Amati riva aquarama model boat 1603

A few bits nicked from one of my planes.



I had to remove a good bit of resin to fit everything in.





Just dry fitted for now I will put it in the bath and find the best place to put the batteries to get the right balance.

Some interesting bending to get the side planking on, I have gone with diagonal planks although I think all the original boats had straight planks.









Making a paper template for the bottom planks.



That should hold them



I'm glad I'm not paying someone to do this probably as much time spent as doing it full size.






Ready for sanding and sealing.

Not much to show just been sealing and sanding, the first coat I applied with a fine grit 3M pad this will help fill some of the voids.




6 coats of sealer with a sanding between each coat, nearly time to start varnishing but I'm not quite happy with it yet so I have ordered a cellulose sealer for the next few coats.




Bottoms up.



Going to drill out the spotlight. I put a screw into my thumb at the start of last year and its only growing out now thats what the hole is






Should be handy for night time driving

Probably a bit ott but I decided to coat the boat in 0.24 oz fibreglass cloth mainly because there are so many strips of wood I was afraid that with expansion and so on they might work lose and pop up.






I'm using Gurit sp 320 resin with a slow harder that should give a clear finish.




I do a coat every 3 hours to fill the weave then the next day I give it a light sanding and do another 3 coats.



It's hard to know when to stop sanding and rubbing down with 000 steal wool I seem to see more imperfections on the model than I did on the full size boat




12 coats of lacquer so far with a light sanding between each, I went with lacquer instead of varnish as it has a very quick drying time allowing me to do a few coats a day, it will now get another sanding going from 1000 grit working up to 3000 then rubbing compound and if I'm happy with the finish a waxing.



Feels like I could be sitting in Old's Cool or Sean-Nos two of the full sized boats I built.





I ordered some leatherette on ebay for the seating as I think this will look and feel better than just painting them. I'm starting to feel like maybe I should of built a full sized one it's nearly the same amount of work

The kit came with the plastic bow protector on the left it was cheep looking when painted and didn't look the part so I tracked a metal one down on ebay.




Making the cutwater and coating it with tinfoil to give it a chrome look, I was not happy with it so I will wait till I find some stainless steal or a shiny biscuit tin:D





This is a real set of head lights for a Riva.





For mine I used a solpadeine tablet packet








Did the job just have to put the cover on.



Steering wheel put together and painted also put in the gauges, spot light and windshield.




I used this car trim to make the windshield and the rub rails.






Made a suitable engine cover





And this is the ESS sound box that will give out the engine sound, only V8 I'm afraid I did try the twin V12 but it just didn't sound good enough.





Spot light, headlights and Nav lights.