The refurbishment has been quite an enjoyable experience. I definitely didn't want to change the age/history of the boat or in other words I didn't want to make it look as if it was a brand new kit completed yesterday, so there are some small areas of damage around the windscreen and not perfectly fitting coach roofs which have just been left unaltered.
So what have I done? I have repaired the keel band and given the wetted hull area a couple of coats of twin pack epoxy paint. The freeboard and stern has had three coats of QD white gloss (they may have another coat in the future). The old varnish has been removed from the decks and cabins and these areas have had two coats of West resin. The fore deck roof and bridge floor have benn undercoated and QD painted, the aft cabin roof is completely new comprising of ply, balsa and GRP finished with Halfords spray Appliance paint. 3mm perspex was used for the cabin windows and glued to the internal surfaces, the windscreen and quater lights has had the perspex cut into the openings to give a more realistic appearance.
Right, confession time! I'm a complete novice when it comes down to motored boats so this was all new to me when it came to selecting the motor stuff. I studied the internet and came away slightly confused as everybody had their own views on the matter, there doesn't seem to be any golden rules or none that I could find so I off I went (rather blindly).
The model came with a 40mm two blade prop, I chose a brushed 550 speed not torque motor, a FR40 micro gyros brushed esc, a 35amp blade inline fuse powered by an Overlander 3cell 25C 1300mAh lipoly battery. I'm a bit concerned about the motor/prop coupler as one of the four grub screws was headless even before I had the chance to round it. So we'll see what happens!!!
Everything is installed and ready for testing, I'm just plucking up the courage to actually do it. I have put the cables from the motor into their respective holders until I know it runs in the right direction. and there are also a couple of small deck fittings which will be the icing on the cake.