Lennoxman & Captains,

After seeing this pic again after a while, it does have me torn between Stained or painted mouldings.

If i paint them, they will be dark blue like the hull.

If i stain them, it will likely be mahogany stain.

What do you think? Paint or stain?

Arg..page turned "edit" here is that pic again.




-Rich.

Hi Rich;
That little sister "woody" is a nice looking craft,but since the "Dauntless" was aluminum I would say that the trim should be painted.Keep up the good work and keep the photos coming. Thank you . Chuck

Thank you, Chuck.

That does make a lot of sense.

Soon enough, once i have a little more noticable progress, i will post more pics. She is coming along though.. [8D]

How are you progressing with Dauntless? I would like to see some pics as well.

Regards,

-Rich.

Lennoxman & Captains,

Would you happen to know where i could get 1/8" triangle styrene strips?

Thank you.

-Rich.

I haven't seen triangle strips before. I checked Evergreen and Plastruct's sites, no luck, sorry.

Lennoxman,

Thank you for looking, i have had no luck either.

-Rich.

Hello everyone, my name is Tom and I have spent the better part of this week reading all 306 posts in the Dauntless unoficial home. I am not in possession of a Dauntless kit at this time, but am inspired to send a thread for each of you. Collectively I want to congratulate you all as you have an unuasually high thread count, you are all exceptional modelers, and you have each chosen a beautifull vessell to share in common. Wich brings me to a few questions. #1 Have any of you considered modelling the Dauntless out of aluminum? (since it apparently was) Or for the other direction, #2 might it be possible to finish your moddels completley in wood without the fiberglass? Wood is beautifull.

Hello Tom;
Welcome aboard! As far as aluminum is concerned super glue and epoxy are a little less technical than TIG welding but you have planted the seed of thought. There is a TIG welder in my boat shop. Dumas kits are supplied with very course grained plywood which is hard to finish. When you cover the wood with Fiber glass and epoxy the grain fills well and the grain color still shows through very well. The glass cloth disappers completely when wetted out with epoxy. When are you going to jump in and join the fun of building?
Chuck

Dear Tom,

This has been a great forum, hopefully, it will continue in the future as Dauntless builder's continue to network with each other.

I have thought about building Dauntless out of aluminum a few times, but one complete Dauntless (in & out) is enough for me. Hopefully, in the future, someone will be inspired and follows through on an aluminum build. Personally, i think it would be an interesting build and hope it is posted here.

When i built Dauntless, there was almost no info online about her. Under the impression she was a wood boat, i did add many wood details to her exterior but still glassed the hull. (The quality of wood provided would not make a good all wood construction anyway.)

Now, knowing that she was aluminum, i have followed suit (AS IF) she were aluminum. There will be a balance of painted and wood details on the interior/exterior to reflect similar S&S vessels built in that era but also keeping in mind her aluminum construction.

-Rich.

Well here is some progress of Dauntless II. I am trying to go for the correct paint scheme. Does anyone know what it was? Seems like all the pics are black and white

The 2 Dauntless boats will look great on the water.

Hi Marty,

***Your Dauntless paint is the closest i have seen so far.

Enclosed is a good reference pic of a 1937 S&S Commuter. This is a perfect match that depicts Dauntless's color and water line.

Dauntless had a navy blue hull, white stripe just at or slightly above the waterline, (for our scale looks 1/8" ) red below the waterline. the cabin sides & windshields are white. Hull deck, cabin tops and bridgeshelter top is a low gloss grey. Also, we have concluded that the outer mouldings were blue as well.

If you look closely at Dauntless's paint scheme, you will notice that the grey paint comes down about 1/8" from the cabins where the mouldings would correctly start.

Hope this helps.

-Rich.

Marty & Dauntless Captains.

If you decide to do mouldings, the cabin mouldings are a little less than 1/8" and should be half round and not square. After looking at a chart of wood strips, i ordered 3/32" half round strips. When i get them in, i will post them as i fit for Dauntless.


I have used my old Dauntless moulding as an example next to a pic of actual Dauntless's moulding. Notice on actual Dauntless, it is slightly lower, smaller and does not protrude much.

Hope this helps.

-Rich.

Thanks for the input Rich! I am going to go with the semi flat black and the red anti fouling paint. I still wonder what the top of the deck looks like???

Hi Marty,

Your paint job is coming out great! Dauntless looks awesome in black!! You are on key with the top decks. As i wrote in my last post, grey paint is slightly present on the side of the cabins, but is separated from white by the moulding. Remembering back when you built Dauntless, Dumas instructed us to add a 1/8" moulding onto the sides of the bridgedeck that went around the perimeter of that area. Looking carefully at the black & white photo, you will see that depth (1/8" ) is grey and continues around the front of the main cabin. It kind of tricks your eye from a distance and makes the top appear more curved. The grey band is easy to spot on the side gate just above the moulding. The same depth seems apparent for the aft cabin. The forward cabin has the same thing going on but seems to be a little less than 1/8".



