Rescue Towboat Build

[Tombsy]

Hey all,
This will be the build of the new rescue boat for retrieving stalled or flipped nitro and FE boats on practice days.
The previous rescue craft are a Traxxas Villain EX with arms that has great maneuverability with the twin outdrives but the props are way too inefficient for slow speed work. Next is a Vac-U-Tug with the same recovery arms arms that works great but it is going on to be a rescue boat for the Calgary Model Sailing Club.




I like the tug so I decided to go with one of Vac-U-Boats other kits the Vac-U-Tow. This boat has a little bigger motor than the tug and has two additional flanking rudders to steer when reversing. The kits are reasonably priced, comes with the motor, all the hardware you need and have great instructions. The plastic parts are vacuum formed (hence the name) and have to be cut out and trimmed. The rudders, stack and front pusher blocks are cast from resin.
This is what the stock kit looks like I'm planning to add a little scale detail with lights and an automatic bilge pump hooked to a couple of fire fighting nozzles. That's the plan anyway we'll see how it works out.



Here's the parts before cutting and trimming.



Here's the hardware, lights, electronics and scale parts I've accumulated for the build.



The parts are all pre-marked with pencil lines for cutting out.



The parts are cutout and the holes are drilled.



First step is to assemble the prop shaft with the included lube.



The hull liner is glued to the hull and the propshaft is epoxied in.



The motor mount and servo mount assembly with an Integy motor cooler ready to be epoxied in the hull.



The motor mount (without servo and cooler) epoxied in with motor coupling connected.



Time for a little painting more to come.

[damfurst]

Very interested to see how this turns out. Should be a good rescue boat.

[Greenie]

what a cool Kit!!!!
I'll be watching this build for sure!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tombsy]

Some progress...
I painted the hull black, actually before I glued in the motor mount.



I used the excess epoxy from the the rudders and propshaft to attach some plywood to the underside of the topdeck for easier mounting of deck accessories The deck is fairly thick plastic but I figured it would give me more options. I use West Systems 105 and 205 epoxy with their 403 filler. It has a measured pump system so its hard to mix small batches. I put a piece inside the roof as well to help support a mast.



The oilite bushings for the rudders get epoxied in, I had to let the main rudder setup before doing the other two, its a little tricky keeping everything straight and square. As per the instructions I used about 50% filler in the epoxy.



With the servo mounted and all the arms mounted to the rudder shafts they are connected with the pre-formed pushrod. All these parts (except servo) are included with the kit!



I built two fire nozzles from Graupner that will be mounted on deck and plumbed into the bilge pump.



The pilothouse is clear lexan, I didn't get too fancy inside just painted the floor and console/counter. A few other detail parts get some paint as well.



I'm still deciding on the color scheme for this boat, I'd like to have some checkerboard and yellow to tie in with my other boats but it's not to tuggy looking.

[cyanide]

This is cool, will be watching to see how she turns out.

[Tombsy]

A little more progress, rudders are installed and linkage is set.



Some more detail parts.



I finally decided on a paint scheme and did the masking to paint the deck but I decided to layout and drill the holes for the railings first. It's Plastruct railing but I cut of the bottom railing (the widest one). Not shown but the cutoff railing makes a good tool for laying out where the holes will go. The angled railing is for the stairs.

[Tombsy]

A little update, the main deck is painted grey and the tow "knees" are attached to the bow.



The holes for the railings on the top two decks are laid out and drilled. Ready for paint now.



I'm still playing around with how the electronics will be laid out and waiting for some terminal strips to start figuring out the lighting. Progress has slowed a bit since I'm taking some lathe/machining courses at SAIT. Hopefully it will lead to making some of my own boat parts. But I have to show off my first project from class, a c-clamp/bolt checker. (Any machinists out there be nice it's not perfect )

[Magnat007]

I am liking this alot !!

I cannot wait to see it in action !

[Tombsy]

Some progress, I got some color on the boat, and finished the three sets of stairs between decks, they take a little fiddling to get right.



The stack got a couple of pipes added and is painted and attached to the deck.



The automatic bilge pump is attached with Sugru, it's pretty cool stuff, an air curing silicone rubber that you form by hand.



I made a shelf for the RX and esc and installed it and some pool noodle foam for flotation.





Still waiting for a few parts and I'm short of railing but more to come...

[Tombsy]

Some progress! I'm still working on the railings, the water nozzles are attached and ready to be plumbed into the bilge pump.






