Biggs Darklighter saying hello!

So first thing to know about me is I write too much, ask lots of questions, write more, and REALLY enjoy building things.  Especially anything RC related.    

I rarely build things the way I "should" build them.  I seem to have an obsessive need to modify, tweak, and stuff silly power plants into whatever I am building.  Ironically though, my favorite thing to build is sailboats.  I am a longtime user/abuser over at RCG and apparently spend 82% of my time in the sailboat forum.  

Today I was hunting for information on the Chinese mini tugs and found Roadrunner's Q3 build.  I read most of it on my phone at work today, not an easy feet.

Welcome Biggs Darklighter! I guess by some of your post you are not from the UK ! This Forum is managed from the UK, but we welcome active members from anywhere! It does sometimes mean that our advice and comments may not be strictly relevant to non-UK residents.
There is another Mini Tug build on the forum - mine! [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

As you say these have been cloned many times which has lead to lots of problems of inaccurate parts and parts not included even when they are shown on the eBay listing.

We look forward to seeing your build - maybe with a gasoline engine?

Barrie

I have no idea what gave it away, I guess I have an American accent in my writing then?  Modeling is modeling though and I can't think of much that would change based on what side of the pond we are on. I am already used to working with metric measurements.  You UK guys sure have some awesome companies like Cornwall Model Boats that we don't have "easy" access too.        

Humm a Cox .049 or a K&B .10 would be "buzzingly" amusing for sure, but I don't really like gas motors.  I was a very early adopter of electric.  Here in the States we can get away with flying almost anywhere, and other forms of general RC mayhem, a lot easier if it is quiet. 

I have some unusual wants/needs for this little boat.  It needs to be fairly powerful.  Hopefully enough so that it can push Marblehead and 1 Meter sailboats back to shore in a crisis.  Although to this date I have never gotten a boat stranded out on the water, so it is probably an excuse...  It needs to be small enough to fit in my support tool bag.  

I will be scanning and importing the whole kit into Design Space.  While measurements say it will fit, the power plant might be too large for this tiny hull.  And it will require some interesting mods.  So once the kit is saved, I will likely build it out of my own materials and spare the actual kit.

Biggs Darklighter wrote:

I have no idea what gave it away, I guess I have an American accent in my writing then?  

 Just one word - Sailboats   and possibly your name.
I was thinking of advice regarding suppliers when I mentioned our UK bias. 

Barrie

HAHA fair enough!  Yeah now that you mention it, I think Americans are perhaps a bit sailboat crazy.  I don't think I have ever seen a model power boat out on the water.  So actually UK suppliers might need to be used anyways for anything not easily gotten off eBay or the Chinese hobby markets.  Whatever the case, it is truly a global market place these days.  I don't have a local hobby shop to source things from anyways.  Whatever the case, feel free to recommend the UK supplies/suppliers.        

As for the name, obviously not my legal given name haha!  After being mostly out of the RC hobby for 20+ years, I got back into it with the drone craze.  I had unrelated personal branding using darklighter, and Biggs Darklighter was sorta a bit cheeky and cheesy reference to hopefully becoming a good drone pilot.  I didn't.  If you see me out flying...   I enjoy the melding of technology and anarchy, but didn't find flying and building them to be as satisfying as watching the drone mayhem, or as satisfying as working with wood.   
 
Well I have been reading and poking about a lot to get a better feel for this forum.  It is an interesting place!  It seems the focus here is mostly power and scale boats.  Both of which I have close to ZERO experience in.  Over on RCG these forums move way too fast for me, and anyways seem to mostly be filled with making Chinese boats faster.  I have a Feilun FT009, it is fast enough and I enjoy it every now and then.  I might spend the $100 to get the brushless FT012 version, but unlikely to spend half that and take the effort out to upgrade the FT009.  

I have two projects to tackle here.  The mini tug will be entertaining.  Probably on the same level of watching a train wreck?  I will likely get some "Why?!" and "Don't, just NO!" advice.  But the build will mostly just be a case of shoehorning the power plant into the small hull, or making a bigger hull.  Anyways enough teasing and hinting.  As soon as the power plant arrives, I will start a build thread!  It won't be a very "serious" build haha!  

But it might be a stepping stone to a serious build I want to tackle.  My dream build of all dream builds, is a 1/1 scale Glen L Squirt.  I can't afford that now, but instead will likely tackle an RC version.  Still, I haven't found smaller plans and so will likely just order the full sized ones, cause than I have to eventually build the big un too.  Plans aren't exactly cheap at $75, so I have to get my money's worth!    

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This little gal has such pretty lines!  Especially her rear!  

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I have much of the tools and building experience/skill needed to pull it off.  But I defiantly need to broaden my knowledge base and learn some more, especially in the finishing department.  For the full sized one, I will probably need a bigger workshop.  

At the very least, I can afford to build it as a scale model.

Plenty of sailboats in the UK, not on this forum perhaps, but we tend to call them yachts. 

I like the look of your 1:1 project - even as model it would look very good on the water. I gave up on fast models when I realised my reactions were not as quick as when I was 21

Barrie

It is kinda funny, all of my collection of books say model "yacht" racing, construction, or whatnot when referencing sailboats.  But here in the States if we say "I am going yachting today." it almost always refers to big luxury power boats.  "I am going boating." tends to refer to the smaller knockabout type of boats...  "Sailing" is sailing.  It isn't a hard and fast rule for naming the boat types, but for the most part it follows that too.   If you called it a yacht and showed somebody your Sunfish or Laser, you would probably be laughed at.  

I live in Florida.  So not only is boating the main pastime of pretty much everyone who lives here, we actually have a bunch of model sailing clubs.  We are lucky too.  We have "water retention" ponds everywhere to control the runoff when it rains.  I have a decent sized pond for sailing hidden across the street from me.  On Google maps the area immediately around my house shows up over 50!!!  This is in like a 3 kilometer radius.  And these aren't even the large sailing venues...  I know of at least 3 larger ones within 10 minutes of the house specifically run/used by local model clubs.

I have more sailboat projects than I can count without going out into the workshop.  And even if I did, I would probably miss a few hidden away...  I can probably find some content for the "Rag and Stick" category if I look hard enough.    

The Squirt build wouldn't be about making a fast boat, although it probably would at least be quick by default.  If I can ever score one of the metal vintage toy outboards at a reasonable price, it would be the perfect display platform for that.  And also great practice for building the full sized one.

Welcome to the forum. Great boat you have there I love those styles! Thanks for sharing, and look forward to your feature projects

Aron