@ChrisF

Hi Chris,

Wow, what a childhood adventure!
Thank goodness your dad was there to pull you out of the river!
Those are the kinds of memories that stay with us forever.

I'm delighted that the restored picture brought back such wonderful memories of your childhood and the cottage.
Sometimes an old photograph is worth more than a thousand words.

And if you send me that other speedboat picture, I'll gladly see what I can do with it!

Cheers from Miami!

Julian

@chugalone100 Thanks Julian, that looks really good. I did think about trying to improve the other speed boat photo before posting it, not very good quality as it was taken from a Super 8 film.

The improved photo reminds me of what it looked like. And reminds me that I very nearly wasn't here! We used to have the cottage a couple of doors away and I fell off the landing stage. I remember being under the water and looking up at the sky before being pulled out of the river by Dad! I had a few close shaves like that! Had a lot of good memories at "the cottage" as we called it and the adjacent pub when I grew older. Unfortunately when my dad died we decided to sell it. Pity as I would have loved to have had another boat on the river.

@ChrisF
Hi Chris,

What a wonderful story and such priceless childhood memories! Now I understand where your love for classic powerboats comes from. It certainly runs in the family!

Looking at those old photographs, I couldn't resist bringing one of them back to life with a little color and some polished mahogany.
I hope you like the result and that it brings back some happy memories of those wonderful days on the river.

And don't worry about all those unfinished models. I think most of us suffer from the same disease! 😂

I'm also looking forward to seeing your Sea Vixen come together, and once again, thank you for sharing those Stiletto drawings with me.

Cheers from Miami!

Julian

@chugalone100 I'm glad that the drawings didn't go to waste and that someone is building a big Stiletto. I say that, rather than a small Rapier because it is nearer the size of the Stiletto and the windows to the Rapier are slightly different for some reason. Those drawings were put to one side because it was decided to pursue variants with more modern superstructures and sloping transoms with it finally being modified for my water-jet project or Scimitar as I call it.

I'm looking forward to joining you soon in my first non near scale (Fairey Marine) classic model boat build with my Modav Sea Vixen. The drawings are nearly complete now, so it won't be long. Though I should be painting the Fisherman 27 really! This is why I'm where I am now - lots of unfinished models!

Forgot to mention the reason I got into model boats rather than continuing with aircraft. When I was thinking about a winter hobby I was talking to a neighbour who has long been into RC aircraft (his main interest), boats and trains - he has a garden layout and is going to build a small indoor one. He suggested aircraft and said he would teach me to fly but I'm wary of that, and in any case I was more drawn to boats. Reason being that we'd had them in the family since I was very young (dinghies, speed boats and a cabin cruiser) and when I was in the Sea Scouts (despite being bang in the centre of the country!) I learnt to sail and had a canoe, so it was in my blood really. And remembering sunny days on the river with lovely varnished cruisers whispering past with barely any wake drew me towards classic timber boats like the ones from Fairey Marine.

Photos are myself and Dad with a dinghy, my brother (not very old as you can see!) in a plywood speed boat fitted with a Seagull outboard at that time on the River Avon before a 40hp Evinrude was fitted and my brother again in an even earlier boat that Dad had converted from a target boat he'd bought from the services. That 40 horse Evinrude was later fitted to a Fletcher speedboat before being replaced with a 70 horse Volvo-Penta which we used at the Cotswold Racing and Waterski Club (later Fairford) and on the sea in Norfolk. Small horse-power compared with today's monsters but still pretty quick and drank fuel like crazy! We also had a cabin cruiser on the river for many years. That same brother and a sister got into narrowboats but not me, too slow, I went into motorbikes.

Chris

@ColRay
Col, what a wonderful memory of your grandfather!
Having someone with his skills teaching you at such a young age must have been quite an experience.

I can certainly relate to his work, having spent many years making props and working on projects for the film industry myself.

It’s amazing how those early experiences stay with us. And you’re right about that clock ticking, although I prefer to think we’re just getting better at making sawdust! 😄

Thanks for sharing, Col.

@Nick Ward
Hi Nick,

What a great story! I really enjoyed reading about your early adventures in model building.
I had to laugh at your Moonglow ploughing through the water with all that 1/2” plywood! 😄

And building a boat from weedkiller packets? Now that’s what I call being resourceful! It’s amazing how much we learned from those early experiments, especially when things didn’t quite go as planned.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Nick.
It’s fascinating to see how we all found our way into this wonderful hobby.

