This will be my first boat build at this scale, so who knows how it will turn out. I got a set of Vic Smeed's plans from Sarik Hobbies along with their wood packs for the model - I thought having some laser cut parts might be helpful. I grew up in Alness, so if the build goes well I'll probably paint it as 2757 which was based at 1100 MCU Alness/Invergordon in the late 1950's to early 1960's.

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

Good morning everyone, this will be a slow build although looking forward to the challenge. Firstly though I'm needing some idea's/expertise at the start. This will be rc with 2 x motors plus of course rudder. The centre prop will be either fixed or free spinning. However, unfortunately when I opened the box I found that the "arms" for want of a better term which the port/starboard propellers are attached to are solid with a nipple on the end to afix the blades to being as this is intended to be a static build. Likewise the rudder, however with some patience I can cut out the fixed rudder and get this to operate with a servo. The issue is with the propellers , has anyone got any advice on this please. The only video I've seen on utube of a 1/400 scale Titanic shows the props in situ and working but didn't go into detail as to wether the "support arms" were hollow in the first place and tubes threaded through or they were solid as in this case and they had to be drilled out. Alternatively I could bypass and run an external tube but I believe this would look messy. Hopefully the photos will show you my quandary. Thanks in advance folks

Fancied a different challenge so picked this up a little while ago. Now that the Calypso is complete and I have space again, just started this build. As you can see from the box it measures in at 51cm or just under 2 foot in old money . This will be a first as I've never built a submarine, I have some tiny motors which I will try to fit, these have come off my old steampunk which in principle worked but not as I'd wanted so these if they fit will be repurposed. Also a mini esc which should fit. Not sure about servo for the rudder due to space, but hey ho, this is a bit of an experiment for me. At the end of the day if this doesn't work, I get to practice not only with the mechanics but also with my newly acquired airbrush. So far, the 2 halves of the hull have been joined and the "cowlings/covers for the prop shafts. Any cracks have been filled and sanded, next check to make sure all is watertight and then I'll look at installing the motors etc. Fun times ahead

The VMW Marlin Cabin Cruiser by Robbob Preface. At the time of writing, I’ve had the construction of this boat on ‘the back burner’ since July 2022. By then I had spent about two months on and off constructing the boat to a stage where I could consider applying a glassfibre cloth and epoxy finish to the hull. However I couldn’t spend any more time on the Marlin project as I had a more important project to undertake, which was to paint, decorate, refurbish and prepare our house for sale so that we could downsize and move to a new area now that our kids had all fled the nest. Fast forward to today (mid-April 2025) and it’s taken a while to get the new house and gardens into shape and settle in, with the emphasis on converting my internal garage into a great new workshop, I can finally pick up from where I left off. Introduction to the kit. This new model is the latest undertaking by Vintage Model Works, now famous for their very popular models of the RAF Crash Rescue Tender and Thames River Police Boat kits which are based on old Aerokits and Veron designs. The Marlin is a re-working of an original Veron design by the late Phil Smith in 1953. His son Colin Smith, who was also responsible for the re-design of the Thames River Police Boat, has made some changes to his father’s design to take advantage of more modern materials and production methods such as CNC and laser cutting. The photograph below is of a prototype built by Colin Smith to give you an idea of how the boat looks in finished form. And there is also a review of the Marlin that appeared in Model Maker magazine, November 1953. The size remains at 36” and it employs the same construction method as the original. The spacious cabins of the boat makes it very easy to accommodate all the latest control hardware required, not that the original was lacking in that area even when the radio systems used valves and large batteries and the propulsion was usually IC or a large electric motor. Even the pre-production sample the Vintage Model Works kit supplied to me is well presented with a full size drawing including a pictorial construction sequence and separate pages of building instructions. All the required materials are supplied in quality ply, balsa, strip-wood and dowel including clear plastic sheets for the windscreens, and various white metal deck fittings. The builder is of course required to supply their own adhesives and paint of choice, as well as the propulsion, drive train and radio control gear. In the latter respect I will likely restrict control to throttle and rudder and not add any lighting or other features. That has already been done magnificently by Mike Turpin. Construction. As with the Thames river police boat, another Veron design, construction starts with the assembly of a box structure onto which formers and bulkheads are attached to make the basic hull shape. I will be tackling this in the first part of my build blog which I hope you will enjoy following and I encourage you to ask questions, leave comments and hopefully some ‘likes’ as I make progress. Robbob.

