Finally reached the end of my 'back to wood' restoration which started in November last year! She was a rather sorry ebay purchase but did have some of the original fittings - sadly not all, I used as many as possible and found new equivalents to try and match. The mast, davit and cleats were all home made in plasticard, brass and other sundry bits and pieces. it has working lights and spotlight and the davit rotates. First outing today was pretty good, it does plane but at nearly full throttle so the next trip will be with an 8.4v stick to give it a little more edge. Roger :-)
HI Peep31, I made the mast from brass, plasticard and some small pices of timber. I have posted some pictures on the site, if I can find them I'll send a link. Roger
1. The sorry state of the Hull on the Fire Boat. Purchased from Ebay about 6 months ago, only now just started working on refurbishing it, it was covered in car body filler.
2. After about 2 weeks of very hard work it looks much better. it is running on a Johnson 600 size motor and 6v Gel Battery for its first sail at the Cwmbran Model Society tomorrow, so I hope that is will be OK. it does not appear to be an Aeroits model as the cabins remove from the hull. Not just the Cabin tops. I will try and supply some action photo's later.
Kitshack make one as a kit, off Ebay, uses balsa chines so much easier to shape in with the bulkhead profile. The Norstar I built when I was 12 had horrible 9mm thick chines that had to be planed to shape they were so hard.
My thanks to Mosquito Boat Hobbies for their semi-kit... saved me weeks of work... probably months. it's a shame Dumas has stopped making their 48 inch hull. I was lucky to score this hull on EBAY. Runs on two max size Astro Flight motors with a 12 volts.
I took advantage of some nice weather to take my Wavemaster out for a spin this afternoon. She's around 58 years old, I bought her from the son of the original builder and have tried to keep it as original as possible so converted from IC to electric, repainted the lower hull, new stainless inner propshaft, made some handrails and fitted the lights. it was very dirty but has cleaned up a treat. I'm running a Darke Horse 700 with a 7.2v 4300Ah battery for these pictures but have the facility to use either one or two sticks, run time today over 30min with some to spare so I'm well pleased! it's a gorgeous classic boat.
Now up and running again, with new 25A M'tronics ESC and smaller 35mm S prop she went well yesterday at Crealy.
I managed to get these pics of the monitors in action
( a bit limited as I was alone and operating the TX and camera together! )
Regards
Chris
This is my work in progress plus some nice angles of my boat. Colour scheme obviously not conventional but I like it. its some way off its maiden launch and this isn't the intended motor- that is still in the post! it will be fitted with a Graupner 600 8.4v and a Viper 20A ESC.This is an ebay purchase and came with some original brass items and an IC engine - hence the modification to the motor mount.The boat will probably sail initially at Blackheath.
Hello Dave,I'm looking in to relocting the single servo and as you say the rear well would be ideal- my servo linkages are soft soldered to rudder via a long rod -? would that be the usual way of making the linkage?, I might need to look at this area! Also I think I need to keep all the units off the hull base and secured to a bulkhead ?
PeteG.
HI Pete
Soldered indicates the vintage of your model. Can be used but better solutions available. Don't understand why you fear the hull base. The lower the weight the better for stability. I will post a couple of pictures of my setup so you can get the general idea. Will have to post on your other blog re this boat. Cheers Dave
34" Fireboat
I tried out my new motor arrangement, ( Graupner speed 600 8.4v motor with a single 9.6v battery pack as recommended by dbninja ) in my Fireboat today. A bit choppy but all went very well at just above half throttle then I began to get braver and added on the power to be met by clouds of smoke and a truly blown ESC. ( See FORUM under Hong Kong ESC ) The new Fire Monitors by Peter HS93 also worked fine using a Vauxhall Astra washer pump, I'd hope to get pics but the sudden halt intervened!
HI Roger
My monitors were kindly produced some time ago by another member of this site who was unfortunately at the last request unable to make any more. You might like to have a go making suitably scaled down versions in the method shown by Pete Harvey on his 46" Fireboat restoration on his website ( link in the 'Useful Links' part of this site ) my initial effort was to try drilling out some white metal fittings- this only proved the soft cheese is probably a more suitable material!
Water is pumped to the monitors using an ebay sourced Astra windscreen washer pump which works fine on my 9.6v setup.
Good luck
Chris
HI again
Just to mention that Monitors for the 34" boat are available separately from the 'Online Shop'section of this site. ( Don't think they are working however )
Chris
I tried out my new motor arrangement, ( Graupner speed 600 8.4v motor with a single 9.6v battery pack as recommended by dbninja ) in my 34" Fireboat today. All went very well at just above half throttle then I began to get braver and added on the power to be met by clouds of smoke and a truly blown ESC.
( See FORUM under Hong Kong ESC )
The Fire Monitors also worked Fine using a Vauxhall Astra washer pump, I'd hope to get pics but the sudden halt intervened!
Regards
Chris
Here is my take on a torpedo boat, YES I know why has it got a rocket launcher on rear, well I wanted something that was different from the rest with my own signature on it. it is powered by a .60 size electric motor 120amp esc, two 5000 3 series lipos. Only allowed to have it going on 1/4 power cause of speeed limit on lake. The hull was originally a 48" deep vee hull but added perkasa superstructure to it.
Here are my latest pics of a trimar frigate that I am building. it is totally scratch built with twim screws powered by two 540 motors and twim escs. The radar antenna, nav lights and turret all turn and work
Do you still have yours?