RC PBR Mk.II

Justin F
Was browsing the net one day recently and came across these mini radio control boats for sale. Saw the dimensions and thought they'd make a nice 1/72 scale boat. Then I got to thinking and checked the dimensions against the Mach 2 PBR. Almost exactly the same. Hence this project, a 1/72 scale RC Pibber!. Got an RC speedboat off ebay for only $17. Unfortunately the boat has twin screws rather than jets, but beggars can't be choosers... Now what I need to do is work out whether to use the whole hull of the RC boat with the deck of the PBR, or do some surgery to use the PBR hull.

Justin F
Ok, I have disassembled the toy boat and found the hull is a lot narrower than the deck. my first plan was to swap the hulls over so that is out. Plan B was to take all the parts out and put them into the PBR hull, but on inspection the motors that are in pods seem to be pager motors that are not waterproofed or sealed. I have some spare pager motors and my plan now is to insert these in the back of the PBR hull and attach them to the rest of the internals from the toy boat.

Acki
Exciting project. Will be great to follow.

Justin F
Day 3: I have constructed areas in the bottom of the hull of the PBR to hold the motors, the circuit board and the ni-cad battery out of plasticard. I have also constructed holders for the switch and charging port on the deck of the PBR. I have test fitted the deck and it all seems to have the right clearance. The kit itself seems to be going together well. A lot of trimming required but it looks pretty nice.

Justin F
Day 4: I've installed all the RC components, then added waterproofing around the motors. Gave it a test run and the screws were sitting out of the water! Disaster; water everywhere. As I contemplated pulling the motors out and installing them in pods under the hull, I realised why not simply add weight? Found a box of .177 cal lead airgun pellets leftover from my misspent youth, and counted in about 30 into the rear of the hull between the engines. Tested it again and the boat runs perfectly. Makes it sit nicely in the water actually. Will fix them in place tomorrow night.

Justin F
Not much progress made on this lately. Real work intrudes unfortunately. Have completed minor work like painting and finishing some crew for the boat. All going well I'll aim to complete this later in June.

Holger Kranich
Interesting project! How could i miss that!Was surely not easy to find such a small RC boat, wasn´t it?

Justin F
Indeed! But was just lucky I found the RC boat first, and then got to thinking it would work with the PBR. If I'd been looking for an RC boat to fit the PBR then yes I probably would have never found one!