Tiny Speedboat Build

[cape man]

I'm intimidated...

[Jetdriver69]

I've been screwing around with this boat for a year and a half.

Starting from scratch with zero plans and no experience can make for a long project.

But throwing the boat in the pool tonight with kid installed to check for leaks and to see how low it sits.

I'm actaully way ahead of the picture progress.

[OrangeQuest]

Been an interesting project to follow. And the results are amazing!

[Browndog]

As I’ve commented before, this is a fun build to follow.

Looking forward to more posts and pictures of the finished project.

[Jetdriver69]

Painted the racing stripes

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The Zenoah decals are from the Japanese engine manufacturer.
A whole 32 cc and supposedly 4.5 hp at 14,000 rpms.
A top quality engine, much better than the Chinese knockoffs.

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Masked off and shot the the gloss black for the windscreen and side rails

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Now let it cure and shoot the clear.

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[Jetdriver69]

Got to work for a couple of days starting Monday so I thought Id post another round of pictures.
Installed the boat name, vinyl lettering off eBay for cheap.

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Made the boat into a mini cigarette theme.

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Will shoot a layer of gloss clear over the decals.

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[Jetdriver69]

A question for the builder experts, which I am not.

I put the boat in the pool last night with a 35 lb kid at the helm, but with no fuel tank or fuel weight.

The boat is super stable. I rocked it left and right pretty aggressively to the cockpit splash guard and it righted itself immediately with zero water getting in.

However the bow seems to be a little lower than the stern. But the jet drive outlet looks to be at the perfect level, just barely covered to the top of the outlet lip by the pool water.

Should I try adding ballast to the far aft of the engine bay to get the nose up or will the bow dig in under power application without it?

I did install lifting strakes assuming the boat can get fast enough to get on plane.

Thanks

[cape man]

Bring some water jugs or sand bags for the launch.

[Jetdriver69]

We got some ankle weights that would work great just to see what amount of ballast would work.

[Jetdriver69]

Painted the instrument face blue and attached the fake gauges and dry fitted the kill switch

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Extra instrument decals that came with the set, so I made 2 clusters that be be screwed into the left and right cockpit sidewalls.

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I added a rubber matting on top of the plywood flooring. Then shot textured bedliner over that and painted a gloss black deck paint with hardener.

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