1956 Chris-Craft 54' Constellation by bcochran - FINISHED - Lindberg - 1/20 PLASTIC

[bcochran]

This is the deck painted Tamiya TS-68 Wood Deck Tan.

 

I am waiting for my red-brown paint to arrive via USPS.  It got hung up at a post office somewhere for two days.  I want to paint the mahogany part of the hull before the black because it makes the masking easier.

 

 

[bcochran]

Here is the rear deck with artist's oils streaked on.  I read that this was called the promenade deck.

 

The oils are not dry yet.  I don't know how realistic this is, but it's better than the tan by itself.  It shows up the caulking lines better than a single color.

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by bcochran

[Ian_Grant]

Nice. I would cover it in a high gloss finish to protect the shading, then apply a dark wash to fill in the caulking lines. After all is dry, cover again in satin or matt clear.

[bcochran]

18 minutes ago, Ian_Grant said:

Nice. I would cover it in a high gloss finish to protect the shading, then apply a dark wash to fill in the caulking lines. After all is dry, cover again in satin or matt clear.

My plan exactly.  I think I am going to use black acrylic paint for the caulking.

[bcochran]

This is the only picture of a black hulled 1956 Chris Craft Constellation I can find.  It is from a YouTube video.  A guy bought this boat to live on instead of motels when he is away at work. He made several walk around videos and shows his restoration work.  I'm using it as a reference where I can.

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by bcochran

[bcochran]

I could not find a color I wanted for the cabin walls.  I am not sure what kind of wood they are made of.  I finally settled on Testers rust.  I will have to brush paint the walls and the side of the hull. I don't want to break out my air brush.  The hull painting is all most complete except for the black color.  After the rust paint is dry for a day, I will complete the hull painting.

Edited November 24, 2022 by bcochran

[bcochran]

I decided I have to break out my airbrush.  The mahogany colored trim on the decks need a very clean color separation line, and I can only do the with masking tape and an airbrush.  I may as well spray the cabin walls while I am at it.

 

Also, I want to cover the gray stanchions with Alclad II chrome.  That requires an airbrush.

Edited November 24, 2022 by bcochran

[bcochran]

Unfortunately, I did a lousy job of painting the hull.  It will take some time to recover.  Since the Tamiya paint is durable, I am going to have to sand the bad spots before I paint over. 

 

I was in too much of a rush and now, I added a bunch of hours to the job.  I set the boat aside for now and come up with a new plan to painting it.  I don't want to look at it for a while.  If it were a small model airplane, it would have crashed into the wall at a hundred miles an hour.

 

So I will be back in about a week or so.

Edited November 24, 2022 by bcochran

[Knocklouder]

LOL I wonder how many of us here, lets say miss handle their models 

[bcochran]

42 minutes ago, Knocklouder said:

LOL I wonder how many of us here, lets say miss handle their models 

I used to say you have to destroy a lot of kits before you complete one you are willing to show off.  It's kind of like folks who tell you how much they won at the casino, but never tell you how much they threw into the slots between winnings.

[hof00]

1 hour ago, bcochran said:

I used to say you have to destroy a lot of kits before you complete one you are willing to show off.  It's kind of like folks who tell you how much they won at the casino, but never tell you how much they threw into the slots between winnings.

Hi Chap,

I am looking forward to your continued perseverance with your project!!

 

I too have had paint issues with my Pen Duick. I used Vallejo paints and then a clear lacquer to get that "Shiny" finish. The lacquer was too "Hot" and crazed the paint. It took quite some time to carefully remove what I thought, all the lacquer. As it happened, the new paint also reacted with the lacquer that I hadn't removed, so, I had to do it all over again.... 🙂

 

Live and learn I guess....

 

All the best and following with interest.

 

Cheers and Regards.

 

Harry.

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by hof00

[bcochran]

Well, I have the hull just about refinished.

 

The best news for me is that a pond in a county park near me is used by R/C boater.  There are a lot of ducks and geese there, but I am told there are not bothered by the boats.

 

I think the fast racing type boats might bother them, but the sail boats do not.  I don't plan to run my boat fast.  The C C Constellations top speed was around 14 knots or 16.11 MPH.

[Ian_Grant]

In my teens I slapped a motor and rudder in a Canada Goose decoy for RC. The geese weren't fooled, no matter how slowly it approached them. 😄 At full speed there was a huge bow wave at its breast. 🤣

[bcochran]

I used an ordinary mechanical lead pencil and a black ball point pen to darken the space between the boards on the deck.   It is supposed to represent caulking. 

 It is pretty subtle.

On the real boats, what looks like three boards is actually one board. They cut grooves to make it look like three boards. They caulked the grooves and the actual board separations so it looked like three boards.

Edited August 29, 2023 by bcochran

[bcochran]

On the rear deck, I used the black ball point pen only.  You can see the left side of the deck in the picture is done, the right side is not done.

[bcochran]

The hull painting job I did looks like crap.  I have to strip the paint off and start over.  That will take some time.  I hear oven cleaner works.  I am going to try that.  I also don't like the color I used for tan or mahogany.

 

So stay tuned, and I will be back when the hull is repainted.

Edited November 28, 2022 by bcochran

[bcochran]

I completed painting the hull.  I wasn't able to remove the paint with oven cleaner, so I sanded out the rough spots and touched up the paint.

 

Now it is time to learn about placing and using the R/C equipment.  The decks are sitting there temporarily.

