I have finally finished the rear mast , this has been holding me up a bit . the reason I did not have a 7Ba tap and dia for the bottom of the mast as it has to be removable to tow. anyway I have taped the holder and soldered a washer on at an angle to fish it off and made a mast by putting a thread on both ends and screwing a small bass piece on the top.

You will see in the boat some Black epoxy , this is a Flexie product and I have not used it before, I did feel 5 min after putting it on "HOW DO I GET IT OFF!!" and it takes a bit longer to dry than you think and they say and it smells and is a bit runny BUT it seems to be good stuff. I wanted something a bit more flex for the water inlet and outlet as the area they are in are flat panels and flat thin fiberglass panels do flex and some of the epoxy's don't allow any movement at all. so this should be ideal . now it is dry it seems good but it takes a good 24-48 hours to fully cure.

I did a bit more on the inside clean up sand and Finnish of the epoxy coating.I am now happy that I should be maintenance free for a few years.
I have given the hull a sand as I feel it ready for paint, I am going to do it first so I can have a test run to try the system out so paint time this week AT LAST .

OK so there is some paint on Primer and how much better it looks, all my fears of it still looking rubbish have diminished, for now. I have only primed it a couple of coats put on thin , I will flat it again and see how it is , it seems to have covered the filler ok that I had to use to straighten some of the hull, the deck now looks ok , with it being thin glass fiber and it being wet and dried with 2000 grit it polished up a bit so became a bit translucent so you where looking through the deck cover and it looked a bit rough , but the paint stops that and it looks ok. I have left most of the fittings off and will do them separate or not at all have not decided if they will look ok left in brass any way a few pictures and one of the before to show how good primer is to hide rubbish.

A few more fittings finnished, not many to do , the Aeriel is designed to be screwed Ion so it can be taken of for transport and so I can fit a longer one when sailing for the receiver, at 5 foot you cannot see the longer ant . they are made of fine piano wire with heat shrink the bases are brass taped to fit through bolts I have drilled and soldered the wire in. the brass part is fitted on a thick plastic washer tapered to the roof so the ant and also the spot light look straight. I have made a horn for the other side of the roof, the pictures show it looks like a large car horn , I have made a base out of a bolt drilled for wire and a disk on the top.

Well got some paint I will post the details when it's done, needless to say the primer went on OK, the first coat of black did not, it bloomed. now black will do that if its a bit cold or its damp etc, but this looked like I had painted it white..so not a happy bunny. have flatted it and its OK the paint went on OK no runs or orange peel even though I did try to paint the bloom out.
this is the reason I had been waiting for warm weather, but the fun day is looming and I have two boats to paint so it had to be done.the original boat was painted with BS361c paint and I have found a link to some chips of it
http://www.stephen.hull.btinternet.co.uk/bs381c.html

http://www.e-paint.co.uk/BS381%20Colourchart.asp
so when it gets some Paint that a certain member of this site does not laugh at, I will post a picture.

After a long break and lots of other projects I have decided to Finnish of the fire boat, as I have said I hate paint that is why I have 4 boats that need just the paint to Finnish them of so I have decided a concerted effort is needed to get them done , after the paint blooming the first time I decided to take my time , I was over coating to soon and trapping in solvents, so hear are my efforts so far the hull is now finished I put the last few fittings on tonight but have not taken pictures yet so will post them soon . the hull seems OK needs a good polish yet but it will do , it takes so long to paint things . I decided to use stripe tape that has the centre removed so you can paint , but because of the curves of the hull it took hours to do just one side but I think it is worth it any way a few pictures

I have fitted the deck fittings and the rudders I like to have fitting well and truly fixed after the work that goes in to them , the ends of the cleats are drilled and 1/32 rivets fitted to hold as well as glue the other cleats where made from handrail stanchions and so have a nut underneath,
the superstructure req a lot more paint to sort it out I had a few masking problems when I first did it but I think I can work around that and will post when finished, I have been painting all the fittings of the boat the brass work is clear coated so they don't tarnish to much

well I still hate paint, the superstructure has been painted 3 times now , first time the masking tape decided to mark the paint even though it was a week old, then I found the MATCHED PAINT was not, so it was new paint and re do it all again. . if I ever do a small boat again I will think about where colours have to be masked ,so the next colour can go on ,
anyway moan over its not far of it now it needs polishing to get rid of the White marks where I have T cut it . most of the fittings are now on the hydrants , crane and some nets plus the hoses, there is some rigging to do on the mast and a cable on the anchor all small jobs, the internals are finished so I will try it this week if I get a chance

tonight I gave it a test run , it was a bit hurried and things where not as good as they should have been I had planed on using one pack for both motors but I did not have a Y lead so it req two sets of cells which where a bit heavy at the front so it ploughed a bit till it jumped on the plane then it went like a demented dog, it was not easy to control as the speed ctr where not perfectly set, I don't like auto set up and because there was also a servo Y lead it needed both servos to be set up at the same time, I will mix the Chanel's on the tx as one was lagging behind a lot so it was running on one motor then the second came in and it shot of. anyway it was a short run with lots of water over the decks . But it is very very fast.
more to come.

well have decided to put some different motors In I have gone for 480s and a mtronics twin speed ctr I have also got hold of a helicopter case and cut It down to size (thats fun) so I don't knock It to bits In the car and makes storage a lot better I have been waiting for some decent weather to try It so as soon as we try It Ill post, I was after some slow speed control that I did not get with the brushless It was stop or go and as Its a small boat you need to sale In sheltered pools and It was just uncontrollable I have moved the batteries forward as well.
I could not get the motors to sync so we will see.
a few pictures