It's been bugging me for two years since I finished my Wampum II Vintage Marblehead RC sailboat... the rig was too high. The rig just didn't look right. Looked too "toy boatish" even though it is a toy boat. So today I finally stopped staring at it and cut 1.125" off the bottom of the mast. Then I redid all the stays and such. It looks better now. Will try to get it on the water in the next week or three to see how it sails. It's a little hard to see in these pictures, but the boat looks a lot better now. Phew! Cheers! 

Ta Da! Presenting the Wampum VM Vintage Marblehead RC Sailboat! Just had a perfect maiden sail for the newly resurrected from 1933 Wampum II, which I'm calling the Wampum VM due to the necessary changes I had to make to the original design to make it RC and to use modern materials. She sailed perfectly! I hardly had to make any adjustments. Has just a touch of weather helm. I could not have asked for a better first sail! This will be a very fun boat to sail in the future. Aloha!

This week has been busy with life, but I've also been able to get a bit of boat time in. I've installed the ballast and started the fairing process. First, I cut the boat free from the building board, and then did a number of float tests with the lead simply pinned in place. Ended up using a bolt cutter to trim off some lead from the aft ends of the ballasts. Then I installed the lead onto the keel with thickened epoxy. When that dried, I then drilled several 9/64" holes all the way through the two halves. The holes were filled with short pieces of 1/8" stainless steel rod, and then thickened epoxy was piped in with a syringe. The lead is now epoxied and pinned permanently. Then the fairing started. I'm using a variety of thickeners. For strong adhesion, I used phenolic powder to stick the lead to the keel. I've had good luck with it in the past. It's the reddish stuff you can see. But then I'm experimenting with silica. It's the whitish...

Today I finally made my first attempts at casting lead bulbs and ballasts, and it turned out well! Over a month ago, I made some female molds out of refractory cement. They are now fully cured. One mold was for torpedo style bulbs for the Sun Winds and Rip Tides. It has two slightly diffferent-sized bulbs in it. The molds I made seemed to just miss the sweet spot. I made one slightly smaller than the other in the hopes that one of the two molds would produce a 4.5 lb. half-bulb for a 9 lb. total bulb. The smaller mold turned out a 3 lb. 5 oz. half-bulb, and the larger one turned out a 4 lb. 14 oz. bulb. However, I think I over-poured the larger one, and if I take better care in my pouring I think it would make a 4.5 lb. half-bulb. So I'm really close! Yes, I made "half bulbs" instead of a solid bulb with a slot in it. My system for mounting the bulbs is to have an thin inner-core of plywood that the two halves mount onto.  I also made ballast halves for the Wampum...

I'm up to five planks now. Will probably have 30 or so before I'm done. Sigh... Patience Grasshopper... The Wampum VM wooden RC sailboat is on its way. Aloha!

The slow planking process on the Wampum VM Vintage Marblehead RC sailboat continues. Planking takes forever. I'm on the third plank for each side. There is quite a bit of twist on the last few frames for these planks. It's been taking a clamp to get enough purchase to twist the planks far enough. In fact today I cracked one. I'm sticking with it as it didn't completely break off, but I'll probably see a crack in the finished hull. It won't be a structural thing, and may actually look kinda cool. Or... it won't. But I'm too lazy to replace it. And this kind of clear cedar isn't cheap either! It's going to take about a month to plank this thing. Yikes. Aloha!

My printed version arrived! It looks great, if I do say so myself. It's in full color, with a coil binding so that it will stay open to any page. It comes in two formats: 1. Electronic PDF format for $25. Just send a PayPal payment to my account (stevedeligan@gmail.com), and then send an email to the same address. I'll reply with the PDF copy. You should get it within 24 hours normally. This is a nice option for those of you who have tablets, or who do your builds near a computer. The links work, and you can sometimes zoom in on the images for a better look. 2. Or PRINTED in full color with a coil binding so that it stays open to any page. Looks beautiful! It's available from Lulu Press for $45. I know that sounds expensive, but it's 123 pages of text and pictures on how to build the Sun Wind HF. It's a very niche book that is printed-on-demand, so it costs a lot to print each full-color copy. I've received lots of positive ...

