Still not fast enough

huntsman on a bench
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

The Huntsman has seen some development. Spray rails have been fitted using quarter round wood from a hardware store. Using a pair of dividers I marked out the positions relative to the keel. They certainly look nice when sanding sealed and varnished.

On the water they do make a difference with the water breaking very differently at the front. I think they help the lift at the front too.

The bad news is that the motor still smells when running. There's not much power coming out of it either so I think it's toasted and a new one will be required. We're back tot he original 2-blade propeller too as none of the new ones I bought will fit. The shaft appears to be an old imperial size so either I replace it (near impossible) or re-tap the threaded end to suit the new props.

The water cooling gave me grief too. I hadn't realised just how tight you have to do up the retaining nuts and it leaked like crazy on the water. A quick tweak with the pliers did the job so at least one problem was solved. When running water was emerging from the back outlet so I assume it was doing it's job.

For the moment the boat has gone into store as it's stopped being a quick job and now looks like a more involved and expensive project that I have time for right now. Perhaps in the autumn I'll take another look.

Fairey planes !

fairey near plane
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

After bench making this morning, the Fairey hit the water. I wanted to see what a difference the new motor, battery and speed control made.

The good news is the boat went up on the plane. It's not rocket powered but nice and controllable on a lake the size of ours. Most importantly it looks good.

After a few minutes I filmed the model and you can see the video here. The speed had dropped a bit but you get the idea especially head on.

A couple of minutes later still there was smoke coming out of the windows. Back on the bench the motor was red hot. I've not connected up the water cooling jacket yet. This is obviously not a good thing.

My hope was that the problem stemmed from the whopping 4 -blade prop being too large and stressing the motor. Once it had cooled down I swapped this for the original 2 blade plastic version and tentatively sailed again.

One the water the model was as sprightly as with the bigger prop, possibly even a little better. I'm not going to pretend to understand how a small prop with two blades is better than a big one with 4, but I'll go with it and stick the big 'un in the box for a future model.

Motor mounting

MFA 850 motor
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

After a trip to Howes yesterday I'm the proud owner of a MFA 850 Torpedo motor, new coupling, water cooling jacket and sundry other bits. And about 80 quid less than I had before. Still, it's cheaper than the £1600 one of the guys there pays every year for a Chelsea season ticket and said like that it seems a bargain.

Fitting the motor is harder than I hoped - the gearbox on the old one put the drive shaft out very low so I have to fabricate something new. As you can see, the shafts didn't line up very well otherwise !

With the motor in I lined things up as well as I could, not perfect but pretty good. It runs well with the new 12V battery and that prop pushes lots of air out from behind the hull. Hopefully it will do the same with water !

Wiring up I discovered that the speed control I had found in the bottom of the boat bits box was there for a reason, it didn't work properly. Once it failed I remembered that that's why we'd replaced it in another model boat a couple of years ago. However it had worked when I tested it yesterday on the old setup.

Anyway, I've just spent what must be the cost of a Luton Town season ticket on a new controller and hope desperately that the money pit this boat has become will now be full and I can get stuck in with the pretty bits.

Not quite so slow Huntsman

Huntsman sailing
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

So with it's new brass propeller the Huntsman made it down tot he lake for a proper sailing.

Result: It's faster. Nothing like as fast as I might like but definitely a step in the right direction. The gearbox makes a horrible noise though. Time to get some motive power to drive the shaft directly I think.

I shot some video on my compact camera for your delectation.

New brass prop

Boat propellers
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

In the quest to get the Huntsman moving on the water I've replaced the undersized 2 blade plastic propeller with an 80mm diameter 4 blade brass number. The low reving motor isn't suitable for a 2 blade prop IMHO. Anyway, it looked stupid - the brass one appears a whole lot better and looks like it belongs to the boat.

On our garden pool the model certainly moves faster. I don't think we are on the plane but in a 15ft pool you can't tell. A trip to the lake later this week will give me a better idea.

Top speed

fairey speed
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Wiring a model boat seems to scare people silly but it's not that hard. Plug the speed control and servo into the receiver and wire the control to the motor. It didn't take me long and I even made a reasonably neat job.

The plan was to test the boat on the lake tomorrow but according to the weather forecaster on telly to do that we'll have to stand in the rain. So as the evening was nice a quick trip saw the boat afloat.

First problem is the superstructure won't sit down properly. My neat wiring was in the way at a couple of points. A but of a shove and it went on and wasn't going to fall off easily. I need to look at this.

That's the easy bit though. Once on the water I made a couple of slow turns just to test everything worked OK. Then I pushed the stick up for full speed.

And the progress was what might be politely termed "stately". Not in any way fast or exciting. I don't care what the sticker on the motor says, there is no way that prop is rotating at 6000rpm. It's not digging into the water much either.

A faster motor and four, or at least 3, blade prop are called for I think.

Fairey Huntsman

huntsman nose
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

A few weeks ago I bought a job lot of model boats at an auction. To say they went for a song would be an understatement.

The sensible financial part of me said, "Stick them on eBay and make a quick profit." But the sad modelmaking bit that means I will alway be poor insists that at least of of the 3 hulls becomes a project. Since the 46" Fairey Huntsman is the nearest to being complete, that's the one I'll do.

The model is pretty well made. The motor is installed and to get it on the water I just need to fit radio gear and a servo. Before doing this I think a waterproof hull would be nice and getting rid of the brown paint that is where a proper Huntsman has white would be good too.

So on a sunny morning I took the boat outside and sanded the hull down. That paint isn't coming off but I quickly had the hull ready for a couple of coats of varnish. I suspect it's pretty watertight already but you can never be too careful. Anyway, the shiny wood looks nice in the sun so I'm happy.