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E.F.S. Surveyor
After sitting on the shelf for about a year I decided to start my build of the E.F.S. Surveyor kit by Deans Marine. She is a 1/20 scale representation of a fisheries research vessel, measuring 780mm in length with a beam of 250mm, she's wide and should be pretty stable on the water.
First step was to trim the hull and apply a layer of Bondo putty to smooth out the fibreglass that will be above the deck. Next the twin stuffing tubes needed to be carefully aligned and again Bondo, the a layer of fibreglass on top for added strength. Once all that was satisfactory I cut out the freeing ports, then installed the deck supports and motor mounts. Then it was time to install the rudder shafts and I ran into my fist problem, the brass tubes for the rudders supplied were the wrong size, about .04β to big, fortunately I had some scrap tube that was a perfect snug fit. With a bit of grease I should be able to keep the water out, next I noted that the kit did not include a way to support the tubes but did indicate I could solder a scale a brass to the tube and epoxy it to the hull. I elected to cut up blocks of wood to insert the tubes through and epoxy them in place, before carefully drilling my holes for the tubes. After this was completed I installed the two skegs adding an extra sheet of plastic to make them each three sheets about 5mm wide and again used Bondo to take up the gapes created by a badly designed cutouts. Last I installed the bow thruster and bondo and sanded it all smooth. After a quick leak check in the tub I will fibreglass the hull along ware the skeg pins are located and cove the interior part of the bow thruster in marine sealant. That is it for this week, cheers
Westwind
11 days ago
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2 Followers
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M.V. Dante
Hi All, just thought I'd share a few picks of my current build. The kit is the M.V. Dante by Deans Marine. The kit is a representation of a fire/rescue boat serving the Euro-Holland port. Interesting first for me is using the guts of two standard servos as the motors for the props.
Westwind
3 months ago
Recent Posts
π Mast lights
2 days ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Bauer out of Germany may be helpfull.
https://www.bauer-modelle.com/epages/Bauer_Uwe46269592.mobile/de_DE/?ObjectID=57 |
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π Rochester, NY. Scale model boat club?
8 days ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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philsacc I'd like to see more pics of you Avatar tug also, if its a kit what is the name?
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π¬ Re: Great Day in Hamilton,Ontario, Canada
10 days ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Looks like a fun day, I'll have to try to make it to one of your events
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π Working crane
10 days ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Thanks campdriver, I'll keep it in mind
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π Week 3, 4 and 5
11 days ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Progress has been slow but steady lately due to real world work so...
After test fitting the deck and lots of sanding and trimming I add a few more deck support beams where I thought they were needed. I also found that the deck ended up being about a mm lower then the freeing ports. I added scrap strips of plastic to the support beams leaving several gaps allowing for mounting ti-wraps and most of my wiring, as Bob Ross might say happy little accent.
Next fuse panel and bilge pump installed, ESCs and battery telemetry mounted, wiring secured. Time to install the deck, then the forward bulkhead, I used Guerrilla Glue Construction glue to mount attach the deck and once dry automotive body filler to fill and gaps and create a uniform fit to the side walls. Next was to install the forward deck using the same methods.
The instruction in the next section are described as detailing the deck. In this plastic strips are to be added horizontally and vertically to the side walls. My kit did not include the plastic strips and I wonder if they are not included as the detailing seams to be optional, but I was able to source wood strips that look about right, so more cutting, gluing and sanding. Once happy with these I fit the support walls for the cabin and hold access door. Next the exciting task of pouring a few cups off water on to the deck to see if shes water tight, I happy to say she was comply dry.
Time to fit the two non functioning storage lockers under the extensions of the upper deck. None of these pieces fit correctly as described in the instruction and some had odd angles as if left over from another kit design. After lots of trial fitting and trimming I managed to get something that resembled the intent of the instructions.
Last thing to build was the access box for the on/off switch, then finally it was time to paint. After taping off all the access holes I applied a few layers of primer and once dry a few layers of white paint before the sun went down, and its back to work for me. The rest of the paint will have to wait for now.
As I write this I realize I forgot to wire and instill the on/off switch so once the paint is finished I'll have to rework some wiring.
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π¬ Re: Week 2
1 month ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Yes the 3 ESCs and other equipment will be upfront under the cabin. I'm thinking of placing the RX in the cabin as high off the water as I can get it
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π Week 2
1 month ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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While waiting for the rains to stop so I could start painting, I decided to do a bit of work on the cabin, with I little effort and reference back to the assembly CD pictures, I was able to build up as much as the cabin as possible without the decks installed. Next I did some work on the trawl winch and after hours of sanding I did manage to assemble the core parts, but as I'm not thrilled with the way it looks so far I might order a winch kit and use it instead.
