Building the IMARA TUG

[Guest]

Hi Andy, I will be very interested to see the quality of the white metal fittings on this kit, the ones for my Trawler were very poor quality. Plenty of scope for weathring on this one if you want to. Cheers Derek

[Guest]

Hi Andy, I will be very interested to see the quality of the white metal fittings on this kit, the ones for my Trawler were very poor quality. Plenty of scope for weathring on this one if you want to. Cheers Derek

Thanks Derek, what i have seen of the fittings so far looks very nice and clean. I will open a pack tomorrow so you can see the quality.

Cheers

Andy

[Guest]

Day 2

I finished cleaning up the hull and managed to fit the shafts in place with some waterproofing to.

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Day 3

I finished off the shafts and added a little support timber secured by some matting and synthetic resin. I also filled the shafts with grease and added the props. There is some wood working to do on this model as none of the base fixing is supplied so im having to cut my own and set it in place. Im not too worried about the runs in the resin as i will be painting the inside of the hull white.

I still have to sand down the squadren green once it is dry.

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Cheers

Andy

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[papa 695]

Great start Andy like the idea with the smoke will make it look more authentic when completed and sailing

[Guest]

Day 4

A slight set back today guys. Though this kit is in many ways a fantastic and detailed tug there are however some big problems as i see with the production of the parts. I cant say that i am to chuffed that the kit doesnt come with all its parts for mounting motors and controls etc like the Hunter kit did. and with this in mind i think very little thought has gone into how the builder acheives the end result.

Take the pictures below for instance - these are the mounts supplied with the motors, quite how you are expected to fit these in and line up is behond me, see what you think.

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This is what has caused me the set back, i had to make a template that fits in the hull nice and snug and then make a bulkhead to accept the motors bearing in mind that with no pre made parts for this it was critical that i got the alignment perfectly straight, seem like your left out in the cold on this one and if you hadnt the skill to do the job you would be stuffed. Anyway, moan over and i just got on with the task at hand.

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Cheers

Andy

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[Guest]

Just caught up on this Andy, this is going to be one nice tug

[Guest]

Thanks Jim, as soon as i can get out of the hull the real stuff begins.

Cheers

Andy

[Guest]

Day 5

All the wood working for the control gear is now in place and we are ready to paint the inside of the hull. There is a slight angle to the motor bulkhead i know, this is for the slight difference in shaft hieghts and though its only 3mm it looks a lot according to the timber, this will however vanish has the build progresses. Again with no indication and measurements on the plans or in the instructions i was on my own again with this bit. You cant even get a hint from the plans as they are not to scale would you believe. :lost:

Working from front to back we have:-

Two Speed controllers mount here, next are the two 6v 10Ah batteries, just tucked behind them is the receiver battery above next is the receiver, then the two motors and above and behind them is the rudder servo.

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[Guest]

Day 6

Three coasts of Flaire Gloss White paint added to give the inside a finished look when the covers are removed also helps to identify the dirt more easily when cleaning is required. Now we can get onto some more serious building.

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Cheers

Andy

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[Guest]

You ate really putting this together Andy, watching with great interest

Jim

[Guest]

Thanks Jim, the last few days have been a nightmare not having any instructions and scale drawings on what needs to go where.

[Guest]

I have moved on to the deck support rails now and after reading the instructions i have decided i may as well throw them in the bin, again they are no help at all i even think that they way they read they might even be English transaltion because some of the sentences make no sense at all.

Probably the best thing to do is go off the NTS drawings as some sort of guidance and use my own skills and judgement from here on in. Ill post some pics tomorrow of the progress as i have been waiting for the inside of the hull to dry so not much was done today, in fact i managed about 20mins.

Cheers

Andy

[Guest]

Day 7

As i said earlier the instructions are no help and i decided to go it alone. First job was to fit the rails around the sides of the hull, some compound curves meant slotting the rails to get them to fit without snapping the wood this made it form very easily. Once these were in place i had to fit the cross supports and to make sure these were in the correct location i offered in the ply decks and marked off the locations. Next once this was all in place i made up some fillets and additional supports for added strength at the joints. All this was tacked in place with CA and tomorrow i will mix up some resin and hardener and run it around under the edge support strips.

Fitting the deck ply temp showed up anothe problem... the hull moulding is slightly out of shape across the width and the ply does not fit correctly and has some heafty gaps along the edge, im in two minds as to making new decks or filling in the gaps, i will contemplate this further when i see how much bigger the gap is once the curve of the deck is formed. Just another pitfall of this kit. I dont think i will build another one from this manufacturer.

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Cheers

Andy

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[Ian M]

Some time a GRP hull can be a bit lumpy and bent. As long as you keep things strait and true, you'll be fine.

If the deck is the right shape and parallel I would have a think about making the hull fit the deck rather than the deck fit the hull. Have you measured the hull out to see that it is true and strait?

Ian M

[Guest]

Yes Ian, it seems that the hull is now wider than it should be and being thick fibreglass there was no flex in it to narrow it enough. I will post some pics tomorrow and you can see exactly what the problem is. I think the best solution is to use the existing decks as templates and add on the shortfall in the width. Would be better all round i think.

Cheers

Andy