I haven’t done anything on my builds since before last Christmas for various reasons but am looking forward to starting again in the next couple of weeks. I’ve been working on a number of builds for some years and not finished one yet! Main reason is that I reach a certain point, maybe something I’m hesitant about, and so start another! Which is the reason I’ve got five on the go. I’m building all the classic Faireys; Huntsman 28, Huntsman 31 and Swordsman 33 and a rarer Huntress 23 with a stern drive and longer cabin. Also a River Cruiser 23 (the one and only full-size build was a prototype was based on a modified Huntress hull but with more freeboard which disappeared) and I have the plans drawn up to start a Fisherman 27 motor sailer and a Faun 17 river/lake cruiser. All builds are at a scale of 1:12. The River Cruiser and Huntress are further on as they have had lake trials with the others being at the painting stage which I will be taking up again soon. I use a Hitec Flash 8 Tx and Rx’s and Hitec servos with Overlander brushless motors (even in my slower models) and HobbyWing Quicrun and Seaking ESC’s along with LiPo batteries though will probably use NiMh in the Fisherman and Faun.

Starting the dig into the Ottawa Archives and The Great Lakes Museum in Kingston:

Picked up a nicely laid up glass hull of the Smit NEDERLAND. Spoiler alert; it won’t be the NEDERLAND.

Here's the history bit so pay attention... Many years ago as a boy in the fifth year of my north London secondary school, circa 1971, our woodwork class was given the option to make something of our own choice. Having mastered the majority of joints, wood turning, finishing techniques and the making of table lamps, stools and bookshelves etc. this seemed a good idea, so myself and a fellow classmate and model making chum asked if we could construct a model boat. The teacher, on hearing that it was to be from a kit and not from scratch was a little surprised but agreed. So my friend and I jointly invested about 20 quid in an Aerokits 34.5 inch RAF Crash Tender from Blunts' model shop in Mill Hill (long since gone like many others) and we set about construction during lesson time and sometimes at break times. I recall we used "Cascamite" to glue it all together on the advice of the woodwork teacher because neither 'Scotch' glue nor PVA was suited to marine construction. Good progress was made over the course of our last year at school but it was never fully completed, only requiring painting, running gear and detailing. My friend decided that he needed to withdraw from the project as he was enrolling in a college away from home to study for a career in the merchant navy and I agreed to buy out his share and continue with the project. And so it was that I carried on with the painting and installing the running gear which consisted of a 1.5 cc marine diesel engine, water pickup, prop shaft and rudder and a MacGregor radio system with a stick for steering and a single button for speed control. The engine and radio came from Michael's Models in Finchley (also long gone) for £20 as my elder brother, who had started a Saturday job there, was able to get a staff discount for me. The diesel engine was noisy and smelly and a pig to start with a leather thong around the flywheel and I decided to abandon this means of propulsion (I foolishly ran it for slightly too long 'dry' and melted the soldering around the brass water jacket!). By now I had graduated from my part time job in Woolies to an engineering apprentice with Post Office Telephones and my new income of 20 quid per week could support my modelling and electronics hobbies after my contribution to the household for my keep. So off to the model shop to buy a Taycol Supermarine electric motor, two 12v volt lead acid batteries and a suitable charger. The diesel came out and was sold on Exchange & Mart and the mount and coupling re-made to accommodate the new Taycol motor. What an improvement that was! I can't remember now what speed controller or servo I used but whatever it was did the job, and it went like the clappers on Friary Park boating lake (also long since gone) even though the radio control system was a bit crude with the non-proportional steering and 'blip' throttle control. The boating took a back seat when I acquired my driving licence and my first car (a rusty old Cortina Mk 1) and I also got involved in sound recording for radio. I decided to sell the boat and bits for £60 through Exchange & Mart and bought an Akai 4000DS tape recorder and a 'Chilton' audio mixer, built a home studio and along with a good mate of mine started making radio commercials for the new commercial radio stations including London's Capital Radio. We even won a 'Campaign' advertising award for one of our efforts! And so after several years as a 'phone engineer I moved into professional recording for A/V and broadcast and then into TV production. Fast forward to today. Semi-retired with grand kids and with more free time on my hands I still had an interest in model making so in Jan 2016 went to the Model Engineer exhibition at nearby 'Ally Pally'. It was there that I saw an RAF crash tender just like the one I built all those years ago and got into conversation with the chap on the stand. This re-ignited my model making interests and I researched the hobby and that model in particular.

