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Aerokits Sea Urchin
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About this boat
My Sea Urchin is still “flat packed” - I have not started building it yet, but from the very first time that I saw a picture of the Sea Urchin in the 1960’s I really liked the look of this model boat and wanted to build one.
All these years later, I have still never seen a Sea Urchin on the water !
Having the rudder mounted on the outside of the transom is a large part of the Sea Urchins charm - and gives the biggest problem about how to hinge it strongly enough for regular use, and how to fit a steering servo to it without making the connection too obvious.
…….hence the temptation to fit a small sized outboard motor - but this would share the same steering problem but may be easier to mount?
I will add pictures of my kit when I get home and update the pictures as I make some progress putting it together.
Bob.
All these years later, I have still never seen a Sea Urchin on the water !
Having the rudder mounted on the outside of the transom is a large part of the Sea Urchins charm - and gives the biggest problem about how to hinge it strongly enough for regular use, and how to fit a steering servo to it without making the connection too obvious.
…….hence the temptation to fit a small sized outboard motor - but this would share the same steering problem but may be easier to mount?
I will add pictures of my kit when I get home and update the pictures as I make some progress putting it together.
Bob.
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Making a small 16” long model like the Sea Urchin from balsa wood seems like it was probably quite a good idea - especially after reading about the problems experienced with the Classic Model Boat Company kit build on the link provided.
I think there will always be problems building a 16” long r/c model boat from the same thickness of plywood that is used for the much bigger Classic Model Power Boats that I usually build and restore!
My 16” Aerokits Fast Patrol Boat was not too easy to put together for this reason - and it was also complicated by some very hard and poor quality plywood that was found in my kit that most certainly did not help at all.
I should probably have recut most of the parts from some decent quality wood rather than building the kit from the hard dried-out hairy plywood found in the kit as it would have made the job much easier than struggling with it.
Unfortunately (from a purist point of view only) the Sea Urchin kit that I will be building mine from is one of the SLEC kits that I bought just over two years ago, and is not an original Aerokits model.
This will be my first experience of building any SLEC kit or any laser-cut kit. It will also be my first experience of working with the water bonded type of wood that laser kits are cut from.
The wood used looks to be far better quality than I found inside my Aerokits Fast Patrol Launch boat, so hopefully it will go together better too, but the thickness of the wood is still the same as would be used for making much bigger models so I am not expecting it to be an easy build - but I hope it will be !
This small and comparatively inexpensive size of kit is probably the sort of kit that many first time model boat builders choose to buy without realising that a bigger model would have been easier to build.
Fortunately my first ever model boat kit was an Aerokits Swordsman and that was a lot easier build than my Aerokits Fast Patrol Boat has been (I am still working on it over 50 years after I bought it !).
If the Aerokits Fast Patrol Boat had been my first model boat kit, it may have even put me off building wooden model boats and I would have been one of the many that chose to build a plastic MFA Spear kit the next time I thought about building an r/c model boat kit 😱
Bob.
I think it's a great little boat!
looking forward to watching your progress.
Best regards,
Nick
This one was started over 10 years ago and the very detailed build covers a two year period during which the builder had a few problem's with his kit, but his end result is a very well finished boat that looks superb.
SLEC now make their version of Sea Urchin. I have no idea if this kit is from the same tooling as the one from the Vintage Model Boat Company ?
The original Aerokits Sea Urchin was “saw cut” and may not have been exactly the same as these two more recently tooled “laser cut” kits.
If anyone has built or owns a Sea Urchin and they would like to add some pictures of it on here, I would really like to see them as there seems to be so few of them around.
Bob.
https://www.thercmodelboatforum.com/t1340-aerokits-sea-urchin