First : I've changed the name from Wampum III to Wampum VM (for Vintage Marblehead). It may not be the final name change though, but it will do for now. It's a Vintage Marblehead sailboat, but with a few modern updates to help the builder. However, the boat should sail essentially the same as it did in 1933, when it was originally designed. Second: I've finished clear coating and laminating the frames, and have just installed them on the strongback. In order to do that, I've laminated the entire keel build-up, and have also shaped the keel. In the pictures below, you can clearly see how the keel system works. The main keel is built up of several laminations of 1/16" plywood on top of a 1/8" inner core. You can also see that the front section of the keel only shows the inner core, but the aft part is shaped wood. The lead ballast will be secured to both sides of the inner core section, and will be molded to match the wood. When I cut the fra...

The Wampum III is on its way to reality! Last week I cut the frames. Sixteen sheets total! Yowza. This weekend, I made a strongback to build it on. Now I am busy laminating the double-frames, laminating the keel layers, and clear-coating the rest of the frames. I'm also going to start on a plywood mock-up of the ballast. I laser cut those sheets and will laminate them together. I'll then fit them to the keel and shape the entire thing. Then the ballast mock-ups will be removed, further shaped with thickened epoxy, and then eventually molded in refractory cement. Finally, after the molds have cured, I will cast the lead ballasts. Fingers crossed that it all works! Here is the strongback made from 3/4" MDF. The sides are 4" x 48", and the top is 8" wide. Notice that I've drilled holes in it where the keel alignment holes are. With the Wampum III, you will want a very flat space on which you laminate the keel. You'll do this before you...

Well I started on the Wampum III today by cutting out all the parts. It was a total of sixteen sheets of 12" x 24" plywood! Took about two hours to cut them all on the Full Spectrum laser cutter. Here's how they look so far... The frames are all cut from Lite Ply. It was first time that I've tried to laser cut it, and it cuts very well! I'm using Lite Ply from now on whenever possible. It is also actually very lightweight too. Good decision. Here are all the rest of the parts. The keel is going to be built up from layers of 1/16" plywood. I'll mold my own ballast so that it is fitted onto the inner core piece of ply. Should work well. Next step, start to laminate the keel. More later! Peace!

I'm in the process of thinking, yes... just thinking, about making my own ballast for both the Sun Wind Hf and for the upcoming Wampum III, both Vintage Marblehead sailboats, but using two different styles of lead ballast. The Sun Wind HF takes a torpedo style bulb. I 3D modeled one in Sketchup Pro 2017, and from there exported an STL file that I used in one of our 3D printers at school (I'm a teacher and the CTE teacher actually printed it for me). Here is what we ended up with... two identical male molds: Here is what the bottom of one of them looks like: 3D prints are a bit rough, and if I used them straight they might stick to the cement too well. So I'm coating them with thickened epoxy and will then sand them down. I'll then wax them before using them. The idea is that I will sink these into a container of refractory cement and let it harden, will remove the molds, and then let it cure for a long time (weeks). The concrete will probably also take a t...

While I'm waiting for my sails for the Sun Wind II, I've been busy resurrecting the 1933 Wampum II. I'm calling it the Wampum III until I can get more creative. It is a wooden "Traditional" division Vintage Marblehead radio control sailboat. It will be constructed from these laser-cut frames and planked in Western Red cedar. Here's how it looks so far: After many different rudder designs, I finally settled on one that is fairly close to the original. If it doesn't work out well, then I can always make a different one. For those of you who have never made a plank-on-frame boat, all that business over the deck is the building board. You build these things upside down on a strongback. Each frame fits into a custom building board that spaces them correctly. Then you plank the frames, and afterward you cover it with fiberglass and epoxy. Makes for a very strong hull. This is roughly how it will look during construction. You build ...