Keep us posted on your progress!

-Rich

Dear Dauntless Captains,

Here are some pics of the vents i made for Dauntless. I followed Dumas's lead and made them 7/8" X 1 1/4". I used 1/8" wood stips and sanded each strip into a triangle. i fitted it into the frame and glued. Afterwards, i used polyurathane to coat. Once that was complete, i trimmed the frames to make them smaller.

After i completed them, i fitted onto Dauntless to find that Dumas naturally gave us bad measurements. They are not the size of the vents from actual Dauntless. (the folks at Dumas did a poor job at taking measurerments for Dauntless) I will probably remove 1 plank from each frame to make them smaller than 7/8". Once i have them reworked, i will finish cutting into Dauntless side walls and fit. I will also add a thin frame to the vents to cover the cuts to the wall. The vents will be removable in the event of damage. I will also install a water trap for each vent in the event that splash gets into them. On the interior side, there will be a box covering them and holes going into the engine room.

Here are those pics.

-Rich.

Dear Dauntless Captains,

Here are some pics of the cabin to hull fitting process for Dauntless.


-Rich.

Dear Dauntless Captains,

While i was at it, i decided to renew the spray rails for Dauntless. Originally, i used balsa, this time, i replaced with basswood. Last night, i gave the port side a coat of epoxy. When i get a chance, i will lightly sand an give another coat. then off to starboard.

-Rich.

Rich your Dauntless is fast approaching museum quality. Bravo!

On the subject of painting the hull, I'm not happy with my attempts at accurately establishing the water line. Masking the waterline for paint toward the bow was simple. But it starts getting tricky toward the bow as the hull takes a V shape. Short of floating it in a pool and marking it with a pencil, is there a simple, accurate way to know where the waterline should be?

Lennoxman,

Thank you for the kind words.

I agree that the waterline is very tricky on Dauntless. I know that doing it will not go out without a fight. After reading your post, i went home and looked into it.

I looked up Dumas specs on the waterline. It says to come down 4" from the top of the bow and down 3 1/4" off the stern. I used a T-square and a strip of 1/8" scrap taped to the T-square and marked the bow and stern with masking tape. I set up my trusty black & decker laser line about 5' away and created the waterline.

I did not want to take Dumas word for it, so i compared it to various pics i have of Dauntless and it checks out fine. After looking at the waterline and the pics of Dauntless and profile, i concluded that the white line should be exactly at the 4" and 3 1/4" respectively. Below the white line should begin the red paint. The

The laser helps out big time for this job because it is easy for your eye to get confused while following the hull and the laser keeps it true.
I think the laser cost like $10-15 and has helped me out many times during this overhaul.

Enclosed are those pics.

-Rich

Hi Marty,

I see that you were successful with the waterline on Dauntless # 2. Do you have any tips you can share?

Also, are you going to include the white line to your Dauntless now that you are re-painting?

-Rich

well guys...been awhile since i last posted. thanks to all that have piped in here on the Dauntless.... all very awesome boats i must say this however. i recently sold mine although now sticking with the era i now have a a R.A.F crash rescue tender..... i used envirotex to seal it works great. i also used envirotex on my nitro vee... man it just skims the water anyways i hope all are doin well i will post some pics of the current boat when i start getting stuff put in it i am in the midst of finishing it. ie:decks ,floors and such.... the hull however is ready for paint. keep a look out in the thread i have done called Raf Crash rescue tender
Cheers
Andy

Nitro,

Kudos to you for setting off a popular thread on Dauntless! I will tune into your RAF Crash Rescue forum to see your progress.

Best of luck!

-Rich.

Dear Dauntless Captains,

Recently, i got caught up with work deadlines. 12-15 hours a day 7 days a week, so i have not had time to even look at my Dauntless. After Monday, things should go back to normal and will resume work on her. Last time i worked on Dauntless, i removed 1 plank from each vent and reworked the support on them. Checked it out and it looks great! It does not appear too tall anymore. I still have to do minor trimming on them and then re-continue the installation process. The 3/32" strips came in, and as guessed, are an excellent fit for Dauntless. Also, i ordered more mahogany for Dauntless from Rockler.com and it already arrived. (This boat takes a lot of wood!) LOL.

I plan on spending a LOT of time on her in November.

I will keep you all posted.

Does anyone have any progress pics on their Dauntless?

-Rich.

thank you rich for those kind words. yes i did have fun finishing this boat. but she costed alot more then expected. so i had to sell the whole boat and engines that i bought along with all elecs... had to get money to fund the new project. as i siad i am glad to see so many are into the dauntless. i will be in periodicly checkin progress on them. keep up the great work guys... if possible send me some pics so i may put them on my website

Be sure to check it out...on E-bay...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MESE:IT&ih=017