I love these old Dumas kits! This is Vintage Modeling at it's best. The 26" Owens Cruiser is of all balsa construction, and is designed for static display, but will be build for R/C with twin S-400 motors, lights and horn.

I don't know what year the kit came out, but the address on the Box dates back to the days in Milwauki, so you know it's old. The kit is laid out on 19, 2" X 12" balsa printwood sheets and a whole pile of 1/16" X 2" X 12" & 24" plane balsa sheets for shinningh the hull and decks. This is some primitive stuff. The plans are 1 sheet, about 18" X 30" and don't offer a great deal of information to actually build from. There are also 4 pages of instructions, or better stated, suggestions, for building the kit. This is going to be a fun and challenging build, so lets get started....

Construction begins with cutting out the major hull parts from the printwood sheets. A couple hours at the bandsaw took care of that task. Then once all the parts were cut out, they were seperated into stack of parts for the individual frames and keel, and then the keel and frames were assembled over the drawings on the plans to complete all the hull sub-assemblies....

The keel was laid over the plan and the location of the frames were marked on the keel. The frames were then glued in place on the keel. At this point, parts fit has been good, and sighting down the row of frames it aoppears that the frame shapes are really good. Will find out more when the planks start going on.

And speaking of planks, rather then try to skin the hull with the 1/16 kit sheeting, I'll rip 3/32 balsa into 3/8" wide planks and plank it from the keel upwards in full length strips. Will be much easier, and result in a stonger hull to boot. So stay tuned, there's more coming soon.

PAT

Dude, you owe it to posterity-- trace those parts! And maybe even get Dumas's permission to offer their abandoned design as some sort of "nostalgia" kit...

Pat how can you spell Albuquerque and not Milwaukee?

I grew up with kids named Kolodzinski & Cieslewicz, and geographic names like Oconomowoc & Kinnickinnic so spelling is important around these purts.

It's nice seeing a cruiser being built that isn't a Chris Craft for a change.

As long as I'm posting here I'd like to run an idea past you. You have done plans for some really cool projects. Our club exhibits at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum's Midwest Ship Model Contest each May. I know the museum educator through this and my being a member at the museum. I was thinking about talking to her in regards to producing some model plans for the museum gift shop to sell utilizing the museums library resources. Manitowoc Shipbuilding and Burger Boats built ships and boats there so a historical tie in is possible. I thought that perhaps getting the local high school involved in research, drafting, assembling a prototype, and writing instructions would benefit the school and the museum. It could cross involve the history class, drafting class, wood shop, art class, and english class to produce a finished product. I'm wondering if there would be enough interest to make a project like this worthwhile.

Hey there Bill, I think that is a great idea!!! I just hope the museum is receptive to the idea.

Greg

Pat, I have those plans and that Owens is one of the most beautiful boats built. Will be watching this build thread with much interest.

Gees Pat, please trace 'em all, or put them on a flatbed scanner at at least 150 dpi and make jpgs and pdf files !!! Those old kits are disappearing and with them is going the legacy of an active model boating community! Please scan them and distribute the scans so they won't be lost!



Also;

This thread added to WOODIES: Wooden Pleasure Craft Build Logs listing.

Looking forward to following along!!

Path: RCGroups -> Boats -> Scale Boats ->"WOODIES..."

Originally Posted by Prins Willem

Our club exhibits at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum's Midwest Ship Model Contest each May. I know the museum educator through this and my being a member at the museum. I was thinking about talking to her in regards to producing some model plans for the museum gift shop to sell utilizing the museums library resources. Manitowoc Shipbuilding and Burger Boats built ships and boats there so a historical tie in is possible. I thought that perhaps getting the local high school involved in research, drafting, assembling a prototype, and writing instructions would benefit the school and the museum. It could cross involve the history class, drafting class, wood shop, art class, and English class to produce a finished product. I'm wondering if there would be enough interest to make a project like this worthwhile.

This is a fantastic idea and you should definitely pursue it!!! For many reasons!!

Let us know how it gets received.

Originally Posted by Prins Willem

I thought that perhaps getting the local high school involved in research, drafting, assembling a prototype, and writing instructions would benefit the school and the museum. It could cross involve the history class, drafting class, wood shop, art class, and english class to produce a finished product. I'm wondering if there would be enough interest to make a project like this worthwhile.

Back when I went to JR. High and High School, when our books were stone tablets, and there was still a metal, wood, and auto shops in the High School, we had a class project in the wood shop to build an outboard boat to be raffled off at the end of the year and the proceeds went to the senior class. It was standing room only and there were more people signed up to work on the project than there was space. At the end of the year everyone who had worked on the boat had a chance to ride in the boat before it was sold.

Great idea if you can talk them in to it.

With the frames assembled to the keel the next astep is to set up the deck. All the deck parts were assembled first, then the frames tack glued in place. At this point it became painfully obvious that NOTHIHG FITS! The frames that weren't too wide were too narrow, and those that weren't too tasll were too short. And many of the countours were also wrong. Otherwise, it was perfect

The next step was to start cutting formers and eithr removing or adding material to get the height and width corrected. Balsa shims were used to fill the gaps on the short ones, and material was appropriately cut away to fix theose that were too big. And finally, the stern was widened and glued in place. From there, the odd contors were built up using 1/126 X 1/8 balsa to build up the shortfalls, then the whole thing bar sanded into final form.

The next stwep was to tack glue the frame to the building board in preperation for planking.

Rather then try to skin the hull with the 1/16 sheets provided in the kit, 3/32" X 1/2" planks were ripped so that each plank would run the full length of the hull.

The first plank was glued in place at the keel, working side to side to keep the loads consistent. Carpenters glue was used at the edge of the planks, and Cya used to glue the plank to the frame, again, working side to side to keep it all symmetrical. Lots of clamps are used to keep the planks aligned along their edge to keep the amount of sanding to a minimum when it comes time to smooth it all up.

And so goes the process. Will post up the results as soon as all the planks are in place.

PAT

Bitchin'...