And just think, if that weedkiller boat had sunk, at least the pond would’ve been free of weeds! 😂

Cheers,
Julian

@zooma
Wow, Bob, what a fascinating journey through the world of modeling!

You’ve certainly gathered a wealth of knowledge and experience with vintage models over the years, and it shows in your posts.

I’ve been collecting pictures, tips, and comments you’ve shared throughout the forum, and pretty soon I’ll have enough material to put together my very own “Vintage Model Building Bible for Dummies!” 😄

Thanks for taking the time to share all those memories with us. I really enjoyed reading how it all started for you.

As for me, I’m getting ready to take my first baby steps into vintage model boat building with the 30” LesRo Stiletto. Chris was kind enough to send me the plans, and I’m really looking forward to getting started. I’m already studying the drawings, figuring out what materials I have on hand, and planning how to tackle the build.

This will be my first attempt at building a vintage model boat from plans, so I’m sure there will be a few challenges along the way, not to mention plenty of questions!

Fortunately, between you, Chris, and the other members, there are enough pictures, building tips, and useful discussions scattered throughout this forum to help me along. I’m hoping to put all that information to good use and eventually have a Stiletto of my own out on the water.

Thanks again, Bob. I always enjoy reading your posts, and I’m sure I’ll be referring to them quite often once the sawdust starts flying!

Cheers,
Julian

@chugalone100 You're most welcome Julian. You will have to call it something different though as it falls between the Stiletto at around 26" and Rapier at around 39" being 30" long. Be interesting seeing it built.

Chris

Hi Julian,

I started making models when I was around 5 years old when I was given one of the “new” Airfix model kits that was bought from the Woolworths store in Bath (Somerset).

These early kits came in a small plastic bag with a cardboard header card stapled to it. This header card had to be carefully removed from the top of the polythene bag as it had the instructions printed on the back!

I was given one of these kits most weekends (and school holidays) when I stayed in my grandparents cottage in Kilkenny Woods when making bows and arrows became a hobby alongside climbing trees !

My uncle John had left a suitcase full of model aircraft kits in my grandmothers cottage when he went away to serve his compulsory National Service not long after the end of the war, and this had been forgotten about…….until I discovered it one day!

This inspired me to build some Keil Kraft balsa wood glider kits, followed by an Auster rubber powered high wing aircraft….and then a Jetex powered scale model of a Hawker Hunter.

I started to build my first control line model aircraft when I was at school in my early teens. It was a Mercury kit of a Half A Team Racer that was powered by an AM15 diesel engine.

This lead to other control line aircraft being built from Mercury kits, the next being an “A” class team racer called a Mercury MAC that was powered by an AM25 diesel engine, and that was followed by a c/l speed model - also from Mercury kits called a Midge.

Various other control line aircraft followed that included larger stunt models and flying wings etc until I left school and was able to afford my first model boat kit - an Aerokits Swordsman.

This encouraged me to join the Bath Model Boat Club whose members mainly all run model power boats built from the Aerokits, Frog, Veron and later LesRo kits with various other similar models that I did not recognise at the time.

We were able to run on the River Avon and also the Avon and Kennet canal basin that gave us a nice large pond sized area of water to run on, so we were able to run every weekend and most evenings with only the weather sometimes putting off the less keen (or sensible) club members.

I also started building model boats from plans in December 1964 when the Christmas Special Model Maker magazine gave away the free Vic Smeed Remora plans. This was followed by the Suzie Q plans that featured later in the same magazine - but they had to be ordered and paid for !

Other ponds and lakes in the West Country region were heard about and “tested” and the open sea around Devon and Dorset was also visited and tried now and again, but that all stopped when I got married in 1971 and moved to Exmouth in Devon - taking all my Classic Model Power Boats with me!

Nobody in the seaside town of Exmouth at that time was at all interested in model boats! So I took up the local hobby of flying r/c aircraft on Woodbury Common for a while (I built a Keil Kraft Super 60) before moving to Barnstaple where I started to race 1/8 scale model cars and later moved up north.

During our move up north we had to give away lots of things during the removal process and all of my (now unused) model boats were disposed of………

For many years, I had not really made the time to build any model boats as I spent all my spare time building and racing r/c model cars, but Covid changed all than when I restored a wreck that was rescued from a skip during lock-down……and most of what happened since then can be found scattered around various forums, but more recently this one.

Bob.

Hello again , Julian,

I built a Vic Smeed Moonglow about 34 years ago - late 1992 - early '93. See pic.

