TOPIC:

Im looking for a new rc boat and was wondering if anyone could recommend a kit for me to start boat building...im a complete novice and im not keen on anything too challenging but i do want a hand built boat so guess ill have to bite the bullet and try and build one from scratch.

Alternatively if anyone has one to trade i also have a nice collection of Tamiya cars im willing to trade including my Avante 2001 for the right boat.

I built a "Kitshack" Vosper RTTL kit a while back ( here ).

The kit itself was 100 GBP and was rubbish, I had to buy no end of extra raw materials myself (deck had been cut well undersize, there wasn't enough balsa or brass) not to mention all the glues, fillers, resin, sealer, paints, deck fittings, motor, mounts, prop & shaft, rudder, radio gear etc needed to finish it.

TBH although I've only used it once & found the actual running of a boat quitre boring, I'm not sure I'd want to part with it as I don't think anyone would be willing to pay anything close to the 350+ GBP I sunk into it

Looking back at the build thread, I did say I'd "cheat" & buy a ready made GRP hull if I was to do it again - and thinking about it, it probably would have been better to make the superstructure out of styrene sheet. The only bit worth doing in wood IMO is the deck - so unless you're dead set of having a completely scale replica of something, my advice would be to buy the bits in & make it up as you go from photographs. I have looked at some boat plans & found them completely unintelligible - and before eddrick chirps up I do know my badword from an engineering drawing, I used to assemble aero & F1 parts for a living

Thats a pretty sweet boat i may not be able to offer the cash but id be willing to trade some Tamiya

Fill it full of fireworks, its the only bang your gonna get from it
I saw there was a thread about insurance the other day, maybe it could have an "accident"
+ Dont mind me, im not a boat guy

Well im becoming a boat guy so what JR needs to do is let me convince him to do a trade with some of my cars

Tamiyanut - check Ebay RC "spares repair", there's currently a boat project lurking in there.

Jonny, yep I know what you mean, most hilarious are the drawings that come with model steam engine casting kits - the missus bought me one years ago (Still haven't plucked up the courage to do anything with it). It was a huge sum of money & she was told there was everything you need to build it in the kit. What turned up was a blister card with 6 small castings of parts I could've machined in a couple of hours from scratch & a stack of A4 "drawings" which are so bad I'm going to have to redraw the lot before I can even think about starting to make any of it. I rang the shop selling the kits & they still maintained it was a complete kit of everything you need. Absolutely disgusted at the whole deal, but apparently they're all like that

HI!... I'm looking to get a boat this year as well. But I don't have the time to build one. I'm going to get a Traxxas Spartan. 50MPH right out of the box and very modable.

traxxas.com/pro...07Lspartan



traxxas.com/pro...tan-video2

Also depends what you are looking for in a rc boat. Do you want to go pure for the speed? Or are you looking for a boat in like a scale model and don't care about performance and more go for the looks...

I enjoy the speed of my boats, they go on 2s and 4s lipo's.








Cheers, Bram

The other thing to think about is where are you planning to use it & do you have a backup plan for retrieving it when something goes wrong?

There's quite a bit of water in the UK, but none of it is particularly inviting if you have to get in it (Especially this time of year!) & a lot of water authorities take a dim view of boats or people being in their reservoirs & rivers. Park visitors can get funny about people playing toy boats or swimming in duck ponds too. Kinda just leaves joining a club or digging a big pond in your garden really!

i have two large model boating lakes near where i live so thats pretty much covered and the guys all seem quite friendly even though a lot look like retirement age and do seem to take the hobby very seriously