First float of the Princesse Loane

Princesse Loane First Float

▶️

Sorry for not posting earlier, but as it is "life got in the way".

All paint is Testors Model Master, with the bottom of the hull painted with #4674 Leather up to the chine, then #4852 Green Zink Chromate up and over the gunwale. There is a strip of Brass color at the waterline, as well as at the top side. The deck is painted in a #4722 Random Tan with the darker #4673 Wood color as accent. The hull is then sprayed with a clear Matte finish to seal.

Top cabin and Pilot house are in similar colors along with #4677 Aluminum for the metal parts.
The windows are flat black, with streaks of the aluminum paint done in a dry brush fashion.

Railings are brass rod soldered on a flat jig, then bent to form the curve in front. The ladder is just bits of brass rod bent and set in holes drilled through the wood.

The fishing net is cheese cloth with small beads glued to it and painted orange to simulate the floats. Small leather cord is used to simulate the rope.

There are a few commercial pieces mainly the life rings, pulleys, and deck winches purchased from Harbor Models.

I have grown to like the ease and simplicity of brushless motors. This one is a small 1000KV unit which is mounted on a homemade mount within the hold. Hobbywing makes very good motor speed controllers, this one is a 16BL30 model. The Transmitter / receiver is a Hobbyking 2.4 Ghz HK-GT2B combo. This gives me the third channel to operate the navigation Light via a R/C switch from Elechawk. The unit is powered by a Turnigy 1800mAh 7.4V Lipo battery.


Once again, thanks for your kind words.

Once the hull was built and sealed, I was on my own since the downloaded plans only had a few visual pictures of what the cabin and pilot house look like. Since there were good views of the side, I could accurately place where the cabin structure would sit. Using my Autosketch CAD program along with the Cricut Maker Machine, precise paper templates of the Deck pieces were made before actually using the machine to cut the wood for the deck. The deck consists of 4 pieces: the Fore and Aft deck along with two mid sections which fit under the cabin portion.

Once the deck pieces are glued into place, the "Hold" is made by cutting the crossmembers of the ribs, and making a small wall from strip balsa where the cabin will rest. The Hold area gives access to the battery, motor, controller and receiver as well as the servo for the rudder. There is also an access hole for the rudder linkage in the Aft deck, which has its own hatch.

Using auto body spot putty, all cracks and gaps between the deck pieces and the walls of the deck are filled to further waterproof the top. The picture showing the open hold was taken after the cabin and Pilot house structure was built. It also shows that the inside walls and top of the hull was finished out with basswood.
The remaining pictures show the different angles with the cabin and pilot house attached.

I didn't take any pictures of the cabin build, since I was just "winging it". But I think it came out fairly well. I basically built a rectangle box of balsa around the "hold" frame of the deck and at a height that looked correct with the plans. With this sitting on the deck, I centered and glued the two cabin top pieces to the rectangle. When dry, I then cut triangle pieces to form gussets between the cabin structure and the top of the hull so that these would form to the curve of the hull. These gussets then support the angled sides of the cabin when they were glued in place. I also did this similar type of build for the curved front of the cabin. Thin balsa is then attached to form the curved and angled areas.

The pilot house is just a very simple structure of 1/8" balsa. There is a cut out between the cabin top and the pilot house so navigation light wiring can be added. The top front of the pilot house shows the cut outs for these lights. The rest of the detail pieces are all just bashed up pieces of balsa and metal tubing.

I really appreciate the thumbs up and positive comments so far.👍😊.

You can see a picture of the Princesse Loane's first float on my harbor page. When I figure out how to post videos, I will add that as well.

Until next time...

I started this build in October of 2020. I found the Princesse Loane plans on www.FreeShipPlans.com website. I had seen the CAD picture of this boat back in the early 90's as one of the examples of an Autosketch drawing file. The download plans cover mainly the hull of the boat, with very little construction detail of the cabin superstructure, so from the deck up is pretty much my improvised Idea of what it looks like.

The beam is made from 3/16" balsa reinforced with a 3/16" brass U channel running the length along the bottom, and then up the curve of the bow. The ribs are made from 3/32" Basswood cut with a Cricut Maker machine.

Before planking the hull, I fitted the running gear, making sure I had the motor and prop shaft aligned, as well as the servo and control arms for the rudder.

The hull was planked with strips of 1/32" basswood, then filled and then fiber glassed.

Hope you like so far.

I'll post more pictures and details later