OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

[eckloss]

Hello again....

Taking on another project. Bob Dimmack at OTW Designs was tasked by a French client to do a Le Redoutable boomer in 1/72 scale. LOA is 70 inches. Bob asked if I would like one, and being a boomer lover, I of course jumped on it. The boat arrived today in lightning fast time.

Unboxing:



The boat arrived only a few days after it was shipped from the UK. As per usual with Bob's boats, it was packaged to survive a nuclear strike.



The package included the upper and lower hull halves, rudders and dive planes with rods molded in place, sail with French flag, drive shaft, scale plans, stainless steel photo-etched guides for filing out hull openings, and a beautiful 7 bladed brass prop custom built for this boat.











The scribing is what you would expect from OTW][/url]

I will be building this boat in between projects. The goal is to have it ready for the Carmel Run this August. I will be using a custom OTW cylinder to house the electronics and so forth. The battery will be a 5000mah lipo stored in it's own cylinder.

I cannot stress the quality of Bob's work. Top notch. This will be a stunning boat plowing through the waves.

.

[sam reichart]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

Bob takes good care of his customers. As you know, his kits aren't shake out of the box and build; you have to have some fabricating skills. If you can do that, you can build an awesome model from his kits. Good luck with it!

[eckloss]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

Agreed, Sam. Thanks for the kind words.

[eckloss]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

There are only 1 or 2 of these kits left available for sale. When they're gone, they're gone for good. If you would like one (it really is a gorgeous boat), email Bob Dimmack at http://www.otwdesigns.com

[steveneill]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

Bob told me to take a look yesterday and this is just beautiful!

Steve

[eckloss]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

Steve,

If you want one, you'd better jump. To quote Bob, there is 1 hull for sure, possibly two, but at the very most 3.

e.

.

[steveneill]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

He offered but I have enough boats if you can believe that. I'm lucky to run them a few times a year.

[eckloss]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

Blasphemy! You can NEVER have enough boats!

e.

.

[steveneill]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

You haven't seen my studio? Boats, slot cars, planes, jets, train layout, big fully lighted Star ships and other models. Captain Kirk's full sized command chair, creatures, monsters and so much more and I'm making movies. I have a huge stack of models too.
I'd be lucky to find the time to build it. Must model 5 ft Saturn Five next.



Steve

[eckloss]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

Ok, good point.

You are excused from buying....for now.

e.

.

[steveneill]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

LOL

[eckloss]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

With the Akula now sailing the waves, it's time to dive into this next project.

The hull will be cut and joined with a Z-cut formation. Before I make the cuts, I need to make two indexing lips, one for the upper hull, one for the lower.

Using the plans, I determined the optimal place to cut the upper hull as well as the bottom.




Next the cut lines were marked using the same simple tool I used on the Akula.






A layer of painting tape was laid down, saturated with Vasoline to act as a release agent for the resin, and three layers of cloth tape were laid in place on each hull.






more tomorrow.....

e.

[eckloss]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

The indexing lips were allowed to cure overnight and were easily popped off thanks to the vasoline.

I preformed the Z-cut, cutting the stern off of the upper hull and the bow off of the lower hull. I also had to remove the inner flanges in these areas so I can have flat surfaces for applying cloth tape and resin to join everything together.

[eckloss]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

This gives a little better view of how the strips and cuts all come together. The stern:




...and why I had to remove the flange in these areas, so I have smooth walls to apply fiberglass tape to....

[eckloss]

Re: OTW 6' 1/72 French Le Redoutable Boomer

Not much in the past few days. Just seam filling and such. There was as sizable gap on both sides at the stern.