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.

The original shape LesRo Sportsman is a model that had eluded me for many years, but I always liked the look of it, so when one came up on eBay, I matched the opening price with my first bid, and ended up winning it as nobody else placed a bid. It could well be that everyone else was a lot wiser than me, but I have ended-up with it and it will be a long-term restoration project that will have to be fitted in-between a lot of other build/repair work that I already have stacked-up waiting for my attention. This boat came with a fitted glow-plug engine of unknown size or type, so the first job was to remove the engine, fuel tank and silencer etc to see just how bad and fuel soaked the inside of the hull was, and then try to work-out how to dry it out and make any repairs that may be needed. Bob.

This is a build of a HA-Kits Flying Christine II which is a model of the St. John's Ambulance service boat which is used to take patients from the Isle of Guernsey (UK) for treatment elsewhere - probably with more facilities! I'm getting my nearly twelve year old grandson to build it with just guidance from myself and I assisted with cutting of the tabs off the laser cut parts on the thicker plywood. We need to get the younger generation interested in our great hobby! The box contains all the plywood laser cut parts on varying thicknesses of plywood. In addition there is a bag of plastic window frames and plastic window inserts. There is no propeller shaft, rudder or other bits to complete the model. Construction so far seems to be fairly straight forward and it is something that my grandson is enjoying doing. It is the first model of any kind that he has built. As he doesn't live near us he is here for just 10 days and we hope to get it completed by the time he goes home. The kit says use thick and thin cyno or Aliphatic glue. I have chose to use Aliphatic so we don't get little fingers stuck together! It will be slower but hope to speed up the process by starting building the cabin whilst the hull is fully curing before adding the skins - the order laid out in the instruction. BEWARE when initially gluing both halves of the deck together it says you may strengthen the joint by gluing some scrap on the back of the joint. We unfortunately chose a piece about 2mm too long so later in the build it came into contact with one of the bulkheads - so we had to trim it back! The only other thing was the instructions didn't clearly mention gluing two of the cabin bulkheads together to make one. After a bit of thought and looking at the cabin layout it became obvious that C2 and C3 needed to be first glued together. Having said that when attaching to the cabin frame C3 follows C1 (as one part) and C2 is then before C4! Make sure you use plenty of masking tape to ensure that the cabin structure doesn't get glued onto the deck! See photos So this is where we are at the end of Day 2 - more to follow! Apologies in that the photos are not in the correct sequence!

Hi y’all. Since Dickey has maidened I decided I wanted to do one more project before I attempt to overhaul my garage workshop. I’m thinking I’ll be down a month or more if I get done what I want to get done. In that vein, I’ve decided to attempt another Springer tug. Some years ago I built one before I really had ballasting down right..she ran okay, but I kept messing around with the ballast, epoxying it in, and when I tried to remove it to make changes I severely damaged the hull. So, I removed all equipment, fittings, etc and scrapped the hull. I’ve been wanting another go at it, so I ordered the Zippkits tugster, just the kit no hardware, and started to lick my calf over (old country phrase for a “do-over”) I built the hull proper per the instructions, and that’s where that ends. I’m using a 4mm shaft, the smaller Robbe/Krick Kort nozzle, and a home made stuffing box. She will be powered by my fave working boat motor, the Zippkits 650 kv outrunner fed by 2 6 cell nimh in parallel. My stuffing box is made up of a thick wall brass tube that accepts a Traxxas 4mm i.d flanged oilite bushing. The bushing is tapped in with a hammer, and I use an old 4mm shaft to make sure the bushings stay aligned as I install the other bushing. The 1mm thick wall allows me to drill a hole the same size as the brass I’m using for an oiling tube. I’ll grind down the fitted end just a bit to get a decent, thight mechanical joint. That way when I silver solder it in place it stays put and is a good strong joint. The reason I’m so picky is that I use a mini grease gun from Horizon Hobbies, I can old it in place and pump, and I get just a wee bit of grease showing at the bushing under pressure, that way I know darn well it’s full. I used part of the keel parts to fit the tube, cutting it shorter to allow me to swing the Kort nozzle hard over to make it easier to change props without removing the Kort nozzle, depending on the size of the prop. I cut an oversized slot for the tube as I use solid couplers, and with the motor fitted I could get everything lined up and tack the tube in place with ca, that way I have no binding. I don’t like using universal joint couplers unless I really have to. I get my couplers from Servo City, as they are steel, use larger socket screws, and don’t have any runout. Very solid. The kit uses a radio plate to to mount the servo, receiver and esc. I cut that down and built up a servo mount, and it’s installed on the same bulkhead shown in the manual, but I mounted it to the fwd side vs the aft as in the instructions. My deck opening is going to be different. I’m using Dubro pushrods, but good old Amazon was out of the ones with metal quick links, so I ordered the ones with nylon. I dug thru my junk box of hardware that I have been collecting since 95 or so, and I found gold!! A few Dubro and Sullivan threaded metal clevises, and some solder clevises too. I mounted the servo, made sure everything worked correctly, then uninstalled everything and gave the inside of the bow and transom and the bottom of the hull a coat of 30 minute epoxy. That’s where she’s at now. I’m thing I’ll spray the rest of the inside of the hull with clear lacquer ro finish waterproofing, then I have to make a decision. I dont know if I need to glass this thing, or maybe glass the bottom and the just seal and paint the heck out of the sides, or….I’ve also heard that some people just epoxy coat the outer ull with thinned epoxy, then prime and paint. She’s gonn be a working boat, used as an emergency push boat when needed, so she needs to last…if I can get her ballasted properly this time, that is… Cash

