I usually don’t order things on the fly or in haste, but I could not resist the R/C style of the 30" Boothbay Lobster Boat from Midwest. I hope this turns out to be a good buy as I have already ordered it. I also ordered the Midwest MEPS III motor system.
Never had an RC Boat, but his should prove to be interesting.
Donnie
I think you will find the Midwest kit definitely worth the wait, and price. If this kit follows the Midwest “norm”, the instruction set is…complete! Step by step, with drawings and diagrams. I haven’t built the RC version, so I don’t know how much information is there for installing the RC gear. I suspect not much, because there are so many different products that can be used. You will want to have all your RC parts (motor,receiver,servos,etc.) while assembling the hull, so you can more easily install supports, and mechanically align everything. Midwest supplies the glass cloth, but not the resin. It’s been too many years for my memory, but I believe FineScale featured a highly detailed model built from the midwest kit. Have fun!
Pete
Wow… I didn’t even know they had lobster boats in the midwest! (couldn’t resist)
It is strange isn’t it !! [(-D]
Ayuh, ya don’t expect to see such things, but the explaination is quite simple; I’ve got this lobstah boat heah, and I wanted to get it back east, so I asked directions. I was told, " take that big rivah, the one that runs smack down the middle o’ the country, when you get to that n’orlins place, the one that got so bad flooded in that Katrina thing, take a left …wait,…no,…Well, you could go up through the lakes to that St Lawrence Seaway, it’ll take you a bit further down east than you might want…no,…Back east,…come to think of it, you can’t get theyah from heah.
I grew up on the south shore of Long Island, and spent two tours at N.A.S. Brunswick, Me.during my 21 year navy carrer. Wish I could afford to pack it all up, buy a small place on Penobscot Bay, and live out the rest of my days there. I actually built the “other” midwest lobster boat, the “Muscongus Bay Lobster Smack”, (It was the work boat that evolved into the Friendship Sloop), as a display for the hobby shop I was working at. We also had the RC boat, and I often thought it would be a fun project.
Pete
Funny !! [(-D] [(-D]
Well, well, I too grew up by the Great south Bay on Long Island many many years ago. I did a lot of claming in those years. As a matter of fact I am gong back there in a month for vacation, an I intend to do some sailing then which I haven’t done in years.
Best of wishes
Dick Wood
Great South Bay…now there’s a name I’ve not seen in print, nor heard spoken of in a great many years! As for clammin’ on the bay, my neighbors had a clam skow tied up at Duerr’s boatyard, at the end of the street, on Strong’s creek. They made a reasonable living tonging clams. I used to go to Scout meetings, just a short walk from the “Amityville Horror” house on Ocean Avenue. I lived in Copiague, the next town east of Amityville. Hope the weather’s right for sailing, and your vacation is most enjoyable.
I happened to bump into an ad for that Midwest kit last night. The ad says the hull planking is made of balsa wood. That’s bad news.
Balsa is probably the worst material there is for ship modeling. It’s ridiculously soft, dents easily (particularly problematic in an operating model), collapses under the pressure of a knife or carving tool, has a ludicrously coarse grain, and soaks up finishing materials like a sponge. For a good many years it was taken for granted as “the” wood used for model building, largely because it was the only one carried by most hobby shops. Fortunately that’s changed to a large extent nowadays; the hobby shops (those that survive) are stocking basswood and selling it for just about the same prices.
Balsa has one great virtue: its light weight. For modelers of flying airplanes, that’s vital. For ship modelers it’s irrelevant.
I haven’t seen the kit itself out of the box. Maybe Midwest intends the hull to be covered with fiberglass. If so, I imagine balsa would be a pretty good material for that purpose; the resin would soak in easily, and the fiberglass cloth would overcome the other problems. If that’s not the case, though, I would strongly recommend that you consider replacing the balsa parts with either basswood, mahogany, or plywood. (If the latter, be sure to get the kind that’s designed for boat building - with non-water-soluble adhesive holding the laminations together.)
