Haven't built anything for a while due to lack of space (too many models) but the urge to build something was too great. After looking at many options, I decided to go with something 'easy' to build. I found some full size plans for an Australian MkI Moth which I'm building to a MKII (double chine) style. I'm building in foam and glass again to make things easier. It's 850mm long and 310 wide which is roughly 1/4 scale (original is 11 ft) Started by converting all the lofting measurements on the redrawn 1953 plan to metric and dividing them by 4 to get the scale. Next was creating the ply deck, then contact gluing onto it a piece of dense 50mm building polystyrene. This was then shaped with a surform file and the chines shaped afterwards using eyeometry. Then the 10mm deck foam was glued on so the deck sheer could be shaped. Next the cockpit foam was routered out, and basswood sides and inner transom piece epoxied in. After that, the ply outer transom piece and hardwood nose block was epoxied on. The centerboard case upper and lower ply braces were routered out (using the mill and a 1/2" slotting bit) large enough to accept the case sides, leaving enough room for the 6mm aluminium keel (can't use a centerboard for obvious reasons) which will have to have a bulb fitted. A rebate in the bottom of the hull was routered out for the lower c/board brace. These braces are needed to form part of a box structure with the floor and cockpit sides which the c/board can lever on. Once everything is eventually glassed in, it will make it very strong unit, so the foam will just be the shape surrounding the box, and not having any strain put on it. The ply deck will take the strain of the stays/mast. The cockpit floor was cut, and will be slotted the same as the braces, then the c/board case will be built. The mast on this is 1.486m tall, - sail is -luff -11.295, foot 609mm, so quite large for a small boat. The full sized boat is a lot of fun to sail, so this model will be interesting to sail. Unfortunately, without the human input required, and being a performance boat, it may assume the attributes of a submarine in a stiff breeze, - time and testing will tell. The basic mast was made from 12mm ally tube, boom from 10mm. Sail pattern was cut from art card to the plan. All laid out on the floor to get an idea of what it will look like. PDF is the history of the Moth. There were a number of versions round the world as it went along,- scow, international moth (dinghy type) and todays high speed foiling moth. Lots more to do yet JB 2025 world champs, off the Whangaparaoa peninsula, just up from where I live. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuLhJ-yRLmc https://australianclassicdinghynetwork.org/moth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWkd2e8apSI https://www.moth.asn.au/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAifFN0RJ0M

Hello all! Before my two week sojourn out to California starting tomorrow... Here she is, all 31 inches and 4.8 pounds of 3D printed 1/10th scale madness. And the questions are starting arise after more than a few hours spent in research. How to get her to plane even close to scale? 1) EDF? Probably not, actually I don't think even a 90mm fan, (which will, in fact, push a faomy jet) will ever get this boat to plane. 2) Prop? Maybe with dual 6s and a killer motor, monster cooling etc. But, nowhere near scale with a big prop hanging out the back. 3) Turbine? probably yes, but way out of my league in mechanicals and $$. There will be tons of head-scratching my quickly balding head on this experiment. This is going to go on the shelf for the long haul as my freighter needs finishing and the big Sterling Chris Craft Corvette is screaming at me. But, off to Cali for now...I will drop some pix from time to time of our travels. Best to all!

Has anybody built this recently? Just got the plans so any advice/help will be much appreciated. At 86 it's years since I built a model!!

This is a classic wave master it was built in the fifty's a nd a internet buy I have stripped out the rc engine and its tanks now on the research stage there are a few issues rear end smack thats had a poor repair done and the spray rails do not fit well of its history I know nothing

Well, I was right, the Jolly Red Guy did give me a model boat for Christmas. Got something to do on a cold winter day—a plastic Vosper MTB77. The hull is a single piece, and I will need to add the motors and rudders for R/C capability. Any suggestions will be helpful.

The VMW Marlin Cabin Cruiser by Robbob Preface. At the time of writing, I’ve had the construction of this boat on ‘the back burner’ since July 2022. By then I had spent about two months on and off constructing the boat to a stage where I could consider applying a glassfibre cloth and epoxy finish to the hull. However I couldn’t spend any more time on the Marlin project as I had a more important project to undertake, which was to paint, decorate, refurbish and prepare our house for sale so that we could downsize and move to a new area now that our kids had all fled the nest. Fast forward to today (mid-April 2025) and it’s taken a while to get the new house and gardens into shape and settle in, with the emphasis on converting my internal garage into a great new workshop, I can finally pick up from where I left off. Introduction to the kit. This new model is the latest undertaking by Vintage Model Works, now famous for their very popular models of the RAF Crash Rescue Tender and Thames River Police Boat kits which are based on old Aerokits and Veron designs. The Marlin is a re-working of an original Veron design by the late Phil Smith in 1953. His son Colin Smith, who was also responsible for the re-design of the Thames River Police Boat, has made some changes to his father’s design to take advantage of more modern materials and production methods such as CNC and laser cutting. The photograph below is of a prototype built by Colin Smith to give you an idea of how the boat looks in finished form. And there is also a review of the Marlin that appeared in Model Maker magazine, November 1953. The size remains at 36” and it employs the same construction method as the original. The spacious cabins of the boat makes it very easy to accommodate all the latest control hardware required, not that the original was lacking in that area even when the radio systems used valves and large batteries and the propulsion was usually IC or a large electric motor. Even the pre-production sample the Vintage Model Works kit supplied to me is well presented with a full size drawing including a pictorial construction sequence and separate pages of building instructions. All the required materials are supplied in quality ply, balsa, strip-wood and dowel including clear plastic sheets for the windscreens, and various white metal deck fittings. The builder is of course required to supply their own adhesives and paint of choice, as well as the propulsion, drive train and radio control gear. In the latter respect I will likely restrict control to throttle and rudder and not add any lighting or other features. That has already been done magnificently by Mike Turpin. Construction. As with the Thames river police boat, another Veron design, construction starts with the assembly of a box structure onto which formers and bulkheads are attached to make the basic hull shape. I will be tackling this in the first part of my build blog which I hope you will enjoy following and I encourage you to ask questions, leave comments and hopefully some ‘likes’ as I make progress. Robbob.

