The Shipyard ( Dry Dock ): Builds & Questions > Working Vessels
Graupner Seabex One
nmbrook:
Hi All
I am returning to modelling proper after probably about a 3 year break due to work demands.Basically I have actually got a reasonable amount of freetime back.I have a log on my Fairmount Alpine,but that is staying on the shelf for now as I address a much more long standing mothballed project.
I bought the Seabex kit and drives etc as the last available one in the country not long after discontinuation by Graupner.Shortly followed by the F14 Navy gear with double twin sticks,two expansion models with decoders and a boatload of relay and polarity reversing models.Needless to say the bill was quite substantial for everything.
I got part way through the build and was less than impressed by the quality/design of the kit.The extensive vac formings lacked detail and crispness and numerous areas of the model was quite simplistic.
The model sat in storage until a couple of years ago when I took a fresh look.I hadn't had a lot of freetime,but when I wasn't planning the way forward,I have managed to produce a mould using the reworked hull of the kit and a new hull using Epoxy and woven cloth.I have also looked at the Marx schottles and replaced the plain bearings with stainless ballraces.I have removed the notoriously noisy gear reduction and converted to a tooth belt system.The Graupner 600 BB turbo motors I bought with the kit are to be replaced with brushless items I have bought for the project.These weigh a fraction of the BBs,factoring the saved weight can be used elsewhere.
So I start the log,not quite from the beginning,but to be honest my posts would have been far too sporadic over the last 2 years to warrant a log.
I will start by adding pics of where I am at now at the weekend and take it from there.
Kind Regards
Nigel
Tafelspitz:
Hey Nigel,
I once built a Seabex 1 back in the late 80s when I was about 17, so I will follow your blog with interest to get a blast from the past :-)
Dom
nmbrook:
Hi Dom
Any pictures,or is your build just confined to memory?.I could probably start a retro section.I have the rereleased Krick Romarin Happy Hunter and just recently obtained an unbuilt Hegi Oceanic {-) .
To be honest,the only kit parts left on Seabex will probably be the lifeboats,fire monitors and a few moulded fittings,the rest is scratch.As you will see in the pics,the superstructure is 75% built from 1/32nd plywood,all windows cut out on my Proxxon miller with enlarged table.Even the diecutting on the original plastic parts was very poor and all over the place for the windows.
I have developed a fully articulated motorised 1/75 knuckle boom crane based on a 150T Hydramarine original.This is similar to the one on Seaway Osprey,the modernised version of Seabex's sister ship Seacom.This is not true to the original,but I feel will create much more of an impact in operation then that of the original crane.I have given up the notion of trying to make an exact replica.I have just about every photo of Seabex from the net and none of them are clear when enlarged as they are from the predigital age.
I could of stretched and widened the hull when producing the master to make what is now the Kreuz Installer,the latest incarnation of Seabex,but to me the current version just looks like a cobbled together afterthought,which it actually is in a way.
Kind Regards
Nigel
timgarrod:
looking forward to seeing the photos,
This is one boat i've alway want to build.
Tafelspitz:
--- Quote from: nmbrook on July 17, 2018, 04:39:28 pm ---Any pictures,or is your build just confined to memory?
--- End quote ---
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, and she's long gone. Only some faint and fond memories left. After she was left and forgotten in the garage for the better part of a decade, I eventually gave her away to some dude who intended to give her a fixer upper. I have no idea what happened to her.
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