Building my Aquacraft VS1

I've started building my own VS1 tunnel hull now. In Sweden we're going to have an official national champ series this year so I think it will be quite a lot of racers. We race only one class and it's stock. So very few mods are being allowed. I'll come back to that in a later blogg. Do note, I´m NO tunnel expert in any way, I have only done one tunnel race so far in my whole life. :)

I started with painting the cowl neon orange (HOK neon color & Sikkens 2K clear coat). And I made my own new templates for different style window(s).

If you, like me, painted the cowl - the original windows are gone. So if U liked my new lower profile windows on the cowl, you can print this template out then trace the outsides of them with a pen on the backside of a vinyl film of your choice and cut them out with a pair of scissors. If you e-mail me I can send you a better PDF file for printing...

The drawback of having these made in China is that the plywood they use are not what we're used to here. So I traced the stock fuel tank plywood "U" parts and cut them out in 2.5 mm birch airplane plywood of a slightly better quality. They're slightly higher also so. The mounting plates are stock items. Then I covered all the plywood parts with ZAP finishing resin (after 20 minutes I wiped most off with a rag).

The stock VS1 hull has a nose block in each sponson tip that sandwiched between the deck and bottom sheeting. I think there is a chance that they can split of in contact with buoys, pontoon or other boats so I made some new hard wood tips just to be safe.

I sanded the nose sections of the sponsons flat so I could glue on some hard-wood sponson tips. After I had shaped/sanded them I put on some finishing resin (ZAP) that is left on to "soak" in and then wiped off with a cloth free paper towel (20 minutes later). No more finishing of them is needed.

A friend of mine (Christer Burström) is building a few new tunnels for this season and he also is building a VS1 for my buddy Juha Honkanen. This is his VS1 boat looking good.

To be continued...

VS1 product link

Daffy outriggers from the 80's

The Daffy outrigger hydroplane RC boats where hot in the early 80's in Scandinavia. They where designed by Anders Ydergård from Göteborg and the drawings where made by Fred Brihagen in Oxelösund. The Daffy's where never sold as a kit - only as a DYI drawing. Personally I never built a Daffy but they where really light and fast. Maybe not the best handling boats when cornering though but at that time not many where... But if one would re-design the driveline to a flex shaft & strut set-up and also a hooked turn fin it might be up to speed... ;)

Thanks to Fred Brihagen that supplied the new Daffy 20 & 40 drawings and Swedish hobby magazine Allt om Hobby that supplied the old magazine scans.

Visit Allt om Hobby's website - HERE.

If you have any pictures of a Daffy rigger - please feel free and mail it to me and I'll upload it here! E-mail


Daffy 20 Racing Outrigger
Motor: 3.5 cc
Overall length: 740 mm
Tub length: 700 mm
Width: 355 mm
Afterplane: 430 mm (from transom to sponson RE)
Tub width: 100 mm


If you want this Daffy 20 drawing as a printable full scale PDF - e-mail me and I'll send them 2 U. E-mail


Daffy 40 Racing Outrigger
Motor: 6.5-7.5 cc
Length: 880 mm
Width: 410 mm
Afterplane: 570 mm (from transom to sponson RE)
Tub width: 98 mm


If you want this Daffy 40 drawing as a printable full scale PDF - e-mail me and I'll send them 2 U. E-mail

Here below is a couple of Allt om Hobby magazine articles from 1982 and 1984.

Freebie by David Wilfong

Another Freebie being built, this time its David Wilfong from Kissimmee Florida.

If you missed the original blogg about the Kep's 21 Freebie drawings then go HERE.

Want to build it with a center ski only? If so, click HERE.

Pictures are taken from International Waters forum.

A-o-A chart for outriggers

Here's a handy chart if you want to check the Angle-of-Attack of your riggers running surfaces as in front and rear sponsons and also the strut...

You need a flat set-up board with slots for the turn fin and rudder blade.

Draw up some straight base-lines on the top of the set-up board surface. Make additional lines 40, 50 or 60 mm in front of the base-line(s).

Put the rigger on top of the set-up board and align the trailing edge of the part of your rigger you want to check the A-o-A of to the base-line.

Measure carefully at the 40, 50 or 60 mm "length" the height up to your running surface (bottom of your sponsons etc).

The rear most part of your running surfaces must be flat or the A-o-A angles will not be right. (They need to be flat to make the boat run good also.)

If you for example have measured the strut angle at 40 mm and you get a reading of 0.8 mm you have a negative A-o-A of about 1.15 degrees...

Yes, it can be tricky to measure but U will figure it out... :)

Good luck!

If you want a high-res PDF of the chart to print out you need to mail me. e-mail

Invitation to Swedish FSR-V SM1 & SM2

Invitation to the first two Swedish nats in FSR-V. They will be run back-to-back at a long Thursday-Sunday weekend 21-22 May & 23-24 May in Eksjö.

Sign-Up/Anmälan

Questions?

Polaroid® Suncovers

If you're like me and use prescription glasses then you know the problem of sun glasses... It's expensive to buy special prescription ones and it's even more expensive if you would like them to be polarized.

Now Polaroid® have a relatively new series of so called "Suncovers" that fits over your normal glasses. They are very easy to use and because they are polarized the glare from the water is greatly reduced also. The Suncovers are available at your local eye ware dealer in different frames and different tints. The ones I like the most racing RC boats is tinted brown. I have bought mines at Specsavers here in Sweden and they cost about 425 SEK here with VAT.

