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[Dan]

Hi all. After finding time to get back into building I thought I'd use my modelling hobby to benefit my other hobby... Fishing. So obviously, I've started building a bait boat. I know I won't be able to give the best description of what I've done, nor is it the best build in the world, but I hope it can help someone that has a go doing the same.
 
I had no plans, just a few freehand sketches I drew one evening, and some 4mm ply. This will be my first complete scratch build.


Templates of the ribs were drawn on paper and transferred onto 4mm ply. These were cut out with notches to allow them to meet the keel (one for each hull) which also had notches for the ribs to allow the parts to fit tightly and snuggly together.


Once the skeleton of the hull was complete I began skinning the hull with 1.5mm balsa. The flat parts of the hull were just sheets of the balsa cut to the correct shape and size, glued using D4 wood glue (mainly because it's strong and waterproof), not forget it's held in place with pins until the glue was dry.


For the bow, I cut the balsa into roughly 8mm strips to allow the balsa to follow the shape of the ribs, again plenty of glue and pins were used after the planks had been steamed to make them softer. A few days after the glue had dried the pins were removed and the edges tidied up.


More to follow...




 

[Martin (Admin)]

Looking good!   

[Dan]

Thanks Martin!


So, once the whole hull was covered with the planks of balsa and panels, out came the filler and sandpaper. I managed to get it to a stage where I'm relatively happy to fiberglass it when the time comes.


Following this, I thought it would be a good time to add the propshafts. As I was aiming to bring these through the keel, these were piloted with a 2mm drill bit followed by the exact size of the shaft. These are held and sealed in place using epoxy putty. If it was a scale model I'd have used something a bit neater but as this is literally a working boat, Im not too concerned with the fine details.


Once the shafts and motor mounts were fixed in place I looked at building the top half of the hulls. I decided to go relatively simple, square shapes (no curves like my sketch) this was just to make it easier to build. I drew up a basic frame to fit inside the existing hull that would then be used to fix the panels to. These too are made using the same balsa as the hull, simply glued at all the joints.
This process took a few days. Whilst doing so, I took some time to draw out my electronic lay out. (Please bare in mind Im no expert) this gave me something solid to follow and stick to without forgetting what I decided to do. It also allowed me to plan the layout in the boat, which meant I could plan where to put different access hatches. There are 4 in total. One on each side for batteries. The front will have access to the electronic junction boxes and switches for the solenoid valves used to drop the hopper. The rear access is for the receiver.

[Dan]

The boat nearly at it current state. Since the photos I've filled and sanded the joints on the top of the hull, ready for fiberglassing.


 I'll talk about the hopper system and propulsion set up in the next post 🙂