I normally wouldn’t be so bold as to recommend replacing components of a kit I haven’t seen, but that word “balsa” is bound to switch on a red light in the brain of just about any serious ship modeler.
Mr. Tilley,
If I remember, the hull is to be completely covered using a fiberglass or some type of resin mixture. I can say that I have no experince on this, but will learn as I usually do.
I went to Midwest site to find:
A Complete Kit Featuring:
Midwest Micro-Cut Quality Balsa & Hardwood parts
Cockpit and deck fittings set includes cast metal and injection molded plastic parts
Running hardware set including stainless steel prop shaft, brass stuffing tube, nylon propeller, and brass motor / shaft coupler
All necessary steering linkages
Lightweight fiberglass cloth for protecting the hull
After your post, my heart came up in my throat (not really), but I did get angst, so I went to the Midwest site and looked to (sigh) find out that it seems that they want me to cover it with Fiberglass.
Donnie
My faith in Midwest is restored! If the balsa is going to be sheathed in fiberglass, there should be no problem. I’ve never used the stuff either, but I know plenty of people of ordinary skills and experience who’ve gotten excellent results with it. I’m sure Donnie’s lobster boat will be beautiful.
Even just a light weave of fiberglass and a coat of epoxy resin is enough to protect a balsa hull.
All my hulls are plywood frame and balsa sheeting and then fiberglassed. I typically use a 3.5ounce E-glass and epoxy resin.
This is one of those hulls
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3200974&postcount=10
Well I lived in Brentwood, but spent a lot of time in Bay Shore, just east of you. I did some fishing off of party boats out of Captree basin, but I had a friend in College who came form the east end and he did some decent fishing off of Smith Breach, and spent out hard earned money out in the Hamptons, Great party town.
I went to Farmingdale when it was a two year school in the late 60’s. and I know exacly where Amithville is. They had a nice fish fleet tied up there.
Nice to heae from a fellow formed Long Islander
Dick Wood
Umi, that’s a great looking boat! How long is it?
Hi Aric,
I just noticed you are in Chehalis. I belong to a club looking for access to a private pond for sailing “combat warship”. These are ships with BB guns mounted on board. We need a pond people can drive up to, drop off trailers, that is located between Portland and Seattle. If you know anyone, or can set up a meeting with any property owners that have an accessable pond PM, or E-mail me.
As for the fire boat it is 36" long and driven by two Voith Schneider drives rather than propellers.
A little different than the Boothbay lobster boat, but I use same construction method for the hull.
Plywood frames, balsa sheeting, fiberglass.
Pete, Just got back from Boothbay and you got it right! Your description was “wicked good!” Those boats are all over, and the lobster was great! Gary
The boat arrived yesterday - had a chance to look it over some. near a 100 page manual - lots of parts - looks like fun ! I have the Sultana on board now that I am working on - so it will be a while before I have a chance to dig in, but the kit looks very well thought out.
They had some additional instructions thrown in the box to correct for some construction mistakes in the manual.
Donnie
This was the first wood kit I ever built for RC, back around 1981. My second was the mahogony plywood Dumas PT109 which was a real eye opener for a 15 yr old trying to bend plywood planks.
I enjoyed the Lobsterboat. It was powered by a Dumas 6v Super Richard and a Kraft 2 channel radio.
This kit, I believe, has evolved into a real good casual Sunday builder. I’m sure your going to love building it, and as seen by your work, will look extordinary.
Scott
Donnie I built this model from scratch using Midwest plans. what I did was make paper templates of the hull planking sides and used sheet plywood of a 1/16. It took me a few changes on the templates to get it right but after glassing the hull it is very strong and durable.
Gary, I’ll be in your area next week, at the GC Laser booth, at the NMRA convention. The “National Train Show” will be open to the public 7,8,and 9 July. Pete