Finally the rain cleared and I set about preparing the hull for paint when I noticed I had forgot to install the rudder servo mount so I got out a servo and trimmed the mount for a nice snug fit. I noticed the mount was a bit wobble so I reinforced it with some scarp bits and got to painting. Two coats of automotive spray primer did the trick.
With paint dried it time to lay out the deck supports and internal components, two motors, bow thruster, a home built water detector, battery tray and a negative and positive bus bar. I'm also going to add a remotely controlled bilge pump but still waiting on the pump to arrive. First I had to trim about 7mm from each side of the deck to get it to fit in the hull, then mark the position of the openings and cut and lay out the support beams I added some bulkheads to mount the ESCs and pump, and an extra beam under the bow thruster for support, I had a 3d printed battery try that worked well and attached wooden strips to keep it above any water that might get in.
Next I had to build and test the water detector, two wires with several centimetres of exposed wire threaded through a piece of plastic and separated about a cementer apart with a rotating LED lamp worked wheel and I found that the more the wires got wet the brighter the LED got.
Last thing I did this week was to test fit the deck and cabin. Will have to see how much I get done next week.
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π Thoughts on Spektrum RC units
1 month ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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I have used 15 channels on my bernhard gruben SAR boat, anchor, search lights, deck lights, nave lights, tail gate, daughter boat launch mechanism, rudders, motors, bow thruster, fire cannon, smoke generator, interior lights and radars. I had to use two 8 channel recivers. I an the FRSky X10S radio.
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π Thoughts on Spektrum RC units
1 month ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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When I started in RC about 10 years ago I had spectrum equipment, but after a few brown outs causing plane crashes I switched to hitch. Hitec was expensive and they stopped supporting the system so I moved to FrSky (not flysky), I find them reasonably priced, with loads of features including telemetry and RX redundancy. I've been very happy with my set up for the past 5 years or so
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π Batterys
1 month ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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I've been using NiMh or Pb batteries. Makes for good ballast
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π Spray paint or brush
1 month ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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You guys have been alot if help with my question so far so I thought I'd throw out another.
I'm current build has a fiberglass hull and a plastic cabin. For paint I was thinking of automotive spray paint for the hull, then brushwork for the deck and cabin. I'm also thinking of spraying the interior of the hull primer grey just to keep oils and what not off the ruff fiberglass.
In the past I have just sprayed everything.
What are your thought how do you paint your models?
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π E.F.S. Surveyor
1 month ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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After sitting on the shelf for about a year I decided to start my build of the E.F.S. Surveyor kit by Deans Marine. She is a 1/20 scale representation of a fisheries research vessel, measuring 780mm in length with a beam of 250mm, she's wide and should be pretty stable on the water.
First step was to trim the hull and apply a layer of Bondo putty to smooth out the fibreglass that will be above the deck. Next the twin stuffing tubes needed to be carefully aligned and again Bondo, the a layer of fibreglass on top for added strength. Once all that was satisfactory I cut out the freeing ports, then installed the deck supports and motor mounts. Then it was time to install the rudder shafts and I ran into my fist problem, the brass tubes for the rudders supplied were the wrong size, about .04β to big, fortunately I had some scrap tube that was a perfect snug fit. With a bit of grease I should be able to keep the water out, next I noted that the kit did not include a way to support the tubes but did indicate I could solder a scale a brass to the tube and epoxy it to the hull. I elected to cut up blocks of wood to insert the tubes through and epoxy them in place, before carefully drilling my holes for the tubes. After this was completed I installed the two skegs adding an extra sheet of plastic to make them each three sheets about 5mm wide and again used Bondo to take up the gapes created by a badly designed cutouts. Last I installed the bow thruster and bondo and sanded it all smooth. After a quick leak check in the tub I will fibreglass the hull along ware the skeg pins are located and cove the interior part of the bow thruster in marine sealant. That is it for this week, cheers
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π What Radio do you use?
1 month ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Hi Chugalone100 I use the FrSky radio systems. with this system you can attach two RX8R receivers to each other in such a way as to share there channels giving a maximum of 16 and if one receiver has an issue the second will take over. FrSky calls it redundancy and I think a lot of there receivers have this capability
https://www.frsky-rc.com/product/rx8r-pro/ |
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π Question about Schottel drives
1 month ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Don't know why the link will not work, maybe cause I am on my phone? But yes it's the jonny and the drives are the 70BM-Z
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π Question about Schottel drives
1 month ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Thanks for the input. Here is the boat I ordered and the drives for it.