Hi y’all..it’s been a minuet since I’ve been on here. Getting ready for Christmas, the annual NTMS Christmas party, work, etc. I haven’t been at my bench for a few weeks, so I decided to drag a simple kit out of my stash and build it up…the Graupner Pollux. This kit has been gone thru, some of the vac formed parts have been cut out but not finished, but it’s very buildable. First thing I had to do is build a stand. I pulled my trusty Ryobi scroll saw out from its hiding spot under the bench, got it set up, then the blade broke…and I couldn’t remember where I put my spare blades. So I built the stand up using plasticard for the uprights which I reinforced with 1/8 in ply strip, and used dowels to connect them together. I then looked at the kit and plans. I did not have anything similar to the Speed 180 gearbox called for, so after I trimmed and sanded the hull I made up a motor mount for a 28mm outrunner. The motor I’m using is a little hotter than I would like, it’s 750KV, which is not a “hot” motor in any stretch but is a little hotter than I would have liked…but it’s in my stock, so I used it. The shaft was missing from the kit, so I had an 1/8 in I.D Dumas tube and shaft that I cut down to suit. I have a few 3 blade props in the right size for this boat, they’re set up for a drive dog or pin style shaft. They are made for a 3 mm shaft, so it was easy to clean out with a 3.2 (1/8) drill bit to fit my chosen hardware. I also am using a rudder from my parts stock, which I started to mount in the original location, didn’t like that so I moved it aft a bit to give a little more clearance for prop installation. The original hole is filled from the inside by the rudder tube support, the rest of the fill will be done later. After I got every thing ready I checked fit and alignment then glued every down. I then built up a servo mount and did a Buick install and test on the linkage, after that I glued down a battery floor. That’s where’s she’s at now, I’m going to get the ESC and receiver mounted using Velcro, and once I’m statisfied that I can access them via the hatch I’ll start on the deck. Cash

I mentioned in the Vic Smeed Vivacity forum I would do a few smaller builds while chugging through the Vivacity project; the first of these I have started (while waiting on certain components/materials for Vivacity), based on Glynn Guest's Knocker White tugboat plan from his book 'Small Radio Control Boats'. The Driving force behind choosing this particular design was the fact I had just filled my Backyard Model Boating Pond for the first time and sailed a couple of small free-running boats in it. I had already made Arcady and Bredette many years ago when they were first issued as free plans in Model Boats, so Knocker White was the next project from the book with the necessary compact dimensions to sail happily on my pond, the first of (hopefully) several small such boat projects. Here are the first stages of the build shown in the photos; 1) Paper template traced/assembled from the book - a little 'guestimation' was required as the plan was over two pages that didn't quite align... 2)Carcass pieces (deck, bottom, bulkheads, stem) marked out on 1/4" sheet 3)Carcass pieces cut out 4 & 5) carcass glued together, care taken to get as square as possible - note extra piece placed in stern to support rudder tube, making stern slightly deeper than original 6)Power train/RC components; Specktrum 410 RX, Ali Express 20A esc, RS 280 motor (was eventually replaced with an RS260 type when I clumsily broke off one of the contacts while trying to fit the battery), 100mm prop shaft/tube assembly with 25mm 3-blade prop. 7)Power train set up & tested on the bench to ensure everything worked 8)Prop tube skeg/support added 9)Prop tube epoxied in place, sandwiched between skeg support and lower skeg piece. 10)6mm ply motor mount glued into position after checking alignment. More pics and comments to follow soon, Best regards to all following this, Nick

Finally tired of using my launcher (PVC pipe and fittings) and had SSMBC member build me a special one. (He has made a bunch of his version.) I am taller than him and have some back issues so I got one about 5 inches taller. The photo here shows it as I got it today at the meet. Need to prep and paint and add padding. It is made using 1/2 and 3/4" EMT steel and can handle at least 80 pounds. Lew Florida , USA

The Northern Bay lobster and sport fishing boats are built in Qgunquit, Maine. Known as Down East boats they are semi-displacement hulls. They are very good sea boats stable in heavy seas. Compared to semi-vee hulls common to many other sport fisherman boats in the U.S. the Down East hulls tend to be wet boats. As with everything else, boat design is always a compromise. 1&2 The inspiration 3&4 Beginning steps

Kit Build bought from Krick. Formerly a Robbe Kit but now known as Romarin by Krick. 72cm length with a 600 motor ( eventually!)

This will be my first boat build at this scale, so who knows how it will turn out. I got a set of Vic Smeed's plans from Sarik Hobbies along with their wood packs for the model - I thought having some laser cut parts might be helpful. I grew up in Alness, so if the build goes well I'll probably paint it as 2757 which was based at 1100 MCU Alness/Invergordon in the late 1950's to early 1960's.