chief3452

Hi, just wanted to introduce myself to the forum and let you all see what I am currently building. It is a vintage H-Class (7-litre) hydro in 1/5th scale. I drew up the plans myself using design elements from fullsize Lauterbach, Lloyd and Farmer hulls. The length is 45" with a 22" beam. My target weight is 18 lbs. and it will be powered by a 26cc Zenoah. I will post more pics as the build progresses, it's just getting to the fun part. Let me know what you think, comments and suggestions welcome.

BMAD01

Welcome to RCU Chief! The boat looks great! Until I started a wood boat myself, I never realised the amount of time involved in putting one together. Yours is from scratch! KUDOS!! Keep us posted on your progress! Brian

martno1fan

welcome chief the boat looks great,do you have the plans available in pdf for us woody freaks lol.

stuarth

If you dishing out plans......please put me on the list!

also a woody freak!
LOL!

TERBObob

My Feedback: (21)

GREAT looking build ! ! !
And ditto here ... if you wouldn't mind ... I , too , would love to have a set of those plans as well.
Keep us updated on the build and progess .

Pushrod02

My Feedback: (16)

Like others have said. “Welcome to RCU�, home of the addicted. What are you using to skin the hull with? The pictures kind of look like burch ply but it’s hard to tell. More info please.

chief3452

The skin will be 1/8" plywood a friend of mine gave me. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I will get a picture posted later today. It has really distinct grain that I think will look really sharp. As for the plans, I don't have Adobe Writer (only the free version of reader) so formatting to PDF is not likely. If there is another option let me know and I will see if I can copy to that. I need to mockup the engine and driveline next so I can see how the carb and exhaust header will fit under the deck. It should be interesting...10lbs of $+!t in a 5lb bag, lol. I've never rigged a gas engine throttle, only nitro stuff. Does anyone have a preferred method? Are cables the hot setup or do folks use pushrods? Thanks for your interest everyone, I'll post more pics as the build progresses.

TERBObob

My Feedback: (21)

pushrods

martno1fan

cable less vibration and easier in my opinion

Joe Petro

My Feedback: (1)

Nice job Chief!
Really quite a job!

Looks like our Rockett kit.


Joe Petro

Hydro Junkie

I would recommend using 1/16th ply for the skin. With some of the curves, there is little chance of getting the 1/8th ply to bend enough to work

chief3452

Nice looking hull Joe. I didn't know about it before I started my build. I like the dropped sponson unlimiteds, if the cowl was shaped a little different it could be made into a few different limited hulls too. How much is the kit? How big is it?

chief3452

Thanks for the advice Hydro Junkie. The only reason I am not going with 1/16 ply is that I really wanted a nice grain on the decks. This ply I have is going to be really sharp, if I can keep from messing it up, lol. If you look at the pictures close I think you'll find that the curve of the deck for and aft is pretty subtle. The side to side slope is almost nothing, so the compound curve bending is not too severe. Who knows, I may eat my words when the time comes to glue them down. I will pay the price in weight too, but I just like to sport run anyway, let's hope she doesn't plow like a tug, lol.

martno1fan

chief the 1/8 ply if you can bend it wont hurt weight wise in fact it might be a blessing you dont want the boat too lite .id maybe use 1/16 ply for the hull and 1/8 for the deck only .

thevirginian

chief;
I really admire your boat. I am in the process of building one myself. Mine will be a hyrid between a Hydro scale and a Hydro sport class. Same dimensions though. I am still working on my plans. Once doen I will start a thread myself and post the plans in PDF. I will follow your progess with great intrest. So please post a lot of pictures, if you don't mind. I hope to stay below your expected weight, if possible.

OLD_SLOW and in the WAY

[link=http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=Visible+V8+engine+kit&category0=]Here is your engine kit[/link]

[link=http://carnut.com/specs/fengdim.html]This link leads to drawings for making scale engines[/link]

nice boat you have goin there

chief3452

Thanks for input martno1fan. I did use 1/16th for the sides, actually. The bottom skin is 1/8 so with the top decks 1/8 it should be pretty rigid. Here are a couple of pics of the deck pieces I am going to use. If you need any help virginian let me know, I don't have anything in PDF but I have the bulkhead patterns and some other dimensions that might be of help. I'd like to see some scans of your drawings or pics if you have any. I plan on applying the skins on the sponson tops and mocking up the Zenoah this weekend.

thevirginian

Chief,
Thanks for offering your help. But mine is not a shovelnose. Mine is more a Miss Budweiser type Hydro. I will post my plans in PDF once finished. I still have plenty to draw, though.

chief3452

Well I finally got around to doing some work on the hull again today. After alot of thought I decided I was going to conceal the engine come hell or high water, lol. After some more head scratching and mental gymnastics I figured out how I could lower the engine in the hull. I have seen engine wells on many 1/8th scale hydros before so I decided to go that route. When finished my engine will be a 1/2" lower than had I just clearanced the engine bay walls for the carb and header. The carb would have been above deck and I would have had to make some kind of shroud for it, not very scale looking. Tomorrow I plan on adding the belly pan.

Mr.Freeze

Chief, great looking build. Have you wieghed your hull yet? The only reason I ask is it's real easy to pack on the pounds when building a woody, ask me how I know[X(]. Keep the pics coming, looks awsome.
Mr.Freeze

chief3452

My target weight will be 18 lbs or less. I haven't weighed the hull yet, but I am going to see about buying one of those cheap digital scales at Harbor Freight and seeing where I am at after I put down the decks. I'll ask, how did you pack on the pounds? My hope is that some extra heft will keep the hull from getting too flighty at speed. But I am way ahead of the game here, lol....Let's hope I have to worry about keeping it from blowing over and not about why it plows like a barge.

chief3452

Well this is what I got done today. After I cut out the hole for the engine well I made the front, sides, and back of the well by cutting the center out of a square piece of 1/4 ply. I sheeted it with 1/8th ply but the glue isn't dry so I don't have a pic of that yet.

chief3452

The weekend is over and I only accomplished 1 of the 2 things I set out to do. The engine is mounted, and the pipe is mocked up, but I didn't get the sponson decks glued down, oh well...Maybe next weekend. I did discover a really slick way to drill holes in engine stringers though. I was reading on another post about different techniques and tools people used to drill holes sideways inside of the hull. I have a Craftsman 19V angle drill but it turns out the head is too large to fit between 5 or even 6 inch stringers once you put a bit in it. So I got out my trusty $15 angle die grinder with a pointed burr in it and went to town. MMMM, the smell of burning wood, hahhaha. After I made it through all I had to do was enlarge the hole with another burr to fit the 1/4-20 blindnut. The coolest thing is with the pointed burr you can pinpoint your hole location and there is no wandering or move off center like drill bits can do. Anyway, with my exhaust roughed in, my tuned pipe length ended up at 16" measured from the ex. flange. I think that might be a tad long, anyone have any input on pipe length?

STEVE MARSHALL

Coming along great Chief. I also use my 90deg die grinder for drilling holes, I have got a 3mm collet and a 6mm collet, I just cut down the drill bit to 15 mm or so resharpen it and it gets in anyware. Keep the updates coming.
Steve

dwr9

A Dremel with a right angle attachment and a 1/4" Dremel router bit works perfect. Doug