I will be using my x10s radio for it. The plan for now Is to have both drives controlled from the right stick. The servo I got for them should act like a sail servo so an input to the right will rotate the drives to the right until I put the stick back in neutral then the drive should stay in position until the stick moves again. Both throttles will be on the left stick with no reverse. That's the theory for now, have to see how it plays out in practice.
https://www.bauer-modelle.com/epages/Bauer_Uwe46269592.mobile/en_GB/?ObjectPath= |
https://www.bauer-modelle.com/epages/Bauer_Uwe46269592.mobile/en_GB/?ObjectPath= |
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π Question about Schottel drives
1 month ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Thanks Dave, I was not sure if the motors rotation could be reversed. I'll have to set my radio functions to rotate the drive fully when revese is needed. Steering this boat is gonna take some getting used too.
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π Question about Schottel drives
1 month ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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I'm planning in building a tug using 2 Schottel drives. For those using them, how do you get the ship to back up? I'm thinking either run the props backwards like a normal drive system, but I'm worried the strain might strip the gears, or I could attempt to rig it so that I move a switch and the drives pivot 180 degrees in the opposite directions so as to keep the side thrust about the same. Any thoughts?
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π Quinte Model Shipwrights
2 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Just thought I add my local club.
https://www.quintemodelshipwrights.com/single-post/2019/12/29/quinte-model-shipw |
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π What Radio do you use?
2 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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π What Radio do you use?
2 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Hi Dave, yes I'm using the Horus system. I have a pair of X8R RXs connected with the one in the hull and the other in the superstructure. One is a slave/back up if the other failed. However I did not get the fail notice, ie the primary fails and the second takes control but I lose telemetry. What I got was loss of control and telemetry and the boat went into fail safe. Throttle and rudder neutral. Now that I think of it the second could have failed first and the primary failed due to loss of signal.
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π What Radio do you use?
2 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Hi All, I was just out testing some repairs on my boat when I lost signal at about 100 feet, so I walked around the pond and regained control. Then I lost signal again this time at about 6 feet. I'm using a FrSky x10S radio, it should be good for over 2 Km in the air (Maybe upto 10 but I can't remember). Checking the logs I noted a constant signal value during the interruption, should have been fluctuating or 0. At the moment I'm suspecting the radio as I had a unexpectedly low range on a new build of a 1:72 tug but just figured it was due to the radio being below the water line. On today test boat I have 4 antennas 2 of which extend about 20inches above the water line. Thinking it might be an issue with the 4 year old lipo in the radio, so ill replace that first. but I was wonder what other people are using for a radio, and what kind of range do you get?
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π Bauer Modelle issue
2 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Hi Doug, thanks the info. They did finally respond to my email. They said the order was sent to the warehouse awaiting payment. Hope it ships by the end of the week.
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π Bauer Modelle issue
2 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Got word from the company, everything is fine. Ot was an issue with the translation. Closed just indicates the order has been recived.
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π Bauer Modelle issue
2 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Anyone delt with Bauer Modelle, I placed an order with them, which was later closed by the company. There system will not connect to pay pal so I was hoping for an invoice to be sent while I slept. Only to find the order closed when I woke up. So far no response from emails. Just wonder if others have had a similar experience.
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π Fun/funny Boat
2 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Hey guys, thanks for all the input. Looks like my wife will be going with a jet drive duck. Not much to build looks fun to sail.
https://www.bauer-modelle.com/epages/Bauer_Uwe46269592.mobile/en_GB/?ObjectPath= |
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π Fun/funny Boat
2 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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My wife is looking for a fun/silly boat. She is thinking a row boat with a figure might be nice. Are there any Row Boat kits out there, I've only found scratch built
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π First run of the year
2 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Got out for a bit with my grupner SAR boat. Been working on this since 2018, always seams to need something. Today she started taking on water but I think it might be due to both stuffing tunes losing there end caps and all the grease ending up in the hull. Any way I got one good pic before the bilge kicked in. The beach I went to was badly flooded so I sailed in the flood parkπ
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π Boat Saver
2 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Hi All, Harbor Models used to sell a low voltage boat saver, but now only has a 9 to 12 volt unit. Anyone know whare to get the lower voltage units 5-7 volts, or instructions on how to build one.
Thanks
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π Working crane
2 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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Hi all, I will be building a 1/24 scale servay boat and I'd like to fit a working crane. Can anyone point me to crane kit or plans. Thanks
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π¬ Re: M.V. Dante
3 months ago by
π¨π¦ Westwind (

Petty Officer 2nd Class)
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@hermank, I used the little motors out of standard size servos
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