This is a new thread of my refurbishing of an old ship model that was built back in the 1980's or so. Background: I managed to get this model when a fellow boat modeler knew that I have multiple scale RC powered boats and would be the right person to give it to. This was during a sailboat regatta and I was videoing the races from my big fishing trawler using a GOPRO camera. The story goes that this particular person had the boat built, wired and fitted professionally. It is a huge model spanning 76 inches in length and weighing 35 lbs fully loaded ( of which 21 lbs were lead acid batteries ; six of them ). however, that person passed away years ago and after a while, his widow needed to clean up the house and was about to trash all the models into the dumpster. Fellow modelers were able to save two of his huge boats. One being the German U99 submarine that went to a collector in Texas and the second was this un named old ship. It languished for years in a garage. The person that saved it was not interested in powered RC boats, but kept it. Apparently there was an email offering this model for sale back then, but I have no idea what came of it or when it was written, nor any details as to what it was. So what is it? next thread Isaac

Had the Graupner Optimist in my basement for about 25 years some one gave the unfinished kit to me at A show club was doing at Canal Days in Port Colborne Ontario . No keel so I made one from a piece of scrap plate at work on afternoon shift took a few weeks at lunch time had to learn how to use a cutting torch & industrial grinder to shape the keel like the plans. Then for some unknown reason I put it in the basement & kind of forgot about it after I finished installing keel & all the framing I think I couldn't find a sail servo back then so I stopped the build. I found all the manuals & sails stashed away in a drawer & the sails have creases in them that may not go flat.

My stepson has been moving recently and in the process ended up damaging this fishing vessel that a great uncle of his ( long deceased) made for him when he was a lad . I was given this on Christmas day when he came over to see if I can do anything with it. Initial inspection is that this was primarily a plastic kit, vacuum hull and wooden fittings, deck house etc. No idea who the manufacturer is/was. Will have to put this on the "production line" till I get the time to work on it

Hi everyone. Back with a new build. I figured that I would use the hull I have laying around (from a Graupner Commodore) to build the boat I enjoyed as a kid. Our family boat that was a kit boat built by my father in the early 60's in the Yukon. She is a Glen -L Marine design called the "Gung Ho' She is 28' in length. My fathers boat was powered by twin Grey Marine Fireball V8's. That is me as a boy sitting on her bow on the lakes in the Yukon. Then in Prince Rupert, BC at the yacht club. Following are her study drawings. Our boat was not build exactly the same you may notice. More to come of course. Will be working on setting the hull up for twin rudders, etc. I will resin the cabin when the weather allows. Then build the upper windscreen and roof. Of course work on the interior of the aft cockpit as well. cheers and welcome to 2025.

Happy Groundhog Day fellow model boaters. Seemed like a good day to start a build blog after the weather we have been having here in SE Texas. From hurricanes to snow fall, now nice sunny temps in the 70's. I asked my grandson earlier this summer what boat would he want me to build next. Without hesitation, he said a cargo ship showing me a picture of a Maresk Lines container ship in a children's picture book. I thought about this one for several weeks wondering how to build a realistic replica of something that large. My dry dock isn't very big, and the Admiral frowns on large models. One morning at breakfast I was peeling my banana, and I realize the perfect boat. A quick google search verified my thinking of the perfect cargo ship. I have lived in this area all my life, and my first job was in the small gulf port town of Freeport, Texas. In the early 80's it basically only served the shrimp boat operators and commercial fishermen as well as a few cargo ships for Dow Chemical and the like. The size does not compare to the Port of Houston or even Galveston. However, in the 90's the Dole Fruit Company started operations delivering containers of tropical fruit for distribution to the US. At that time I was commuting to Houston for work, and would see the Dole container trucks on the road and would chuckle to myself "must be a banana boat in port! The Dole company just celebrated 30 years of service in Freeport, and in 2023 launched two sister container ships, the Aztec and Maya, specifically for the Gulf of Mexico deliveries. These are smaller ships which I estimate carry only about 500 containers. Since I could not find any plans on the internet for a smaller container ship, I decided to make my own. From pictures of the Aztec, I free handed a graph paper drawing of what I intended to build, and when satisfied, I produced a CAD version in Autosketch. The attached pictures are of the Aztec in port at Gulfport MS.. The Maya being built in drydock. My hand drawn rendering on graph paper, and a .PDF of the cad version with bulkhead detail. The model ship will be about 26.5 inches long with a width of about 4.5". I plan to have a brushless motor driving a 1 inch 5 bladed brass prop. Chris

Has anybody built this recently? Just got the plans so any advice/help will be much appreciated. At 86 it's years since I built a model!!

