RC Rescue Boat built from Styrofoam

Gallery, Projects and General > Project Logs

<< < (4/17) > >>

rleete:
Go with the PVC. Make it look like that massive boat Howard Hughes built to steal rescue the sunken Soviet sub back in the 1970's.

Heh. That just reminded me of something my wife said a while back. I was watching a show on the TV about the Kursk - a Ruskie sub that sank due to accident, killing all the crew. Named, of course, for that epic battle in WWII.

She walked in the room and said, "what did they expect, naming it "Cursed"? :doh:

Bernd:
Gotta' make a trip over to Debbie Supply and see if they have any 1/4" PVC. I think that would work the best.

Your wife isn't blonde is she. :lol:

Bernd

Bernd:
Did a bit more work on the boat this past week. Today I got the props mounted to the motors. The story continues.

I tried to use electrical tape to hold the pieces of wood down. Didn't work to good.

I finally resorted to a couple of small nails.

After it all dried I sanded it down as best I could. I left a few scallops in the foam but some Bondo will take care of that.
Next will be to cover the floats/pontoons with fiberglass cloth and resin. First I need to save up some cash to buy resin. I plan on using West Epoxy to do the fiberglass.

In the mean time I've turned my attention to the power system of the boat. I'll be using two 6 volt motors that came out of one of those child electric cars. They come with two pretty powerful electric motors.

I needed to make a couple of adapters to attach the props to the motors. A simple turning exercise. Since I'm doing this on the fly no drawing or dimensions are presented. Also each motor set could be different. I turned one end for a tight fit in the prop hole and the other for a press fit onto the shaft of the motor. Worked quite nice.

And here they are ready to have the motor mount designed. That won't happen till I get the superstructure built.

Until next time.

Bernd

ibuildstuff4u:
I raced RC boats for a few years and always wanted to make a rescue boat but never got around to it. Most of the time I lugged my little 14' boat along.

I like your design using the two pontoons, but I'm not sure about the power source to drive the boat. The fan drives are not very powerful and I'm not sure they will be up to the job. I had a nitro powered fan boat in the past with a .46 sized engine and a very light weight fiberglass hull. We tried to use it to retrieve a stalled boat and it couldn't push it. The stalled boat wasn't even full of water, and the fan boat couldn't push it.

I know it will take more work, but I think you will be much better off with an under water prop in each pontoon. You can use a stick radio and set up the boat with two speed controls so you can drive the motors in different directions or at different speeds. This way you can drive it like a tank and you won't need a rudder. Most stick radios can be taken apart and the right side stick can be turned 90* so it moves the same direction as the left side stick.

I know the two motors look like they move a lot of air, but that boat is going to be quite heavy when done and will take more power than that to move it's self not to mention a second boat that could be full of water from a crash.

Good luck on the build. It looks good so far!

Dale P.

Bernd:
Thanks for the heads up Dale. Going to continue with the build just for the fun of it. If it dosen't work I can still redo it and use the motors to drive water props.

Besides, I need something to run around when I run out of nitro. :lol:

Bernd

Navigation

 Message Index

Go to full version