And what if I want to tow the boats to shore?

banckert_1.jpg (18763 bytes)And this is my kid's boat, the Banckert

I took my kid to the lake with me a couple of times. He looked interested on the toys that the father runs, but he doesn't have the skill to drive that kind of boats. They are too fast for a little kid. At the end of the session he was really fed up to see the father "play" and just wanted to go home as soon as possible.

I showed him a couple of pages on the Internet with scale boats (tugs, yachts etc) and told him that he could have a toy like that. His eyes glowed with joy. At last his own boat. I chose this one because of the refined look and duration of the runs. The estimated time for a 6V 10A battery is 40 minutes run time! Compared to what we get with our race boats it's like an eternity.

This boat is intended for the advanced modeler and I think that I'll have no trouble building it. After all I used to make 1/72 scale airplanes with lots of detail and painted with airbrush.

The best part of it all is the fact that now I'll have the perfect retriever... The kid will play till he's tired and the boat function will be used for helping us (the big boys) retrieve the boats. I'll post a couple of pictures of the several construction stages and first run.

These are the hull dimensions

Scale Length Width
1:50 650 mm 160 mm

Beware of all the implications of building a ship like this. I'm usually not afraid of building complex models, but this one depends almost entirely on you. If you build right and have attention to detail, the final result can be wonderful. If you are not so good building (for gaining experience one needs to make some mistakes) you probably should go to a simpler boat.

Building

The dual rudder system and Kort nozzle already in place. Each rudder consists of two balsa pieces glued together and sanded to an airfoil section.

Plenty of space inside you may think. However, put two 6 cell packs, one speed controller, one servo, a radio battery pack and the sound system with a 65 mm loudspeaker and space will seem small.

coupler1.jpg (9566 bytes)The motor coupler is an exceptional piece of work in which you can have shafts with different diameters. Just plug in the adequate adapter for your shaft and you're done! Again, Model Dockyard supplied this item.

 

  

A general view of the superstructure, radar and antennas. You can't imagine the quantity of pieces of wood I had to cut and sand to achieve this stage!

Another view of the superstructure. You can see the captain figure I bought from Model Dockyard (Caldercraft) along with the boy sitting in the back and the sailor on the first picture. The curved balsa in the front was not in the kit. Billings suggested (and included) 1mm plastic for this part of the work. Too hard to bend and I just replaced it with 1 mm balsa.

  

Everyday I spend about 2 or 3 hours cutting little pieces of wood, bending brass wire, sealing wood for painting and the superstructure is not yet complete. My estimate is about 4 or 5 weeks from the box to the water with this amount of time spent.

This is very different from any other boat that I have. I'm not just building for efficiency, I'm building with attention to the final look and scale detail.

I even bought 3 Caldercraft figures (captain, sailor and a kid) to add to the boat's scale appearance. The pictures are under way.

Where can you get all the fittings and accessories your imagination will need? Try the Model Dockyard  site. They have a wonderful on line catalog (that you can download) and the site is very well organized.

 

Review

Now I know what the catalog meant (Advanced Builder...). The hull is ABS and the kit is very complete. All the wood and fittings are included. I also got a Robbe multi cylinder diesel engine sound unit, an HITEC reverse speed controller and the motor. I just forgot one thing - the motor coupler!

As I said all the wood is there. but... It is not precut and you need to cut it all. The parts are printed on the wood so not everything is bad. This is a builders boat, and the difference between an ugly final product and a good looking boat depends on you. The picture you see shows a good looking tug scanned from the kit box. If you look closer at the box you should see that is not very well built.

There is a small book that shows where the parts go (it lacks detail and all views are isometric with one side hidden...), a plan with a side view from the left and a small booklet with building tips. With some experience one can do a boat like this. If you don't have that experience this is probably not the ideal boat for you.

Balsa and wood construction skills are needed for the superstructure. Some of the parts are plastic that you need to cut from a sheet. I found that I could easily replace that plastic (1 mm) with balsa with better results. The plastic parts are for using in those places you have to make curves and with that plastic the only curves you can do are very far from those needed. Just use 1mm balsa cut along the grain wet it a little bit and apply CA. Perfect result.

There are a couple of things you should do for a good final result :

1. Check if all the parts fit perfectly before gluing. There's a lot of adjustment in a boat where you need to cut all the parts.
2. The wood is sealed and smooth before applying the paint. Use a balsa sealant or just plain laminating epoxy thinned with alcohol. Brush all the wood. Let it dry and then sand with fine grit paper. Stop at grit 400 or it will be smoother than the original boat even at 1:50 scale.
3. Before applying the clear plastic on the windows its better to have the structure painted (I really hate to see paint over the plastic window...)

Specs

Motor J. Perkins 440 7.2V
Speed Control Hitec 610 with Reverse 10Amp max.
Propeller Stock
Receiver Multiplex Delta Star 2
Steering Multiplex MS12
Radio pack Panasonic 800mAh (home made)
Motor pack Two Sanyo 1.5A 6 cells (in parallel)

 

Related Information

Billing Boats
Hitec
Multiplex
Model Dockyard

 

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