O.K. Today I drove 115 miles to south Florida, went to RC Hobbies, came back with a Dumas 36" Runabout kit, as I wanted to see a build on this boat, but could not find one, I will start one now. The first thing I wanted to do was upgrade the stuffing tube, but the one that came with the kit had bearings, an oil tube, and was made for a 3/16" shaft, all those were things I wanted, but did not think would come with the kit, so my first impression was a good one. The wood also looked good, I have built two Dumas Trojans, two Dumas PT boats, 33" and 48", three Dumas Shelly Fosses, two Dumas Crocketts, one Dumas Triple, one Dumas Cobra, One Dumas Tuna Clipper, two total scratch builds, just from paper plans, and one Billings African Queen. I will try to keep everyone posted.

I built one of these Dumasrunabouts 15 years ago and it is still my favorite boat. I have several boats and I would part with all of them but this one. They run great and look good on the water underway. There's no end to the accessories and mods you can add to this boat thats not in the plans. My favorite, the 2 transom exhaust fittings. I drilled them out, I have a 4 volt water pump that cools my motor and exits through these transom fittings. Even sitting still it has water exiting these, it lookslike a real boat. No matter where you run it,people will comment on it. Its a good build to do. Thomas

Heres a few more, if they go threw, remember, the slopper the table, the better the boat?

Having a few issues with down loading pictures, these will do for now.

I ran into an issue with the plank strips not matching on the sides, because of the close converging angles when I was off by only 1/32nd of an inch the strips did not match up on the ends, so I took the plank off and replaced it with one slightly larger, it is hard to see and corrected the problem.

Five coats of Z-poxy and then one coat of minwax indoor/outdoor spar urethane.

The first frame on the last section shows the boat with the fifth coat of Z-poxy, after that is with the polyurethan, it is not as shiny, but I like it better.

This is really a nice looking boat and build. I love the finish on the hull . . . nice.

I have to make a decision on the hull finish. I am going to sand the entire boat, tape off the bottom, and paint he bottom red, then sand the red part, put the chrome front and rear strips on, seal them and the entire boat with either satin that I have on now, or semigloss urethan, I belive/think? the real boat was more shiny than the satin I have on there now, but not as shiny as the epoxy finishes, I am going to try and find some boats to compare.

The white boot stripe makes it look nice, 3/16" white car pin stripe, had to special order that width, they had 1/8 and 1/4" not 3/16" $8.24, but it makes it look good.

Yes, definitely looking SHARP! I like that white pinstripe also, it really sets it off. The finish on the mahogany is terrific. You've got my watering at the mouth to get one of these.

Bob

I belive they are the easiest of the mahogany Dumas boats to build, but it still has some difficult issues. the side looks milky in some of the pictures I think its the glare.

I just went through the published pictures just to compare them for myself and the only thing I might suggest is a reflection from the white (or light colored) surface the boat is sitting on giving a "milky" look to the side.

I thought one of the best pics was the middle one in post #6, even though it was no a side picture you can see some of it. The second picture in post #7 isn't bad either. You're far enough away that except for the reflected flash on the bow the rest of the side appears to be fairly even.

Probably a better shot would be one sitting on the stand in the grass nest to the pond and then of course some in the pond in action or just sitting there getting ready to get up and go!

Got all excited there.

Bob

See if these go threw.

These two I tried to send on the last post with no luck. Questian, was part of the step plate on the Chris Crafts painted gloss black, flat black, or just black?

Color is much 'richer', good mahogany color with no wash out. I have no answer for you about the step plate. I did however look at a site with numerous pictures of Chris Craft Mahogany boats and the majority of them had 'flat black' step plates. One of them, the 1953 Chris Craft Runabout had 'white' step plates. If you would like to go and look, here is the link, hopefull it will be live.

Bob

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...ed=0CBoQ9QEwAg

White step plate, according to some people that have seen them. The white part was a white rubber pad.

You coule always "say" it was rubber. Or maybe you can buy a can of liquid rubber and "make" rubber pads 'off site', cut them to size and glue them in place. OR, you can just paint on some Flat Black pads!

Choices, choices. Go with Flat Black now and think about the white rubber idea. You can always replace the pads later.

Bob

I was at my LHS yesterday and saw something that could answer your problem, if you really want to go with white step plates. Evergreen company makes all sorts of styrene shapes and one I saw was "metal roofing". I is .040 thick, a little over 1/32", and comes in about six different sizes of 'corrugation' groove sizes/spaces. At least one of those groove space should work for your boat and building a mahogany frame for the step pad should be no problem. I hope your LHS sells Evergreen Scale Model products.

Bob

I went ahead and painted the lower parts of the plates white, the lines on the plate along with Chris Craft is raised, so I let the paint flow to the bottom and when dry, I wiped the top off thats what I was toltd they looked like.