Rudder and hull material help
 

I am in the process of building a 36x14 25cc leafblower powered airboat and i need some ideas on how to set up my rudders and what material i should wrap my hull in.

here are some pics of the hull(unwrapped )and motor.

I apollogize for the quality my camera is a bit out-dated.:D

RE: Rudder and hull material help
 

is that built out of 2x4's?

some light ply would work.

but there is some plastic out there some other guys use that works well.
ask crispyspa

RE: Rudder and hull material help
 

nope, lol its made out of 1 1/2 pine trim board i scored from my dad and sprayed it down with thompsons water seal, thanks for the help!

RE: Rudder and hull material help
 

Are you gonna' pull the leaf blower apart and mount a prop to it? Or are you going to mount the leaf blower right on the hull? If you do the latter...I don't think the hull will have enough displacement to float the engine and blower housing.

You could wrap the hull with fiberglass cloth and polyester resin. The stuff really stinks, but they build large boats from it and the quantity required for your boat will be fairly cheap too.

There are lots of ways to mount rudders [link=http://rcairboats.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=880&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start =60]here[/link] is how I usually do mine, but you can use small hinges....depends on your creativity and budget.

RE: Rudder and hull material help
 

I really wanted to try the whole blower but you make a very valid point. how would i go about making a motor mount and where onto the engine should it bolt in?? would aluminum sheet metal work for my hull? If i think correctly it might cause radio interference but not sure.

RE: Rudder and hull material help
 

couple of Ideas if you want to keep the whole blower...
Make a foam hull about 4' long by about 2' wide....Kind of a mock-up. place it in the water with the leaf blower on it. If it floats pretty good, you could then coat the foam with epoxy resin (poly resin will melt foam) and mount the leaf blower. make a crude mount for the rudder and mount your radio gear to see how it does. My recon is that it wont move on land, but should go fairly decent in the water.

Aluminum hulls have been done, but special attention has to be paid to making the joints vibration resistant. An AM Radio will be the most susceptible to metal on metal vibration, FM would be better, 2.4 Ghz would be the best.

If you are looking to actually convert the engine to a prop, there are prop adapters available on-line for specific engines and there are people who will custom make them too.

It takes some thinking to make an airboat from stuff laying around the house...but I'll tell you, it CAN be done! That's how I built my first couple of boats. Don't give up.

Keep us posted and keep asking questions.

RE: Rudder and hull material help
 

yeah, ive got alot of time and math invested in my hull, im going to go the prop route. I just emailed wackerengines to see if any of there prop adapters will fit my 25cc crafstman, if he cant find one do you guys have any ideas????

RE: Rudder and hull material help
 

i got an email back from cj hass @ wacker engines and this is what he said: "If it is the long shaft type, the shaft must be measured from the crankcase to the end of the shaft including the threads on the end. (need the thread size as well) If it is the short shaft type, I have to know the length of the shaft plus the thread size. The cost is $20"

how do i know if i have a longshaft or short shaft??? anyways here are some pictures of my motor

RE: Rudder and hull material help
 

i got my engine ready for the prop adapter which will be here in 2 days and got part of my motor mount done( the front posts. right now i have a screwdriver holding up the rear of the engine for mock purposes only.

RE: Rudder and hull material help
 

Excellent, looks like progress to me.:D