Fun at the park. A big lake and nice day to run the boat at the Wellen Park in Florida. The owner of the bike and kayak shop took this video of my shrimp boat Capt CJ (it is a scale boat; the full boat was destroyed during hurricane Ian a couple of years ago). here is the link. I don't know how to copy the video by itself. https://www.facebook.com/reel/501543055774701 Isaac

Hi everybody. I’m 95 percent done with the Patrol boat, it needs a few more railings and some small details, but she’s in the “runner” category now. I like to keep a project on my bench, so I decided to build something not too challenging, but interesting none the less. With tha in mind I decided on a kit I found on EBay, a Midwest Patriot Fireboat. This is one of Midwest’s easier to build offerings, plastic hull, wooden superstructure, nothing earth shattering. This kit was almost NIB, with the exception of the hull flange being cut off at the very tip of the bow, and that’s coming off anyway during building, so no harm done. The kit comes with 2 working fire monitors, and a lightly used old SonicTronics pump was included, although I don’t know if I’m using that pump for the monitors or one I’ve used in my Dolly and my Neptun. I’ll cross that bridge later..so here we go!! The first thing to do is build the stand. Midewest used a lot of lite ply for their aircraft kits, and some of their boats used the same materials for internal structure…it’s also used to build the stand. Once I got that built I added some 5 mm thick basswood to strengthen the stand, then gave it 2 coats of clear. I then started on the internal structure. You basically build a double decker structure that’s glued into the hull when done, the motor mount, radio tray, rudder tube support and stuffing Stude support are all part of it, as is the battery tray. It went together easily. This kit is die cut, and I’ve never had a Midwest kit, aircraft or boat, that the die cutting was less than good. Midwest does some “different” things in regards to their boat internals, but the quality is there. Once I had that built up I installed it and drilled for the water pick up tube and the rudder tube. I got the rudder tube installed, and installed the skeg and rudder. I’m using the supplied white metal rudder, but I’m going to deviate from the kit and use a proper tiller instead of the glue on white metal supplied in the kit. I then drilled and laid in the stuffing box. I. Using the kit supplied tube, only thing I did different was to add an oiling tube that I silver soldered in place. Then I made up, but have not installed the motor mount, that will be glued in along with the tube, after my 1/8 to 4mm couplers come in. Once they get her in can make sure the tube and motor are lined up before I glue them in place. More to come.. Cash

I will, most likely, have to rename this Blog, at some point. In the mean time...please do not expect much for a while as she is in her very early stages. First a disclosure: This hull was built for me by another gentleman. It was delivered in a not quite completed state. Therefore I have spent the last two month working on it to get to it's present state. So.. what is it? She is one of four ships in a class that was later enlarged to around eight maybe ten members of the class. Her main armament was eight 5"/38 caliber twin turrets. She and her class namesake sister were both lost during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. This ship is most noted due to the loss of an entire generation of one family, five brothers. This should be enough for identification. She is being built in my preferred scale, 1/48th or 1/4"=1'. This ship was used for numerous camouflage scheme experiments and, sadly, there is little definitive documentation to pinpoint her second to last and last schemes carried. That said, my plan, subject to change without notice or reason, is to present her as she appeared following her New York Navy Yard overhaul, or perhaps as she may have appeared after repainting in Placentia Bay NewFoundland, 1942. She measures out to 11' 3" and her power plant is to be two 24 volt Buehler motors. Pictures of her and the build to follow. Wish me luck please, she will not fit in my van....

I'm building a Venice water taxiboat from scratch. The hull has been build from triplex covered with mahagoni stripes. There is still a lot of work to be done, but technics are working and I hope to get here on the water in the comming week.

