a mistake and acrylic is easier to clean up than lacquer or enamel. Also, the rails on this boat are on forever, so I had to paint in situ. So much fun!! Anyway, first coat is on but I need to get a better brush to touch up.
Next up is the fun stuff. The real boat has several railings this model doesn’t have, a zodiac boat on a mount aft of the superstructure, some life raft containers, and quite a few other details. I’m not doing them all, but enough to make her recognizable as the O Wulf 8. That’s my goal.
Next couple of posts will be what details I’m doing and how I’m accomplishing them.
Cash

Hi y’all. Did some railing and the door locks? Wheel? Thingy? The wheel on the door that secures it. Y’all have to understand, I come from an aviation and automotive background, not a nautical one, so there’s some things on a boat that I have no clue what to call it. Anyway, I did the lower wheelhouse side railings,most of them are easy enough, the forward lower railings that wrap around the front of the house took a little bit of finagling, not to mention that the boat came with a glued on life preserver right where the rail wraps around. I took it off, scraped and sanded the glue ring down to the paint, touched it up and sanded gently with 1000 grit sandpaper. The door securing device took a little thought. I found a dowel the right size and wrapped brass wire around it, then cut off what I needed, put it in a vise to lay flat, soldered the brass together and glued that assembly to aluminum tube, painted and installed.
That’s it for now. I’m doing this in stages…the wheel house, that mast and then the rest of the deck.
Cash

Hi y’all. Got a bit done this weekend. I had ordered 2 liferaft containers and a ships zodiac boat from Harbor Models. Before I go on I have to let y’all know that I do moat have a full size line drawing of this boat. There is a book on the Wulf 8, it’s got some lovely line drawings and TONS of details, but it’s in German. That’s not a huge issue, but it’s 45 dollars plus shipping, and it’s in either Germany or Israel, not anywhere near here. I have a buddy who has a copy who is willing to loan it to me, but I’d hate to return it to him with pages glued together and it changing colors to several shades of primer. So, I’m doing my best with the internet, 65 year old eyes and good helping of TLAR, or close enough for government work.

So, with that being said I built up the liferaft racks. I had to jig them up with tape on my soldering desk, and then I soldered them together, but the lower rung was very close to the container supports I had soldered on. I really thought I was quick enough to solder on without desoldering the support, but I was wrong..(I really want a resistance soldering rig, but they want real folding money for those). So I had to ca that one support and both lower rungs. I had some depth charge racks from a previous project left over, so I glued those to the support wires, glued on the canisters, painted them and installed.
I was going to start the zodiac boat support that same day, but old eyes and allergies dictated I give detail work a rest. So I decided to try to make up a proper greasing fixture for the stuffing box.
Thais tug comes with a clamp on oiler installed. Not my favorite way to do a lube tube, but that’s not the issue. It’s where it’s mounted…several inches aft of the deck opening…and I have big hands. I was able, after a few choice words and some hand acrobatics, to get a silicone tube slipped over the neck so I could get some grease in the box, but the tube invariably slipped and got grease in oron the boat and myself. I had talked about drilling a hole in the deck for a lube line, my buddy JP suggested I use brass tube that would fit inside the neck. Good idea, but I could see the tube coming loose. However, his idea is sound, it just needed a little massaging. I found a brass tube in my stock that was JUST too big to fit. I used a Dremel to taper one end. I located where the top of the tube was located and drilled a hole in the deck. It’s located in the molded in box aft of the house. I then cut a piece of fuel line that was a tight fit on the tube, pushed it over the taper, got the tube pushe thru the deck then seated in the filler neck. I lightly tapped it into place with a small hammer taking care not to split the neck, the slid my silicone coupler down tight and glued the tube to the deck. It works great!! I wa able to use my little Pro Boat grease gun to get grease in to the point it was pushing past the bushings. I now need to make up a deck object, a tool, jack, or chest that can cover the tube and als plug it to keep grease from coming up the neck. But, I can grease her properly now.
That was yesterday. Today I built up the zodiac boat mount. I’ve seen 3 or 4 different models and they all look a little different, so I just winged it. I used brass wire bent to shape, then cut plastic to flesh it out. I have some sticky back sail cloth like the type used for model yacht hatches cut to fit for the tarp, then painted it with a light camouflage green and wiped it off before drying to make it look more “tarpy”. Glued the boat in, stuck the tarp on and crinkled it a bit, glued and painted small screw eyes aft to make tie downs, then tied her down and installed the assembly. Looking closer I need to lightly sand it and touch up, but overall I’m pleased with it.
That’s most of the wheelhouse work for now, the mast is next.
Cash

