Dinner Time!

At this point it was time to finish the interior. In order to create a scene that would be interesting and give the viewer something to look at I decided to recreate the dinner scene from the movie. For the most part I was able to use dollhouse accessories that I repainted and modified. There were some items that I did have to scratchbuild, the table, toolbox, hotplate, first aid kit, cb radio, etc.

To recreate the vinyl covering on the seat cushions I first sculpted the shape with Super Sculpey and then painted them with Tamiya Acrylics.

The Mast

Happy Holidays!! Well it may be a little late but progress has been slow over the holidays in the garage. I did manage to get some work done so I wanted to update you on the progress. I started work on the mast which is made from a 3/8" diameter brass tubing. Based on the reference photos I detailed the mast with various bits of styrene. For the rungs I first drilled holes the length of the mast and then inserted pieces of brass rod. To create the winch I went to my parts box and put together a few small gears and some styrene bits. I then wwent ahead and sprayed a coat of primer on it.

Lights! Sound! Smoke!

I really wanted this build to stand out from the rest so I thought I would add a few things that would do just that. The first was - lights. I studied the plans and the hundreds of screen grabs from the movie and decided to add lights in a number of places. I chose to light the cabin, navigation lights, a spot light and a light atop the mast. I wanted to keep everything with the boat self contained so I made sure when I purchased the lights they could be run off a 9volt battery. This wasn't a problem as many miniature lights are in that range. I ran the wiring towards the back of the boat where there was a hatch. The hatch was designed to be access to the R/C equipment but my build isn't R/C so it was the perfect place for my switch and battery box. In order to make the hatch removable I mounted a couple of magnets to it.

The lights alone really help bring the boat to life but it wasn't enough for me - I wanted more. The smoke stack is so prominent on the deck that I thought it would be neat to have it functional. I figured this wouldn't be too hard to do since most model railroads can accomplish this. I remembered seeing a small smoke unit in the Micro Mark catalog and after taking a look at it I was sure it would be just the right size.

I only had one small problem - it needed at least 12volts to function. This meant I would have to have it run off a DC Transformer. Glancing over the reference photos I noticed a round plate on the back of the transom and it gave me an idea - it was the perfect place to hide a transformer jack!

I was able to mount the smoke unit under the deck and then I soldered together some brass tubing to recreate the stack.

Now, I could have stopped there but I just wasn't ready to. I had to have - sound! My first thought was to rip the guts out of one of those recordable greeting cards but I came across something better. I found a small electronic board that can record and playback two 20 second clips and the best part - it was cheap! Only $8.00!

I was able to get it from a place called Electronics123, they have a bunch of cheap electronic boards and accessories. If you have the time check out their site. For the speaker I mounted it out of sight inside the cabin and then mounted the board in the hatch. For one of the clips I chose to include the sound of the engine and for the other I felt there was nothing more fitting than Roy Scheider saying, "You're gonna need a bigger boat."