vbboater

First off, a brief introduction, I am a Va Beach Local born and raised, have grown up on, in, and around the water. I have a great interest in "cool toys" and hobbies in general, but finally caved in to my desire to dive head first into RC boat building, and all that comes with..... Having researched heavily, and reading a great deal of the posts here on RCU, I began building a monohull from available plans linked on this site. Admittedly my carpentry skills are quite poor but so far so good... lots of wasted wood, and trial and error, but the resemblance of a boat is emerging... so... for the good stuff..... the threads by one member here whom teaches a class and placed a great detailed thread on fiberglass molds etc,.. REALLY got my attention.. I began my search for a hull that was attractive to me .. deep v, mono, big american muscle boats,.. much like the old cigarette boats and iconic Donzi vessels I so admired growing up... low and behold... I run across a craigslist ad where somebody was selling a "EZ Loader boat and trailer model" which appeared to be a perfectly sized 42"-48" Scarab/Donzi style vessel and scale EZ Loader trailer. I decided to go see it and found it to be a very attractive, true, strait, hull, that aside from a sealed deck, would be PERFECT to either reinforce internally, with rails and glassing, or clean up and use as plug for a fiberglass mold. I guess my concern is the possibility that a collector value would exceed the purpose that I intend to use it for... I did open up the hull by removing the deck,.. it is merely plastic throughout, so to re-purpose the hull for compatibility with a 26cc gas engine it will need quite a bit of structural strengthening throughout the entire vessel. So my question for you veterans is,.... do I strengthen the hull and simply use it for the powered vessel? or do I strengthen with a filler to maintain shape and use for a plug to glass my own hulls from? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Ron Olson

My Feedback: (1)

I've seen some of this kind of boat at a local boat dealership but nothing quite that large though. The place where they has some were only made to look good on the outside but were a mess on the inside. You probably could pop a mold off the hull. Open up the cockpit and the engine would sit right there. The bigger problem would lie as getting access to the radio box as the rear deck would have to be made removable. If you can make a mold of that and make the fiberglass hull the rest wouldn't be that bad in comparison.

kwikwitzKC

2nd...will the plastic this thing is made of hold up to the chemicals and heat of fiberglass?? if so be wary not to trap your mold...

good luck KC