Specsavers Sweden

JAE .12G Heat Racing Hydroplane

Updated in October: "Jack Ass Performance" has been re-named to simply J.A.E Racing and the riggers have also been re-named to JAE (aka "J" boats). Gradually as most of their freebie plans are published here they will also go into production as a kit by ZippKits.com! You can choose to build it from scratch or buy a kit - its all up to you

Wanna find out more about the JAE .12G kit? Klick HERE.


Updated April 23 with a YouTube video of Martin Truex Jr. running a pre-JAP .12 rigger. Its actually (if Im correct) a modified Firefighter .12 rigger with new sponsons and rear prop-support much like the design on the JAP plans here below. Novarossi engine tuned by Rod Geraghty - it runs about 60+ mph in the video.


VIDEO link here.


Another "Freebie" rigger plan - me like! Even though we don't race these here in Scandinavia it's a cool little rigger design.

These .12 plans are the results of a joint venture between Rod Geraghty, David Hall, Ron Zaker Jr. & Martin Truex Jr. This design approach has been built, massaged and tested a great deal... Read the text block and follow the instructions. There are three sheets of drawings. David Hall drew them in Autocad and we transposed them into a PDF format. (Note, I have have added the logo I made for them and smoothened out the S-bend on the stuffing tube in one of the drawings vs. the original pdf files - no design have been altered from my side of course.)

When you get them copy them to a CD or memory USB stick and go to Kinkos or any other printshop that can print drawings and have them printed on [3] 24" x 36" sheets scaled 1:1 = 100%. You will end up with a full set of templates...

Hint: take the template drawing and put clear shipping tape on the front and back of the templates. Cut them out with a scissors and shazaam you will have template to trace onto a sheet of plywood.

The boat will accept most .12 to .18 "car" engines on the market. Like Novarossi, Sirio, Picco or O.S. etc. You don't even need any water-cooled head for them, they have run these with success with only air-cooling from the cut-down car heads. Use a 180 degree header from Associated with part number #2350.

Do note, all info of the JAP .12G hydro is from Rod Geraghty. I (Niklas Edlund) have not built one of these... yet. ;)

If you're interested to build one of these tiny nitro riggers I highly recommend you to sign up so you can check out the build thread at International Waters forums. ALL feedback and info will be posted there. CLICK HERE.

Click HERE if you want to download the main template PDF drawing.

Click HERE if you want to download the second PDF file of the JAP .12G.

Click HERE to download the basic instruction notes and drawings of the engine mount and rudder bracket etc.

Click HERE for a pdf of the turn-fin.

Solinger R/C Boat Hardware have also made a combo set of motormounts and rudder assembly for the JAP .12G hydro for $30. Note, Solinger R/C Boat Hardware company doesn't exist any longer...

Joe Solinger: This is the motor mount for the JAP12G, or any boat you wish to use it in. To mount it in the hull you first bolt the halves to the motor. With the wood mounting blocks glued to the hull, set the motor with mounts attached in the hull and locate on the wood mounting blocks to your liking. Use a pencil or some thing to transfer the bolt hole locations onto the mounting blocks. Then remove the motor and mounts and drill the mounting blocks with a 1/16" drill to about 1/2" deep. This is to help keep the wood from splitting. A washer goes on the bottom, then the motor mount and then another washer and the screw goes through the whole stack. For now, just lightly snug the screws. When I'm done adjusting and I know I don't need to take the mount out again I remove the screws and put a drop or two of epoxy down the hole before driving the screw in. This epoxy will soak into the wood and harden the threads as well as hold the screw. So "Just snug" the screws into place. These screws will come out again but its much tougher, they won't come out on their own.

The motor mount system is originally designed by David Hall.

This is the soon to be ready JAP .12G rudder assembly from Solinger.

Rod's simple build jig of the JAP .12G tub.

Detail shot of Rod's JAP .12G build.

If you have already forgot it I remind you to sign up to International Waters community forum so you can get more build tips etc. Click HERE and sign up.

Building is fun! :)

Swedish Bandy final '09

The final bandy game of this season was this past Saturday in Uppsala. The final was between the six-in-a-row Swedish champs Edsbyn and Västerås. This is before the game started. There was just over 20.000 people on the grand stands.


The games are played as two 45 minutes "heats"... ;)


Edsbyn scored at a penalty shot.


The game was really close and this is just before the end when Västerås was leading with 5-4.


Västerås broke the winning streak of Edsbyn with a well deserving 5-4. And this means no more bandy-blogging for me until next winter... ;)

Logos n' stuff...

I helped out a friend in need with some logos recently... Tom Moorehouse is the guy behind FireFighter Boats and also the guy that runs one of the best RC boating forums in the US - International Waters.

You can check out Toms new webshop where you can buy his championship winning rigger boatplans HERE.

I have also updated the OPS90 blog with some new DF info. Klick HERE and scroll down.

Kep's 21 Freebie, no rear sponsons

If you choose not to build any rear sponsons for your Kep's 21 Freebie rigger I recommend you to build this type of prop-support center "shoe" instead... This rigger needs to be light in the rear and it also needs some lift (in the rear). On a nitro rigger the basic lift (in the rear) is done with the propeller, that means you need to run a lifting prop like a ABC H4, H5, H6 or Octura 1445 on it. If you run a non-lifting prop, like a Octura X-series, it will most likely run too wet (in the rear).

The rear sponsons (or a right designed center "ski/shoe") also adds stability and makes the ride angle of the complete boat to be controlled. It accelerates also better out of the corners (with rear sponsons or any other type of prop-support).

This prop-support "ski" will also cover up the flex shaft brass tube and reduce drag. Do note we have never raced our Kep's riggers without any rear sponsons ourselves... Yet. ;)


This illustration shows where the prop-support "ski/shoe" is ment to be attached to the Freebie.