Hi y’all. Got a bit more done to the O Wulf 8. I started making up the rungs that go up the port and aft side of the mast middle of last week. Yesterday, which was Saturday I drilled the mast in preparation for I talling the rungs. Before I installed the rungs, I decided to check the LEDs to make sure I didn’t drill into the wiring harness that’s internal to the mast….and I made a complete nooby mistake. I decided to plug the mast directly into the led module that came with the boat…when I fired it up I thought to myself, “that looks a little bright!!” So I shut it down. Then it hit me. By hooking the mast up directly instead of the harness that’s in the wheelhouse, I bypassed the resistors, and pretty well toasted the LEDs on the mast save for the very top one. I was a little distraught. I resigned myself to ordering another mast assembly and found they are on back order. Now I was really feeling blue. So, I dug thru my stash of lights and bulbs, and I found a set of LEDs that were clear and the right diameter, but they had a rounded top. I decided to try grinding the top flat with a Dremel using the face of a cut off wheel, and it worked!!
Long story short, once I identified the hot lead to each of the old LEDs on the mast, I was able to mark the hot side of the new replacements, used 32 gauge wire to connect, held my breath and tested and it works.
I can fix what I break!! Yay!!
With that out of the way I installed the rungs and made up an arm for the flag line to attach to, then I painted the mast, and instantly regretted it. I bought some dark yellow Tamiya paint. It’s not dark yellow. It’s much closer to baby #### green than anything resembling yellow. So, while that was drying, I was digging thru my stash of parts that had a curved exhaust pipe that is very close to the real tugs pipe that comes out of the top of the funnel. I cut it to fit, modded the funnel to accept, painted and installed.
Today, on the way home I went by Autozone and picked up a can of Sunburst yellow. It’s still not quite as dark as I would like but better then what I had. I sprayed the mast with that, and gave it a shot of semigloss clear once it had dried a bit. I also made up the bar across the aft winch, and the swing away parts that fold next to the bulwarks.
That’s it for now. I need to flag her, do some odds and ends on the deck, and I think my journey is almost done. I do have one more thing I might do to her, but I’m on the fence about it. It’s not totally detailed, but there’s enough to make the transition from the Harbor Tug to the Taucher O Wulf 8, and now she’s a part of the fleet.
Cash

Hi y’all. My customization journey with the Harbor Tug to O Wulf 8 conversion is nearing the end. I did get a little done this weekend. I got the 6 fresh air vents (I think) installed on the bottom part of the superstructure, and I added what I’m calling a “safety bar” on the port side deck in front of the winch. If I’m getting my nomenclature wrong please tell me. Anyway, all that was simple. But I got my “on the fence” project done. She now has a working radar, and I’m telling y’all, this would have been a much easier project if I had built this up from a kit. Anyway, here’s the lowdown. This boat has a removable mast, it plugs into a socket just fwd of the funnel. I like that. If one has to do a repair, such as soldering on an LED because one bypassed the resistor and overvolted them, it makes the job much easier. So, I had to figure out a way to A:drive the radar and B: build it in such a way that I could still remove the mast if needs be. At first, I was going to use an N20 geared motor with a right angle drive and hide it in the space under the radar, but it was a little too big and would have really butchered the part of the mast that supports the radar. So, I hemmed and hawed about it a bit, and decided to drive it via a shaft connected to a Robbe geared accessory motor hidden in the wheelhouse. I’d use brass tube for a bearing and brass wire for the driveshaft. Then I had to figure out how to make it so I could still remove the mast. I though of having a friction fit coupling hidden beneath the radar, among other ideas, but I settled on making the radar sweep removable. Once I cut it free from the housing, I drilled it for the shaft, then drilled a hole thru the face intersecting the first hole I drilled. My thought was to drill and use a set screw to cut its own threads in the plastic, but I settled on using a small servo screws which worked well, albeit it is visible. The shaft was going to be painted a neutral color to help hide it at distance, but since it comes out the top I painted it white to look like an antenna. Works for me…
The assembly wasn’t too bad, the upper house comes off with 4 screws. I had to cut an ugly slot in the top,of the bottom house for the motor wiring to make its way down to the ApexRC electronic switch, then I built up a mount for the motor, installed my brass tube bearings in the wheelhouse top and the radar housing, everything was going to plan when I had a tiny drop of glue decide to get into the wheelhouse bearing locking the shaft up tight. So I had to get everything loose and start over. My problem was sequencing. I wa trying to installed the shaft into the motor coupling with the sweep arm attached. Once I decided to run the shaft thru the bearing into the motor, glue it to the motor coupling, then carefully reinstall the motor and THEN slide the mast over the shaft, make sure the mast was socketed in, then I could attach the arm and cut the remainder of the shaft off flush, then paint it with a brush.
After all that, it works! I’m happy!! And it looks okay up close and great from 10 feet away. I still have to give the arm and shaft a second coat, but I’ll do that once I’m actually done and I do the clean up/touch up phase.
Cash

Hi y’all. The Harbor Tug is now the O. Wulf 8. She’s flagged, radar is touched up, there’s a coil of rope in the box where the greasing standpipe is. Anyway, she’s as done as I can make her right now. Some time in the future I might detail her up some more. I have a real question for y’all. Is she now recognizable as the O Wulf 8? If so, then I’ve done my job. Please let me know what you think.
As an aside, I appreciate all the comments and likes. I’ve built a lot of kits, but this was stretching my skills. I had to do most of what I’ve done off of pictures from the internet and other modelers boats. I hope I’ve done her justice.
Cash