This is a classic wave master it was built in the fifty's a nd a internet buy I have stripped out the rc engine and its tanks now on the research stage there are a few issues rear end smack thats had a poor repair done and the spray rails do not fit well of its history I know nothing

As I promised here is where I am with the build of my Veron Titan Tug

Made up a few more things today, mainly the deck hold and tomorrow the hatches. I just wanted to say Spencer's pond is drained, but our stupid Canadian Geese still think there's still water in it. Let's hope they head South to some nice American weather

Awaiting graphics to finish off THUNDER& METEOR so pulled this one off the shelf to resume the build. I’ll start at the beginning posting highlights so as not to take up too much time. Photo 1&2 One of the many real boats. These are iconic around Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, & other Atlantic bordering states. Photo 3 Starting the frame & keel.

Saw this on my Facebook feed, and I'm a little bored, so I will try to convert one of my model boats to a deep-sea trawler. The first photo is mine. I need to rebuild the bridge layout & hopefully we will have a Trawler. To be continued, maybe.

Bit of a late start to this, I was moving ok with this till I injured my left hand. (steam burn) Had the drawings for this and some parts cut for over a year now.. Finaly got things on the move.. messed up a few times due to issue with the drawing (frames off from one page to the next) maybe I didnt read em right ! but the drawing does say its semi scale .. Bit bigger in life tha I tought (small workspace) but should be ok.. Will post more as I get on with it.. using a lot of offcuts and scrap box wood in this..

I mentioned in the Vic Smeed Vivacity forum I would do a few smaller builds while chugging through the Vivacity project; the first of these I have started (while waiting on certain components/materials for Vivacity), based on Glynn Guest's Knocker White tugboat plan from his book 'Small Radio Control Boats'. The Driving force behind choosing this particular design was the fact I had just filled my Backyard Model Boating Pond for the first time and sailed a couple of small free-running boats in it. I had already made Arcady and Bredette many years ago when they were first issued as free plans in Model Boats, so Knocker White was the next project from the book with the necessary compact dimensions to sail happily on my pond, the first of (hopefully) several small such boat projects. Here are the first stages of the build shown in the photos; 1) Paper template traced/assembled from the book - a little 'guestimation' was required as the plan was over two pages that didn't quite align... 2)Carcass pieces (deck, bottom, bulkheads, stem) marked out on 1/4" sheet 3)Carcass pieces cut out 4 & 5) carcass glued together, care taken to get as square as possible - note extra piece placed in stern to support rudder tube, making stern slightly deeper than original 6)Power train/RC components; Specktrum 410 RX, Ali Express 20A esc, RS 280 motor (was eventually replaced with an RS260 type when I clumsily broke off one of the contacts while trying to fit the battery), 100mm prop shaft/tube assembly with 25mm 3-blade prop. 7)Power train set up & tested on the bench to ensure everything worked 8)Prop tube skeg/support added 9)Prop tube epoxied in place, sandwiched between skeg support and lower skeg piece. 10)6mm ply motor mount glued into position after checking alignment. More pics and comments to follow soon, Best regards to all following this, Nick