 

[hof00]

Hi Chap,

Looks pretty good from where I'm sitting!!

 

Cheers....HOF.

[bcochran]

I could not use the kit's motor mount piece because my motors are bigger than the kit's motors.  I used some scrap plastic sheet that I had lying around to rig up a motor mount.

 

I am not sure how it will work until I get all the other components in place.

Edited August 29, 2023 by bcochran

[bcochran]

The electronic speed control has its own shelf.  I can adjust the angle of the motors with the two screws between the motors.   Also those screws hold the motor shelf in place.

Edited November 29, 2022 by bcochran

[bcochran]

So, the motors, electronic speed control and the batteries are installed and hooked up.

 

I don't know a darn thing about what I am doing.  I just followed the instructions.

 

I need to put in the servo and rudders.  I took Ian's advice and supported the rudder tubes.

 

I still need to get some Velcro to attach the batteries.  At this point, all the weight of the components are aft of the center.  I am not sure if you need to even the load or not, or how it affects the way the boat sits in the water. 

 

Another thought that came to me is that the rear deck lifts off, and the front deck does not.  So you could not get at any components you would put under the front deck.

Edited November 30, 2022 by bcochran

[James G]

Your build is coming along great! My first was a Dumas 1940 Chris Craft Barrel Back that I started a couple of years ago that I’m wrapping up for my granddaughter Adeline. Last step, finally installing the electronics. Enjoying watching your progress!

 

Edited November 29, 2022 by James G

[bcochran]

I need to do some research on R/C boats.  I know nothing yet.  I looked online and so far I didn't find much.   Mostly what I saw was speed boats and a recommendation that beginners buy an already built boat to learn on.  Well, I blew past that recommendation.

[bcochran]

1 hour ago, James G said:

Your build is coming along great! My first was a Dumas 1940 Chris Craft Barrel Back that I started a couple of years ago that I’m wrapping up for my granddaughter Adeline. Last step, finally installing the electronics. Enjoying watching your progress!

 

I like your boat.  You look like an orderly person with your tools all in place.

Did you make the stand it is on?  I have seen ones like it online.  Where did you get the lettering?>

Edited November 29, 2022 by bcochran

[bcochran]

This is my radio control system.  The little rectangular thing is the receiver.  It plugs into the electronic speed control (ESC).

 

It looks like you could screw up and plug the ESC connection to the receiver backwards. I have much to learn.

 

The little on-off switch turns on the ESC fan.

Edited November 29, 2022 by bcochran

[Ian_Grant]

Yes, most servo connectors aren't keyed. If I'm not mistaken only Futaba connectors use keys.  You can see the key slots on your Rcvr unit.

 

All servo connectors plug into the Rcvr with the black GND wire toward the outside of the Rcvr.

 

One needs to do a float test when all equipment is in. The boat is unlikely to float at waterline, or sit with a level pitch (bow to stern).

Additional ballast will probably be needed, and is distributed give the proper pitch and depth.

 

Your hull looks nice to me.  For future info, I've read that brake fluid strips paint from plastic.

[bcochran]

10 minutes ago, Ian_Grant said:

Yes, most servo connectors aren't keyed. If I'm not mistaken only Futaba connectors use keys.  You can see the key slots on your Rcvr unit.

 

All servo connectors plug into the Rcvr with the black GND wire toward the outside of the Rcvr.

 

One needs to do a float test when all equipment is in. The boat is unlikely to float at waterline, or sit with a level pitch (bow to stern).

Additional ballast will probably be needed, and is distributed give the proper pitch and depth.

 

Your hull looks nice to me.  For future info, I've read that brake fluid strips paint from plastic.

Thanks for the input, Ian,

I've found the best thing to strip paint is Super Clean.   You need to soak the part in a container of the Super Clean.  My Hull is too big to do that.

 

I was lucky to get the hull to look right. 

 

 

[James G]

I did build the stand. Was pretty easy...just cut the PVC pipe to size and cemented it together. For the lettering I enlisted the help of my wife. She has a Cricut Machine. I selected a font I liked and she cut it on the machine in vinyl with an adhesive backing. After application I put on 20-30 coats of varnish on the stern so the letters were embedded in the varnish. Smooth just like the real woodies! Hope that helps.

[bcochran]

I have a couple of questions for those in the know.   Do the motors turn in opposite directions?  The Lindbergh plans show the props spinning in opposite directions, so the props must have a left one and a right one.

 

I read that the receiver should be as far away from the ESC as possible, correct?

 

It looks like I have to build a support for the servo.

 

I think I am going to put the battery packs one forward and one aft to distribute the weight.  I just need to get to the leads to recharge them, and they are attached to a Y connector so there is only one lead to get to I think.

Edited November 30, 2022 by bcochran

[Ian_Grant]

Normally props would turn opposite to each other. It's up to you to order a left hand and a right hand prop. Since a single ESC will be driving both motors, just swap the wires to one of them to get it to turn the opposite way. Modern ESC's switch their MOSFET transistors on and off at a rate somewhere in the kHz's. Sometimes in the audible range. I'd have thought a modern 2.4G Rcvr would be pretty immune, unlike the FM Rcvrs of my teenage RC years, but it is still a good idea to keep them separate. You should add small ceramic capacitors at the motor terminals to suppress the switching noise.

 

I have not yet used modern batteries such as NiMH or LiPo; not sure can you just parallel your two to get more amp-hours? Or do you mean they are in series to give you 12V for the motors?