Darin's Phil Thomas Stealth Build

[Darin Jordan]

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

Fabbed up 4 different turn fins last night. Thus far, they all have just a single angled bend in them. No hooks. Once I settle in on a fin design, I'll refine it from there... Just not sure what this boat is going to want/need....

[ray schrauwen]

How thick are they? 7075 or 6061? Nice !

[RCKong]

1st on the left looks reeeal good... Thats the one I'd go with.

[Darin Jordan]

How thick are they? 7075 or 6061? Nice !

.060 7075 T6... REALLY firm stuff, but, seems to cut nicely on my bandsaw and sharpens up well.

[Rumdog]

Nice paint job! No windshield?

[Darin Jordan]

Nice paint job! No windshield?

Thank you! It's my first attempt at a REAL paint job using automotive paints. Still have a LOT to learn, and it's by no means perfect, but it turned out very acceptable for a first attempt. Clear got a little bit of "texture" in it. I didn't have the gun set correctly so I wasn't getting the material flow I should have and the coats went on a little too dry. Next time will be better. I could get it better, but it's good enough for the purpose. It IS a race boat, after all!

Not yet on the windshield... I'm working that direction. Wanted to get all the hardware, etc., mounted and get the boat RTR first... I have that done now, so tonight I'll be adding some striping and decals. :D

Th

[Clueless1]

Looking great Darin!
Thanks for sharing your builds with us! I'm finishing my first wood kit the ML Boatworks GP335 and had one question I wanted to ask you regarding the strut positioning. Is there a reason or advantage of off centering the strut rather than centered. a buddy is building one and he has his off centered. I noticed on this build it appears to be centered. Any thoughts you could share with me would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Todd

[electric]

Hey Darin, let me know what airbrush equipment you picked up at Harbor Freight. Might make a good Father's day kit for Dad(me).chuckle

[Darin Jordan]

Started putting on the decals this weekend. MonoJeff was able to help me out by jumping on making me some nice NAMBA race numbers, a windshield decal, and a couple of other small details and has them on the way. BIG SHOUT OUT TO JEFF! If you need vinyl, send your business his way. He does a great job!

Keeping things simple on this one. Decided NOT to add any striping. I think it looks nice without it and with the white being the border striping. Once the windshield and numbers are on, it'll balance out and should look really cool.

[monojeff]

Always a pleasure to help you and the gang out Darin.
You guys are going to have a blast at the nats and you know my decals are good for a mph or 2!
So when u win it was the decals that made the difference... Haha

Boat is looking great the decals will bring it all together.
Nice work!

[Darin Jordan]

All finished. Got her looking great... Now... I need to get her running great!

[fla350tt]

Tonight I finished up mounting the steering servo. Pretty straight forward. Added a 3/16" aluminum water pickup tube to the transom, and used a 3/16" aluminum rivet epoxied on the right side of the deck as an antenna tube holder. Opened up a small section of the inner liner liner to accomodate routing for the antenna wires.

Turned my attention to the turn fin. Phil does a NICE job of making this area pretty solid, but I decided that I wanted to just make sure that the turn-fin mounting area was completely solid, so I shaped a piece of 1/4" heavy ply to fit inside, and epoxied it in place. I pulled it into place using a small wood-screw through the sponson transom.

Once this was in place, I laminated a layer of 5.5oz Carbon Fiber over the area. Had to stop for the night to let the epoxy dry. Will fab a turn fin mount for it tomorrow and hopefully get it all fitted. Once this is done, I should be set to start the painting. All of the running gear will be in place.

I am building one of these and like the simplicity of your servo mount. Since this is my first build I am just making sure that the screws are going all the way threw the hull. So from the bottom of the boat you can see the screw heads, correct? button head or counter sunk?

[Captain Tom]

I have that UL you painted w/ rattle cans

[Darin Jordan]

I am building one of these and like the simplicity of your servo mount. Since this is my first build I am just making sure that the screws are going all the way threw the hull. So from the bottom of the boat you can see the screw heads, correct? button head or counter sunk?

The screws to mount the servo-mount are button heads. They are exposed in the tunnel area. It's off the water 90% of the time, and they are low-profile screws, so it seems to work fine...

[longballlumber]

For what it's worth (there is nothing wrong with Darin's method), I perfer to limit the number of holes thru the hull... I make one out of bass wood squares and use a small strip of wood to hold down the servo. Here are a couple of picks of mine...