Hi all.

Well... Ed Crowell got me into starting this thread but after seeing some of the runabouts around here (his Speedster, GPR's thunderbird, etc...) I'm a bit embarassed to show my work.


Although I'm basically a sailing guy I've always loved runabouts, so about a year and a half ago I decided to (scratch)build one.

Since I couldn't decide which boat to build I decided to mix a few things...

The hull was based on Svenson's Flyer, slightly lenghtened to around 70cm at 1:8th on Delftship.

this is what I came up with:


The deck will have a "step" like the Nedcraft silverback and a paint scheme like this gorgeous Rocket scratchbuilt by a friend of mine here in Portugal.

I'll be showing some of the progress so far in the next few posts.

Cheers,

Tiago

The first step was to cut the frames (by hand ), and assemble frames and stringers on the keel.

First (of many) mistakes:
Although I was aware of the need to use a building jig the excitment made me start right away.
Result: I had to correct some misalignments afterwords...



I went on with some more stringers, both on the sides and floor:

Went on to laying the bottom...





And bought the electronics (sailing boats are cheaper )

One more mistake (which, again, I was already aware of - man, I'm dumb):
I should have opened the hole for the propeller shaft in advance.
It took me some time but with care I managed to do it right:



You can also see the boards I glued to the sides, they will hold the electronics (ESC, servo bat) with velcro.

Some more interior details:

1. "Hooks" that will take the velcro that holds the battery
2. the aforementioned boards to hold the electronics
3. steering servo mount
4. holes for the antenna tube

Gotta go to lunch now...

After a couple of months with the boat on the shelf, I got back to it...

Motor mount... nothing fancy, I'll see later if it needs cooling.

The engine is a 3.500KV 40Amps outrunner brushless which I will feed with 8,4V.
Will do more than enough for a scale speed.

Gluing the side panels, after careful drawing and fine tuning...






You can see that the stern was rebuilt. That was because given the exterme curvature at that point the stringers just kept breaking.

At this time I really didn't know what to do on the bow and stern.
More on that later..

Next I wanted to do something different with the engine hatch.
I imagined it opening like a car hood instead of two hatches opening sideways like it's common on these boats.

The hardest part was that the hull is so rounded that a regular hinge wouldn't work.
So I had to engineer custom parts:



I hope to do those parts in brass later but for now they're plywood.



Closed:


Open:


At this stage I had decided to keep the stern closed on the bottom (unlike PunyV's Flyer - thanks a lot for your help, Kjell ) and built a platform to strenghten the stern and take the steering servo arm:

Next step... epoxy coating and paiting the interior:



You can see the tube I installed for laying the antenna.

Next... laying the deck.
Once again, given the complexity of the hull form, I was a bit affraid to start.
I eventually decided to use balsa instead of plywood.



Yet another mistake: I didn't lay the planks all the way fore to aft so I ended up with a flat spot fore of the engine hatch, which I had to fill.
No big deal since the deck will have another layer, but made for a really ugly work

Building the stern and stem with balsa...






It's probably a bit of cheating but I couldn't see a better way of doing the boat's edges...

This brings me to the current stage...


Well, that's not totally true, since I've started laying the final deck.
It will have a red stripe on the sheers and mahogany planking in the middle.

I'm hoping to do it an engine cover as well.

Hope you guys like it and I'd love to hear your advice on this project.

Cheers,

Tiago

PS: it's been in the water already, everything looked ok.

Originally Posted by pjesus

Hope you guys like it and I'd love to hear your advice on this project.

A stunning build Pjesus.. It looks incredible on the water!...

More progress please!

That looks pretty amazing, good job!

Thanks for the comments, guys.

I forgot to say that in the last couple of pictures the hull had already been fiberglassed.

"More progress" will come as I go, but I must say I'm a very slow builder and I have several ongoing projects...

Cheers!

^ He's embarrassed? ^

I wish my stuff was that embarrassing!

Awesome looking scratch build PJ!

A very nice scratch build!

Nice work there, good progress. Hmm, 70 cm.; a bit over 27 inches or so?