I was browsing on the internet the other day and I found this:
I’ve seen model ships, modern yachts, sailboats, and wooden row boat or lobster boats, but I’ve never seen a model of this: a 70s-80s cabin cruiser: the kind you saw in 80’s films or music videos; the kind you see rotting away in some dock or field. I routinely search the online auction website and local buy’n’sell with specific keywords and I’ve never come across this. This kit cost a pretty penny, but felt I simply had to have it!
Mitsuwa (the little I know of it)
If you search ‘Mitsuwa’ you’ll mostly find 'chibi’style pull-back car models, ‘chibi’-style motorized boats, motorized outboard motors. ww2 plane models, some motorized car models, etc…mostly motorized in some way. Those are some of the things that interest me. Things that move. Most of these models were produced in the late 70s through the 80s. Actually, I don’t recall seeing a date but that’s the impression I got. Sadly, they don’t seem to be around anymore. Once again, this info is what I observe, I haven’t heard anything official about their history.
Online References
As for this kit, I’m never satisfied with following the kit painting instructions and always need to source actual examples as paint guides - this kit especially since, aside form the box sides, there are no colour call outs! Online, when you search “Yamaha STR-23CCR” you’ll mostly see images of the Nakamura 1/20 kit (which I recently acquired locally) as well as the ARII re-release kit, but mostly auction sites and no info on the kit or build itself. I started to doubt this boat was actually ever produced. Removing the “CCR” I was able to find photos of boats closely resembling this on Russian selling sites. I was also able to find reference photos of the actual boat on a site with scans of the Yamaha brochure:
I’m a part of a few hobby groups in my area (Burnaby BC, Canada), including the Burnaby Association of Marine Modellers (BAMM). As stated above, I plan to RC this boat. I’m hoping to get this boat finished soon and run it at the local pond. It would look silly to have this running around without a crew, so I got this at last week’s IPMS show:
The build commences with the most interesting part: stern drives:
I’m guessing Mitsuwa chose plastic gears for self-lubrication as well as corrosion-resistance. Let’s hope they did their strength analysis [:S]
All greased up (Horizon Dynamite Marine Grease) The long brass rod serves as the transfer gear axis as well as the stern drive pivot axis to alloy steering without affecting drive.
Both stern drives built. Below, parts that were shaded-out as ‘not used’ laid out. These are parts to mount the RC gear. Only the 3 UM2/C battery holder is called out in the manual.
I plan to have it run on 4 NiMH AA batteries. This is enough to run the receiver and servo, while the 4.8V wouldn’t be far off from the 4.5V from the 3 alkaline batteries originally called out in the instructions.
Next step would be to spray paint the upper, lower, and interior before proceeding with detail assembly and painting.
Aside from adding figures, I’ll also be adding details to the “head” since it can be seen through the window with adequate exterior light. Curtains will eventually be added as the upper hull can be removed via screws to access the batteries.
Stay tooned! Unlike the Honda or the Mustang, I plan to finish this!
Got the hull painted. I messed up on the masking as you can see some of the blue krept through the masking and got on to the white lower hull. I’ve whiped off the blue with some paint thinner but I’ll have to re-mask and repaint the lower hull. not difficult, but annoying. If you look closely at the first photo below you’ll see some tiny white spots near the bow. not sure how those got there as there aren’t any scrape marks in the paint. Must’ve receded from the plastic (I washed this kit before I painted it). I’ll probably do sone more coat over this side of the hull only.
Some paint krept into the tape as well. scraped off the blue paint and will have to touch up with a brush later.
As of posting this I’ve installed the stern drive and did some dry testing. I’ll post pics of it once I’ve done the repainting, tested in water, and installed the electronics.
Why couldn’t I find that? I did Motorize and R.C. the large Lindberg Chris Craft Constellation. They gave you instructions to build the cabins for static display. I was able to do it and still have an operable model.
I sur would like to have one of those though ! T.B.
Oh yeah, I was stoked to find this! It was pricey but after browsing through the photos I snapped it up quick. I bought this at the end of September, less than a month ago.
My only complaints so far are the gears are noisy and seem fragile. This boat isn’t meant to go fast but I hope it can go fast enough to look right. At 427mm (16 13/16") it’s also quite small, but not too bad on the pond. And the stern drives are significantly oversized (maybe better for 1/12 scale?) to fit the gears. It is in scale with some of my other boats and figures aren’t TOO hard to find.
Stay tuned!
I will say this, the drives almost look like derivatives of Mercruiser Stern-Drives. My River Queen was driven by A Swedish Type. Again, Twins pushed by Chrysler 318s. The boat was forty-five foot long at the Waterline.
As far as models I was able to reconstruct mine in miniature especially the out-drives. Interesting doing this from scratch. The out-drives worked great! It’s to late for you to do it now. A teensy bit of foam would’ve reduced some of the noise.
Also there was a chance for you to put a flat " O " ring in the unit between the hull and the housing.This would’ve shielded the hull from harmonics as the drives operated. I have found this to be a problem in models of any kind of boat.
I don’t know for sure in your case. Check the clearance between the cavitation Plate and the prop blade. The molded flat finger above the screw. If you have enough space you could run a slightly larger prop with better pitch angle. T.B.
Paint issues fixed, drive system installed. The’re quite big, they seem to be better suited for 1/16 or 1/12 scale. Oh well…
On to the uper hull! I’ve painted the inside black to prevent light from bleeding through the plastic and illuminating the ceiling. It’ll be painted flat white/buff later on.
the “mattress” in the stern is removeable to access screws. The deck behind the cabin is matt white. I haven’t decided whether or not to leave the interior walls and floors matt white or gloss white…
Apologies, I only post when I’m on my computer and, outside of work, it’s rare.
Here are some photos of my progressso far:
Stripes painted! for the lower stripe I masked the upper edge and free-handed the lower edge. The upper stripe was fully masked. Both stripes were hand-painted Tamiya Royal Blue acrylic (with retarder for a smoother finish). I attached the, uh, upper windshield afterwards.
The rails in the stern was quite a struggle. When installing the stern rail would be about 2mm higher than the sides. I ended up bending the stern rail posts forward and downwards shifting the side rails forward. had to do a bit of surgery. Fit’s not perfect but looks decent from a short distance.
Bow rails installed, instructions calls out using the included metal tube to join the rails. If you look at the box art there should be an antenna at the bow tip of the rails. There’s a part in the chrome tree that joins bow tip and includes the antenna, but the instructions never call for it nor is it marked as ‘not used’. So while the metal tube is more durable for motorization or RC there’s a scale option included in the kit.
My pitiful attempt at painting wood pattern. Base brown colour is also too dark. I’ll have to strip these and re-paint them.
Yeah, definitely re-painting the wood surfaces. Don’t think I’ll give it a high-gloss finish; the wood surfaces don’t look like they were very glossy in the brochure photos.