The attraction was the fact the main hull only had about 8 flat pieces, and the carcass did indeed go together quickly with glue and screws. However, fitting the full length ply skins took longer, pinning and gluing as I went, as I had never built a ply boat before. I also used very thick wood, 1/2" ply bottom and deck, as it was all I had at the time - made it VERY heavy. I read Vic Smeed's 'Boat Modelling' book borrowed from the library seeking guidance on oil-based paint finishing; the finishing coats were left a week at a time to dry before cutting back, so definitely not "...6 hours..."😉. Got a good finish, though...

As a result of all this weight, it ploughed through the water rather than riding up onto the surface as it should have done, with a buggy 540 motor directly driving a 45mm (yes that's WAY too big, I know....now!) prop. The 6volt 2.6Ah lead gel battery got hammered every time, the motor got REALLY hot and it only ran at useful speeds for about 5 minutes!

BUT....it taught me alot, and if I was to make another one (and it's a really strong contender for my grand-daughter's first 'proper' RC 'big boat' in a few years as it is so simple to build) it would be much lighter and better powered, probably with a lipo/brushless set up - it would of course be too big/fast for the backyard pond!

To answer your question where did it all begin with boats, I have memories of having a go at a wooden sailing ship model with dowel masts at primary school , so 7 or 8 years old, and I think I had a stab at a balsa boat, but neither 'sailed'.
Fast forward to my teens, I built a Keil Kraft Eeze Bilt Neptune when aged 15 years or so and ran it successfully on Ilkley Tarn, which was a kind of picturesque small boating lake, built in Victorian times I believe, at the base of the Yorkshire Moors.
My first RC boat was called Silver Machine, a free plan from Model boats made from cardboard (mine was from weedkiller packets!) 'stitch' glued together using UHU household glue because it was waterproof! It was sealed with Nitrate Shrinking dope, which really toughened up the structure. I had a 35Mhz 4ch Acoms radio bought for planes (birthday gift I asked for) but it ended up in several boats and cars first. 2 Channels were used for rudder and an on/off motor microswitch attached to a servo arm as I couldn't afford an ESC. The motor was scrounged from a friend - it was a 4.5volt Meccano motor connected to the shaft with a piece of rubber tube from something - it was completely scratch-built, floated, and worked, much to my surprise. It also sailed on Ilkley Tarn. That plan came out in March 1986, I think.

I didn't build any more boats until my early/mid 20's, when Glynn Guest's Arcady (another free plan) and Vic Smeed's Moonmist (all balsa, about 20" long) and Moonglow were completed. I also bought his Moonwind plan at the same time, but didn't have a go at building this until I was in New Zealand, so probably 2004 onwards. I also built a 150% sized Glynn Guest Bredette lifeboat also powered with a buggy motor - that actually sailed really well with a 'wiper board' type esc from a cheap RC car Mini Stock kit and 4 x nicads.

That was pretty much it until a few years ago, when a break from planes re-ignited my boat-building - I spent nearly 30 years involved with pub bands, motorcycle touring, road-running (my knees have never fully recovered!) and toy-making for nieces and nephews who are all grown up now.
I still try to run a bit, but the motorbikes and bands stopped 8 or 9 years ago.

Now I've built the pond, I suspect a few more smaller designs will appear, although once this Christmas is out of the way (ie toy-making duties have been completed) I intend to crack on with Vivacity for a good while and another Aerokits design...there are 'bucket-list' plans for several larger boats!

Anyone else...? - I too am intrigued as to how others got into this great hobby...

Best regards to all,

Nick

I started a very young age , now the clock of life is ticking away the carefree days of whittling a hull from a chunk of wood are not such a distant memory just one I recall with fondness .
Way back in the 1950s my grandfather was a set builder/model maker / plaster splasher for the local film studio , he was a great teacher Col

@ChrisF
Chris, I had the same reaction when I saw the title. I couldn’t help but laugh! Six hours to build a model? Yeah, right! 😂

By the way, I want to thank you again for drawing up the plans for the LesRo Stiletto.
I’ve already made two prints and I’m looking forward to getting started as soon as the plywood I ordered arrives.

Your background in architectural drawing certainly shows in the quality of your work.
Much appreciated, my friend!

6 hours, yeah right!

I didn't build many models when I was young, few Airfix aircraft kits and finished off a plane but never flew it. So I only really got into this hobby around 10 years ago at 62/63 years of age. After buying a 47" Fairey Huntsman 31 and 23" Fairey Huntress I embarked on my scratch building of my Fairey fleet which including producing the drawings. May sound as though I jumped in at the deep end but I had a background in architectural drawings and was a competent DIYer so once I'd got my head around model boat construction it wasn't too bad.

Chris