I think I have the wiring figured out for the lights, I'm going to try a PiccoSwitch relay to have them controlled from the transmitter.
The LED's I want to use for the green and red nav lights are the square ones on a circuit board so I have to do something creative to mount them in the scale fittings. There needs to be a plug or a contact that will unplug the lights when I take the top off as well, still thinking about a way to do that.
Hopefully the wiring will be a little neater when it's done. LOL
But getting close to glueing the deck on!

[Tombsy]

I had some success with the nav lights, I separated the lantern from the sideboard, removed the bulb and drilled out the lantern base a little larger. A 1/2 watt surface mount led (the type mounted on a little circuit board) just fits inside. The hole for the wire will be bigger but it will be covered by the sideboard. They are so bright I think you could do laser eye surgery.
The green stuff is a formable air cure rubber for hacking that I find more and more uses for every day, it's cool stuff.
The lights will make more sense when I get them mounted.

[Rebel]

I thought of building a tug boatd but in a different way, it would be custom made where you could winch the flipped or stranded boat onto a deck and just drive it back in without any resistance from just pulling it

[Tombsy]

This one is pretty cool, the middle deck has a motor from the bowl lifter in a commercial mixer. It scoops up the boats and lifts them right out of the water.

Edit: Hopefully I fixed the picture.

[Tombsy]

Pretty slow progress over the holidays, I'm still waiting on more railing to finish. I decided to build a mast to be able to add some more LED lights and I think it will work okay.
I was pretty fortunate over the holidays and bought the new GoPro Hero3 Black Edition with WiFi and my son gave me a quadcopter. So hopefully some cool boat video's to come this year!
You can use an Iphone as the viewfinder for the GoPro so it would be almost like FPV but with a big lag. I'll have to get the camera mounted on the tug and play around with it.

For the mast I soldered some brass bits together and put a clear LED on top and a green and red surface mount LED on the sides. I used more of the SUGRU rubber stuff to attach them this time I used white.





The camera squeezed into a Pelican 1120 case that I already had.



The Drone is pretty sweet for entry level, it has 2 cameras and altitude sensors. Downside is it's only wifi control but there is a mod kit to convert it to a regular controller on 2.4ghz if it proves to be worth it.

[Tombsy]

Pretty close now, I did the first test of all the electrics and everything is working, knock on wood. The lights and motor fan are controlled through a relay to the 3rd channel switch on the transmitter. The red and green LED's are really bright they should help with orientation out on the water. The white light on the mast blinks and all the rest are steady on. I have a mount for the GoPro on the front and now to see how much ballast it needs to trim it, glue the deck on and finish up the railings.

[Greenie]

oh WOW dude!!! LOOKS AWESOME!!!!!
cant wait to see it out on the water dude!!!!!!

[Tombsy]

She's all done, I finally finished the railings, rub rails, and cleaned up the wiring. The top deck was supposed to attach with velcro but it was kind of a pain so I ended up using some small magnets and some strips of metal glued underneath the rim of the hatch. There are a couple removable ballast weights to balance the boat without the GoPro attached.
I decided on 3s batteries for a little more jam, the biggest I could find that would fit through the hatch is a pair of 3s 2200's in parallel. There are two other batteries, a life rx pack for the lights and fan and also a 9v for the bilge pump.
I made a little PVC stand for it and fitted a frame for the rescue arms. The arms use PVC unions to breakdown for travel and the frame attaches to the tug with two Velcro straps.
Can't wait for some soft water!

[Tombsy]

I found a toolbox that everything will fit into, a 28" Stanley Fatmax. The pilothouse lays sideways on top and there is even room for the radio.
It's going to help make it easier packing the truck for the pond.

[Cataman]

Wow!! Great Job my friend. I Like alot that pusher boat.

[scxrunner]

That things sweet!!!

[Greenie]

love it!!! cant wait to see her on the pond dude!!!
LOVE the box!!!! thats just wicked!!! LOL!!!! no better way to protect it in transport!!!!!!!!!

[Mowgli]

Great lookin boat, looks like she'll push anything you need. And gotta love those Stanley boxes I've got one that's basically two boxs with a lidded tray between them for one of my cars only problem it's not quit big enough to hold the body too.

[Tombsy]

The pond finally thawed and I got to go for a test drive, it ran great on 3s and it seemed to have lots of power. I'll try it out on Wednesday at the lake with the nitro boats.

[Greenie]

VERY cool Tombsy!!!!
looks at home for sure, totally at home on the pond!!!!

[Cataman]

Looks so cool my friend. Bravo.

[MrRcFanatik]

Awesome Tombsy!! Who says that a rescue boat shouldn't look pretty! You've done a great job man! I guess I'll need to build something like this, since I've now got a gasser to worry about! lol!