Well being a gas boat noob, and new to this forum, I thought I would post my recently completed rig.
I will admit I am no master boat craftsman so it does look a little rough but this is my first gas boat.
I have in the past built and run small electric balsa monos and cats but nothing this big.

I made the Hull from scratch out of recycled transport boxes made from thin 3 ply.
Kinda guessed my way thru it as I didn't have a motor for the Hull.
After the basic hull was made, it sat in the shed for 5 years and was forgotten...
Until recently ...

My McCulluch weed whacker was on its last legs, the shaft was wobbly and the whole trimmer head assembly would twist 90 odd degrees in any direction whenever it pleased... perfect excuse to buy a new one!
The beauty of the McCulluch tho, was that the engine ran perfectly, it has a clutch and i rediscovered my old hull...

i measured it up and compared to some gas boat plans i saw on the net and realised "damn, looks too small for a 32cc weedy motor... ah well, never mind, give it a shot anyways..."

it measured in at a mere 1 meter (39.39")long and 30cm (12") at its widest.

so i went about butchering the weedy motor and "bodging" it to mount in the hull...
well it fits! kinda dwarfs the hull but anyhoo..

all the running gear was from an old nitro boat i scored for 50 bux many years ago, its hull was ruined and motor had broken bigend... but rest was good haha.
I pressed on and slapped some dodgy aluminium brackets together to mount the motor.
after i made the brackets i realised i should have had some rubber
the mcculluch had a square drive for its shaft, i was able to modify and adapt the round shaft collet off the old nitro to suit the square drive.
you will notice the prop is a bit too small for this size motor but i wasnt worried as i have a larger suited prop on order and the smaller is just to get some testing done.

whipped up a quick dodgy deck and puttied it up with "Auto one, Metal plus" one of those 2 part body fillers containing glass fibers and metal "dust".
Slapped a quick coat of satin black on it.

here is a near final completion shot


I gave it a dunk test and came up with a way to seal off the radio box using an aluminium lid on a hinge with couple of latches on the back end and sticky foam under the lid. Nothing like dry electrics

here is the final completed pic.
in this pic tho, i have a pipe on it, that pipe is (as i found out the hard way)is too small for this motor so was limiting my top end power and speed quite substantially.
i have since reverted back to the stock exhaust for now, which will do just fine until i want more speed!

i gave it a test run down my local beach and despite the limited power, it ran quite well. It was trying to plane, but the pipe held the motor back and wouldn't let it rev like i know it does, plus the prop is more suited to a .40 nitro not 32cc gas... hehe

I have a video of its first run but the camera was playing funny buggers and wouldn't focus at all, once i sort that out i will post a vid of its run

i kind of made it with the hope to be able to blat along the beach and jump over the occasional small wave and continue on... it handled quite well (for me anyway) next run with the stock exhaust and proper sized prop will be fun

ah yeah u may notice a little silver thing on the nose in the final pic, see if ya can guess what it is, think kids movie about lions...

Hi "Bas" and welcome aboard at MGB!

What a boat! It looks like a turkish shoe, and I am impressed that it did'nt sink with that huge engine!
Fine pics though and a very fine finish you put to this very special boat! Well done!
Your boat is the proof that RC boating can be a lot of fun without being fancy, classy, scientific or cost a million.
So again: Welcome aboard!

Please come back and send a vid, when possible.

Cheers!

Woodie.

Cheers woodie!
All up I'd say I've spent about $50 on this build
recycled a lot of parts from scrap and old boats.
Can't wait to take it out again!

Can we see the video?

Alrighty I have a video of its third and *cough* final run. Will post it once i edit it.
I say final run because the hull is falling apart. I used mdf for the bulkheads... baaad move as they soaked up a crapload of water and, well that's the end of that. I did drown the Hull in resin but water seeped in thru screwholes.

So I have begun construction of the 48" bee plan as available on this site

Hi!

Looks a little bit dangerous, like big engine killer.
please be careful on the turns ! )

A wonderful cc value to start in gas hobby! respect!

Sergey
Russia

Please keep us informed how the new build goes. Doug

Hi Bas.

Your El Cheepo Weedy Mono is about to become a cult-like item for me!
Please bring that video of the 3.rd and famous run as it was just before this outmost special turkish shoe disintegrated in the water and went to the holy MGB-heaven!
Will you? Pretty pretty please!

Cheers from a viking.

Woodie.

Alrighty, here's the video you've all been eagerly awaiting.
This is the last run this hull will ever do due to the "mdf incident"
I was still running the very undersized prop as i only just received my new, correctly sized prop in the mail today.
You may notice it sitting quite low in the water, yes it had taken on a lot of water after it came too close to the shore but i couldnt be buggered emptying it out hehe.

The new hull is coming along quite nicely. I just finished gluing the bottom on (no mdf in sight this time, all marine grade ply for bulkheads and luan ply for the rest)
I have even started modifying the 32cc mac to fit in the hull better.
I would like to watercool it so i can do away with the bigass plastic shroud (well chop it down somewhat as it hold the pullstarter) but i'm not too sure how i should go about it, i am still on a reasonably tightish budget so any cheap ways of doing it would be great.
If anyone has any suggestions about watercooling the mac, i would appreciate it.
I'm pretty sure i have access to a lathe if need be.

the vid can be found here on my old website, for some reason i couldn't get the video to attach to this post...

www.members.iinet.net.au/~bask...MVI_4444(1).mp4

Thanks for the vid from that beautiful beach, Bas.
Your turkish shoe had a fine final run. Not a screamer, but taken the circumstances it really performed a beautiful ride!
I wish you luck with your next project. May it turn out to be water-proof.

Cheers!

Woodie.