Since one grandson had a boat with his name on, his brother wanted on too! This shrimp boat became Timothy's with a guiding hand from grandpa when at the lake. Tim is four years old.

My grandson Michael helped me build this kit last winter. We had fun researching existing tug boats of the era, and upgrading some of the details. After the bath tub test, I changed from direct drive to a 3:1 ratio motor to keep it running at a scale speed.

a sense of peace

New crew member on board yesterday - caught him having a sit down!

Captain Haddock out for a hover earlier today.... with thanks to Jerry for the video!

A nice still shot of the Tug on the lake today, towing a small barge with sand

I have just completed my Puffer and am quite pleased with the outcome. The components are quite good but do need a bit of fettling but this is what our hobby is about. This is my third Caldercraft build so I am used to their quality and sparse instructions.   As usual for Caldercraft you need to have your thinking cap on as the A0 plan and the 'instruction book' do not match up but of course they do expect you to have a little bit of experience in model building. it has taken me about 6 months to build working on and off over this time. it has a large hull which is easy to house the motor, ESC, RC and batteries, etc. (I installed 2 lead acid 6 volt batteries, one on each side amidships) which gives stability and ballast. Being a large deep hull it needs a lot of ballast, even in its short length.I have only tested her in the big white nautical test facility at home so do not know how it will perform on our lake but hope to try it out on Sunday if the weather is set fair. Tried her out Wednesday and she sailed really well - maybe a little more ballast in the bow but not too concerned.

I recently acquired this lovely boat off eBay,...she cleaned up nicely, and runs quite beautifully since I re engined with a Torpedo 850, on 14 volts.

Now, I would love to know is this is a one off, or a kit?

The build quality and layout would suggest a kit, but what do I know?

I'm sure the massed wisdom on this site can provide me with a clue...

Overall length; almost 50"

Any ideas?

Brian.

Night sailing, still more to do, work in progress.

Purchased from an old collector. Not sure how old, I was wondering on how do I clean this ship without damaging it. Quite a nice model. I was also wondering if anyone had any ideas of what kind of ship this maybe.

Nov.1 2016 weather great for Nov. here in Burlington Ontario at Spencer's boat pond . I'v posted a build log on this Midwest model but never showed it on water

I scratch-built this lot, and it includes some major navy units as at Gibralter 1943, Force H.