1981 Pay-N-Pak Build

[electric]

I decided I would document this build of an 1/8 Scale Pay-n-Pak hydro. First, a little background. I won this hull in a race Mr. Jim Vaughn put on at least a couple years ago if not more. There is no telling how long the hull sat in his garage before that. I did some research on it when I initially won the boat and it appears it was built by a guy up in the N.E. who has long since passed away. I will try and find the old post that had that information about the boat. So, the boat has never seen the water ever and is at least a couple of decades old. We can say at this point the fiberglass is nice and hard.

So, the boat is going to be a project to get in working order, but should be fun build. I will be asking a lot of questions this is only my second 1/8 scale to assemble and my first with tail feathers (lots of questions coming about how to anchor all that down).

She is going to be set up to run 8s with a Neu 1527 1.5y motor. Early this morning I ordered the Motor and all the associated hardware (Thanks OSE), so that should be in later in the week. I did have a Castle 2028 motor I was going to drop in there, but it is really a better 10s motor. As all my projects start, I dug through my parts drawer seeing how I could put this together with out spending much on it. After contemplating it, I decided to get all new hardware for her and do a good job of it.

Here are some initial pictures. I spent quite a bit of time figuring out the CG and the battery/motor placement. After some thought the only place to really get the batteries up front enough was in the hull. I cut holes up front to slide the batteries in. I hate dealing with difficult to reach batteries, so I built some sliding trays with some pieces of angled aluminium and a bit of fiberglass and wood. The trays will slide out about 2.5 inches and will strap down with a small bit of velcro underneath. That coupled with the tray should keep them in place. When you slide them inward the batteries will be completely in the hull. I am going to wait on epoxying the trays in there until further into the build and re-check the CG.

I also beefed up and filled in some plywood holes with some 1/8 plywood where the motor will mount. Originally, I was thinking 5" mount with the Castle Motor, but now with the Neu I might just do a floor mount.