It must have been in the early '70's when my father and brothers built this model. It had a car blower motor, a home made server to steer (see picture), and my eldest brother built the RC system. We had fun on many boating lakes on holidays in North Wales, and I've decided to refurbish her, and get her on the water again. She was named "Endeavour", as my mother said it took a lot of endeavour to build her! I think I'm going to fit the missing chine and gunwale stringers and repaint her as a Fireboat - of some sorts! I'd like to go modern with the RC, motor (brushless?) and metal geared servo. Any advice - particularly on motor sizing would be appreciated. I saw a similar Fireboat on the water at Southport Model Boat Club open day recently, with an 850 motor, which seemed to sail very nicely

Good evening all, I have decided ti make a start on a project of a passenger boat MS Oldenburg that operates closely to where I live (Bristol channel) and is currently moored in sharpness dry dock just across the river from me in the Forest of Dean, for winter maintenance and refit! Feel free to follow along. I shall be heading to the local hobby shop this week to gather materials and supplies. Ile keep you all updated as I progress. Hope you like the build. Skippy

Back in my youth, I spent the summers in Connecticut ( USA ) working. While there, I spent my off hours at the local small airfield ( Goodspeed airport in East Haddam ) as well as going to small ports to see the ferries and boats go about in Essex harbor along the Connecticut river. I really loved visiting and especially a very small river tub called Pooh ( I suppose as in Winnie the Pooh character ). My wife ( my girl friend at the time ), did join me and we took pictures on that boat. So that is the background. Now, in my RC boat collection, I have two tug boats, but those are models of much larger tugboats and I have a soft spot for them. What I am looking for is to get/purchase a hull ( hopefully with a motor and prop ), that I can build the structure on top from wood or even foam board to resemble the Pooh boat. It would be a gift for my wife as a sort of a reminder of us being together dating back in 1977. Requirement : I would like the model to be approximately 4 ft long I do not know the original boat length, but I think it is about 30 ft long. So the scale is of no importance to me. I just need to to be large model. If someone has information on the actual boat, it had a Delaware registration DL 3205 D. Any suggestions as to a close enough model out there I can use as a basis of conversion? That is my challenge Isaac

Hello, I've been given this ship and would like to refit and refloat her. I don't have any info on the ship but I plan to out fit with new parts mostly 3d printed. Would anyone have any info on the ship or maybe the time lines she represents, (1960s ?). Thanks for any info

Was given the Occre kit of the “Ulises” ocean going tug for Christmas. Started the build this weekend but I reckon it is going to be a bit of a drawn-out build for a while as I have a lot going on with work and other things. I will gradually add photos of my progress… Re comment about kit suppliedpropshaft - I agree, I didn’t like the look of that one in the kit so I cut down an old one I had from something else, put the bearing back in with the addition of a touch of solder To make sure it stayed there and I added the oiler tube as well by soldering that on.

I built an SHG Shadow in the lounge of our small flat in Acton (West London) over 40 years ago. I powered it with a Webra .20 and sailed it mainly at Black Park, near Slough, and also at Prince Park in Eastbourne. I have no recollection of what happened to it, I assume I sold it when it became difficult to find places to use IC engines. About 18 months ago, I saw a just started Shadow for sale on ebay which was only about 15 miles away, so I contacted the buyer, pressed the banknotes into his hand, and when I got home and unpacked it, 40+ years evaporated, just looking at the kit. It had been started, but I decided to remove everything the previous builder had done and start again. Hopefully the pictures will show the brushed motor and crude speed controller. I trimmed the hull back to the correct line, replaced the prop shaft and rudder, and installed a 2836 1000kv brushless out runner. At that point, some other boat sailed into my life and the Shadow was put away until the warmer weather made it possible to glass the hull and deck together without stinking the house out. Somehow, I managed to drift through the summer without thinking of the Shadow, but retrieved it from the loft yesterday and decided to take steps to finish to and get it on the water, years after it was started. I have several (at least!) boats to build or restore, but this one is currently top of the pile.

Bought this almost complete scratch built sprit sailing skiff for 50$. The person made every part following the instructions from a book. The model is 30” LOA with an 8” Beam. Came with mast, two rudders, one for display and one for sailing. Also two weighted hinged drop down centreboards, each a different weight. The builder had in mind to make it RC . It is white cedar and very light weight.

