Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Bouncing Betty


bettys
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.
I can't take my Dad anywhere sometimes. A few months ago we dropped into Howes for some bits and came out with a surfer. This duly became an joke Christmas present and eventually ended up on the lake. Given a decent amount of water it proved to be great fun. The surfer tilts on the board so once you turn, you keep turning until change direction. That makes for "interesting" sailing.

Anyway, as usual when you buy a cheap model the radio gear is rubbish. Putting the batteries in the handset is a puzzle worthy of Rubik and there is only one channel so you can't sail at the same time as anyone else. The model was fun enough to make us think about sorting all this out with some new electronics.

Then, lo and behold, on eBay a surfer popped up. The seller had replaced the gear and then decided to sell the project. I snapped it up for about the same price as a speed control.

Once the box arrived, "Bouncing Betty" as our surfer had been nicknamed, had suffered a bit. One of her arms had fallen off, she'd been detached from the board and the prop was broken. Still the gubbins inside looked OK apart from the water cooling pipes on the motor. She was put back in the box and headed for the "oneday" pile.

Another shopping trip for bit for the Huntsman found us back in Howes. The plastic kit room has very sadly been replaced with a RTR boat room and on the back wall were lots of faulty models. Each was marked with the fault and they were being sold off cheap. I suppose that the cost makes it pointless to do anything else other than chuck them away. On the pile was a leaky surfer with a duff controller.

Now with 3 of these things I've pulled the eBay bits and cheapo machine together to make a complete model. For a change this was a quick project that only took an hour. Now she has proper radio, a buggy speed controller with no reverse and hopefully doesn't leak. And I've glued the arm back on.

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