Hi I'm new to the forum and to model boats also.
As a child we had this model boat that we would take to the boating lake, set the rudder to a mild turn and pray it came back. It had been made years before by my grandfathers mate and given to my mum.
for many years i have been harassing my mum and dad for the boat as it has not seen daylight since i was about 8 years old but they wouldn't let me have it but out of the blue my mum offered it to me one visit to there home.
i dint think i can type my exact words when i saw the state of it but I'm sure you get the idea, take a look at this!
so after a good clean i decided it needed a lot of work.
I spent days and days searching the net before i found out what this model was meant to be. I found a pic of fairey swordsman, found the fairey owners club and realised its meant to be a huntsman 28!
The bloke who built it has made a few adjustments of his own which I'm putting right like the windscreen and side windows are totally different so i have cut the side windows off inline with the rest of the side, the windscreen has been totally stripped away inc all the bodged surround he made. The roof was uneven and covered in a rough artex type coating and was almost spikey! this has been sanded smooth and had remaining pitting filled. ripped off the air vents on the roof, errm they are meant to be on a old ship not a power cruiser lol.
The general finish to the paintwork was awful, everything was hand painted and had brush marks in it and the hull bottom was full of lumps, bubbles and grit. the whole boat has been sanded with the exception of the deck, i am going to leave it as it is.
the rudder was missing, i found it in two halves inside the boat, i have drilled a larger hole, made a fiberglass mount and installed a new one.The propshaft was handmade and warped and the tube was worn, had no bushes and was generally useless, i have ripped that out and waiting on a new one to arrive in the post. Ive filled many many cracks dents and general imperfections all over the boat made a new fibergass surround for the front screen.
here are pics of the boat in progress-
the roof with its lovely coating of spikes! the corner with the crack fell off and got re molded with filler
after rubbing it down and filling, the odd bit need a final fill still.
The cabin sides after sanding all the varnish off.
windscreen totally gone along with any associated fixings, also the funnels removed and fiberglass behind holes ready for filling
The new fiberglass windscreen surround was very time consuming as it has to be molded in about 10 stages to create the right size and curve, it has a 1mm gap all the way round to seat the front of the screen for support, the screen is going to be a one piece job from side window to side window in 0.8mm clear plastic. you can also see how i have cut the old wooden side screen surround away inline with the rest ready to take the correct screen.
The awfull brushmarks that haunted the whole boat.
Hull bottom before sanding, the white specks are bits of grit or similar that must have got into the paint when it was wet. cant understand why he went to so much effort to build this and then left it with paint like this!
new rudder hole gets a fiberglass surround, the drill bit is just there to mold the right size hole in the resin, the main hole was already drilled.
fiberglass sanded into shape and new rudder fitted.
Well, thats my progress so far.
I have a new propshaft and tube on order and have filler primer waiting to coat this when its ready. the roof is going to be white, the cabin side will be very dark blue or black and the hull is going to be white all over.
I really want this boat to fly like some of the other huntsman models i have seen on here but due to being unable to work and living on benefits i have serious money restrictions so please don't laugh at the following, i have a futaba 27MHz receiver I'm going to fit with a kyosho manual yes "manual" speed controller! and acoms as-5s servos to controll rudder and speed controller. as for the motor to power the prop, i have a couple of motors but think the best i have is a new rs540sh taken from my sons tamiya as we upgraded his motor when we built his RC car. I have a watercooled O.S 40 nitro boat engine with good compression but I'm nervous about fitting it to this boat as A they make a mess. B they cannot reverse. C they can stall and D i need to get a part for the carb or a new carb before i can use it.
I'm still not decided on RC car packs or gel cells for power.
not having any money to spend on this project is a killer but at least the biggest part is hard work and love for it and the money side is only to make it go.
So, what do you all think? Ive renovated all sorts of tired objects before but never a boat and really looking forward to playing with it.
Thanks for reading, Steve.