Thirty plus years ago I built a British Power Boats co. Motor Gun Boat from the Dean's Marine kit, and sailed it all around the south of England at various shows. I sadly sold it when I was moving abroad, but never forgot the great little boat. Last December, I was shown a Dean's 63ft ASR (same hull as the MGB both in model and full size versions) which the oxford model boat club was selling as it had been donated in order to help the club raise funds. The motor (540), ESC and rudder servo plus Tx & Rx were removed by another member of the club and a little money changed hands. Got it home, and started working on it. Obviously, I needed to replace the drive and radio components, as the prop shaft and stern tube simply fell out when I picked it up - I think it was held in mainly by the motor coupling! The coaming around the deck edge had definitely seen better days and was held together but patches of plasticard. I moved the entire coaming and replaced it, with a light wooden strip to help it sit against the edge of the deck. I then turned my attention to the stern tube. I had a spare of the same size (bought a while ago from Steve at Model Boat Bits) and set about removing the mass of filler that was intended to hold it in place. Once the filler was removed, a rather large hole was revealed. At this point, I visited Dean's Marine for their Christmas open day and bought a second MGB kit, as I still wanted to replace my old one and also because the dimensions for mounting the prop shaft, etc. were the same for both the MGB & the ASR. I have followed Ron Dean's advice and added an inner stern tube support as a precaution. Just a piece of 1/8th ply held in place with microballons and cyano. Two months or so later, I now have the ASR hull ready for the final placement of the battery tray & radio gear, which shouldn't take long. I will then make a start on its sibling the MGB.

Hi y’all. Almost 8 years ago I posted a build log on RC Groups where I built and converted an IMEX Taurus Sport Fisherman into a police boat, simply by moving and using the windshield as a fairing, adding a light bar and police decals. It ran good, looked okay, and I gave it to my Daughter Grace who ran it twice and then it sat in my shop till a few months ago. I got it back in the water, and I was surprised at how well it ran and handled. To make a long story short, I received a Fiberglass hull for Vhristmas from Modelmast in Poland. It’s not a kit, nor is it a very popular subject, but I have to scratch build everything from the deck up including the build. I’ve done simple projects before with plasticard and wood, the most complex thing I’ve done was to build up a superstructure for my PT15 that went overboard on her maiden. I’ve decided that as a warm up, I’m gonna make the Taurus “Police” boat more…policey. First thing I did was to get rid of the rails, details, etc, in doing so I heard a crack. My glue joint was giving way!! Now, I do use a combo of filled epoxy and ca to build my boats, and I’ve never till this time have had an ABS joint come loose as long as I’ve scuffed the joint and used a good epoxy with a filler. Looking at the failed joint, I realized I used a “plastic epoxy” and upon further inspection I realized I hadn’t scuffed the joint at all!! I also remembered this boat was knocked Offaly branch during some moving around at least once. Anyway, I cleaned off the old glue, scuffed the joint and rebuked it. I’ll keep this as short as I can, cause it could get a little confusing. My goal is to make a more modern 2-4 person patrol boat. So I basically googled “police boat” and came up with a design in my head. Didn’t draw a blasted thing till I got to the cabin proper. Now, the original hatch is the entire superstructure, from just forward of the stern all the way to maybe 9 inches from the bow. I built a well deck aft over the rudder linkage using plastic for a bulkhead, some strip wood for support and reinforcement, and made up a hatch in the floor for rudder servo and linkage access. I then started to build my coaming, and halfway into it I realized it’s not going to look right, and my coaming is too short. So I got the Dremel and a cutoff wheel and went to town on the deck. I’ve been off all week, so 3 days later, I have a decently proportioned deck, sub deck/hatch and the start of a modern (to me at least) cabin. I’ll post pics, please be honest and tell me what you think. Remember her, this is NOT a scale boat, it’s the faul of my fevered imagination and Google.. Cash

And another project to work on. I have a scratch built "frigate " which I tried experimenting on with dazzle camouflage. Mainly constructed from balsa for the hull and superstructure made from odds and ends in the world renowned "spares box " . All worked as only a very simple 2 channel set up. I also have a French built model which I'd bought for the grand sum of £5.00. A nice little runner, unfortunately the deck never really fitted that well and continually leaked resulting in it becoming an impromptu submarine after getting swamped at the lake. As soon as it was rescued from the depths of the lake, and dried out, I had tried to reseal but unfortunately it's never been truly resolved. So with this in mind plus needing a bit of shelf space, I decided that I will combine the 2. Going to be a fun project. The aim will be to basically use the hull of the frigate as this is definitely watertight and transfer the superstructure of the "submarine" . The hull being balsa will also be lighter so when completed I should also have a nice turn of speed

Picked this up at our first scale meet of the season early April, too much going on at the moment, but eventually managed to start this evening. The kit is over 20yrs old, was started and then put on "hold" by the previous owner. Hull is already assembled as was the observation chamber which was situated at the bow. As this "lends " itself to being lit internally, I have removed the brass observation windows plus the one on the bow and then attached some clear acetate on the back of them to make this forward area watertight. The observation chamber now glued in place, spraying to be carried out once this is dry and the "windows " can then be reinstated. Going to be a long job but looking forward to the build.