Hi y’all. Don’t know how many of you kept up with the “Night Watch” thread last year, but those of you who did know that the Texas Navy had its hands full...shoot, we lost our admittedly woefully obsolete flagship, the San Jacinto, and the heroic actions of my second in command, LT J.G. Errol T Cat (feline division). You may also know that we gained a new flagship in the form of a Robbe PT15, which is still undergoing sea trials before her final acceptance inspection. What you did not know is that Errol has been chomping at the bit for his own command. He wanted the PT, but I said no, you’re a cat!!! A few weeks later, someone made a purchase on my EBay account and the Deans Marine kit ended up on my doorstep several days later. Think I need to change my password...
All kidding aside, I had been wanting another fast warship in my fleet, and since the PBR is a smallish boat, it will fit in my car and on the shelf nicely. Also, since I have a partially started Deans Wacht am Rhein kit in my stash, I figured this smaller and supposedly less complicated kit would help me get used to the way the Deans kits go together....I mean, how hard can it be?🤣
I won’t bore you with step by step details, I’ll just go over a few things I changed and some interesting building points. Now, this is an older PBR kit, apparently they’ve updated the instruction manual and possibly a few other things. This kit has a decently molded abs hull, cast fittings, full size plan and printed sheet plastic parts. Some people don’t like anything that’s not pre cut, but the printed parts don’t bother me at all, as I’ve built model planes from print wood kits. Only 2 things made me a little uncomfortable. The manual is..well, a little hard to read. There’s pictures, but they are a little grainy, and some of the building sequences seem to jump around, or in one case was duplicated on 2 pages several pages apart. The other thing was the white metal rudder. Not a fan. We’ll get to that in a bit.
The sequence of assembly is pretty straightforward once you figure it out. Cut trim the hull, add reinforcement strips to the upper inside, then add the stuffing box, rudder, well deck, battery hatch and radio hatch. Due to the way the decks are stepped, you end up with 3 different hatches-one to access battery, and two to access the radio and motor. Only problem I ran into that wasn’t of my own making was that the starboard aft of the hull, just before the stern, had a very thin spot, which started to crack. I just added a scab patch inside and continued on. Also, I changed up the motor mount as I am using a brushless outrunner for power. That also necessitated shortening the shaft and stuffing box.
The rudder I used came from an Aquacraft Reef Racer that I had scrounged some parts from. The shaft was a bit too big, and the rudder is molded around it. I bend the original shaft so I could get the leverage I needed to work it free of the rudder without damage, I then installed a brass shaft that I nicked and inserted, then finished off with thin ca. It worked a treat!! I made some mods to accept the thicker tubing and shaft, and installed it.
So far so good. Although it’s not the easiest kit to figure out, once you get the aft well deck installed things seem to fall in place, and the construction goes fairly quickly from there, I’m at the point where my next steps are the hatches and superstructure.
Cash

Hi y’all. Got a bit more done this evening after work. Now, this boat is designed to have 3 distinct hatches to access electronics and power. The aft hatch is for battery access, the middle for esc and receiver, and the superstructure is removable to access the motor. I started working on the superstructure, there’s a molded cabin that is cut and trimmed to fit, and to this you add panels that, according to the instructions, are not glued to the electronics hatch, but help hold it in place when the cabin is installed. Uh-huh. As I was building this thing, and it’s been on my mind for a day or two, I wondered why not glue the panels to the hatch AND the cabin and make the whole thing removable? To be honest, the only real reason one would need to remove either is to replace or troubleshoot the rx, esc or motor, or maintainance, and it would be much easier to remove them as a unit.....so that’s what I did. I trimmed the mid hatch down so that it just clears the side of the deck when lifted, and extended all the panels so I could glue them to the hatch and cabin. If I had thought of this earlier in the build it would have been easier and neater, but I still think it looks okay, and seems to work well.
Cash

Hi everybody. We were going to try to get together to run boats this past Sunday, but the weather did not cooperate, so I did some building instead. The PBR is close now, some more details then it’s final install of the radio and esc. The only thing that put me off was the use of white metal for the awning frames. I can understand using white metal for many things, but not the frames, radar support and mast. The stuff is too fragile for those applications, so I made the frames from brass. After it was all said and done it looked okay, but I had set it too high, so I had to break the frames loose from the superstructure and trim then reglue. The awning material is a self adhesive material that I’m not in love with, might try something else. I’ve made some mistakes along the way, but she’s getting there. I need to sand the frames where they are glued to the sides and touch up the paint.
Cash

So. The Awning. The thing that keeps me up nights. Wasn’t really happy with it anyway. The frame was a little tweaked, it had too much peak in the middle, and to make matters worse, the sticky back material for the “canvas” kept coming loose. So, since I didn’t take the Hawk out this morning, (late night slept in) I decided to fix the thing once and for all.
I had purchased some new stock for the railings, it’s closer in diameter than the first brass I used. However, I had to reuse one piece as it’s made from longer stock then I presently have. I made a jig from 1/4 inch balsa sheet, made my frames, lined everything up and soldered the whole mess together. After I checked fit on the superstructure, I then had to apply the “canvas”. I was wondering what to use, cloth, Monokote, etc, then I remembered that I have a roll of sticky back sailcloth, as I have used that to repair rc boat sails where the rigging goes thru, and it’s used for the battery hatch on my DF65. I made up the top, installed it, then used another piece as a “headliner” to keep the tabs from working loose. Has a wrinkle in the aft port side, but..it looks good enough for government work, and better than the last monstrosity I built.
Next, guns, fittings and electrics!!

Hi y’all!! Did a little on the PBR today, installed the rudder servo, rudder, esc and rx. The rudder servo is under the aft gun mount, I installed it on its side with some of that tenacious Tamiya black servo mounting tape. That stuff loves plastic, once’s it’s set and cured you can remove it, but it takes some patience. Good stuff! The esc is mounted in the battery compartment on the port hull side, the receiver is mounted on the starboard side, higher up just under the gunwale. I laid down 2 strips of Velcro going fore/aft on the hull bottom on each side, that will let me mount a 2400 mah lipo transversly and allow shifting core and aft for balance. I’ll do a little more detail this week then it’s off to the maiden!!

Hi everybody. Well, she’s ready to maiden, got a few more details added and she’s been gone thru and checked. I still have a handful of small details to install, like davits and the water jet thrusters, but that will wait till after the maiden. Here’s a few pics of her as she sits.
Cash

Hi y’all. It’s been a couple of weeks since I was last on. The PBR was maidened, and it was somewhat successful..by somewhat I mean it didn’t sink🤣. The first run I ran a stock type prop and a 2 cell lipo mounted in the middle of the radio bay. My trim was off, but it seemed manageable, so I opened the taps and tried a slight turn to starboard. Um...I’ve never seen a boat snap roll, but this one did. I was able to get her back, the snap was violent enough that I lost one of the hatch mounted MGs, and there was about 3/4 cup of water in her. The hatches were secure and taped well enough to keep her dry, but almost turning turtle was a bit much. After I got the ESC dried so she’d run again, I set about changing to a lower pitch 3 blade prop and I used a heavier lipo mounted further forward. I also cut my rudder travel down quite a bit. This seemed to calm her down a bit. The ESC still had a bit of residual moisture, and she quit near the shore after a short run, but I think I’m on track. I’m running the same size and kv (1400) motor that’s in my SAR, and it’s just too much for this little hull, so I have a 1000 kv unit coming in today. I think we’ll be good after the swap.
Cash