For a long time, we’ve been toying with the idea of building a fine wood boat. Now, my wife fell in love with an Italian sports boat during our vacation. Since the Pedrazzini Vivale Veloce in its original form slightly exceeds our budget, we decided to build the Comtesse from aero-naut together.
As one of the few companies, aero-naut still focuses on “true” model building. Despite increasing demand for ready-made models at low prices, the family business, now in its 4th generation, remains true to the founder’s motto – MODEL BUILDING is written “large.” In 2022, the traditional company looked back on 100 successful years.
ScaleMonkey, unfortunately, cannot boast such a long success story yet, but we are working on it. So, let’s start with the model building. The Comtesse kit was quickly ordered and delivered really fast.
I don’t like the burn marks on laser-cut kits, so the first step was to sand all the frames, stringers, and deck supports. Furthermore, we deburred all inner edges, as it’s still easy to do at this stage.
Then it was time for assembly. The parts fit together perfectly. There was a small inaccuracy at frame 13 to deck support 17. We fixed this with a small piece of plywood, which we inserted as a knot, and then glued everything neatly with white glue.
The hull side gluing has cured, and we are very satisfied with the result. Now it’s time for the bottom. The parts fit the frame structure very well in terms of shape. To achieve a nice planing surface or tear-off edge for the water in the end, I precisely sanded the plywood bottom to the planing surface (part 16).
Afterward, we applied undiluted white glue to the frame structure and, as described, aligned and fixed the parts from the bow along the keel. On our boat, the parts also fit optimally on the frame; there is only a small gap at frames 9, 10, and 11. We did not press these, but filled them with thickened epoxy resin.
For such work, we always use R&G epoxy resin L and hardener L, with cotton flock or thixotropic agent as needed. This is not the fastest resin, but it penetrates deep into the wood, has excellent strength, and also elasticity.
But let’s look at it this way… In model building, speed (during construction, of course) is NOT what matters; it’s a hobby, and the result counts.
Yes, as briefly mentioned in the previous post, our preferred resin system is not exactly the fastest. Thus, gluing the individual frames and the inside of the hull with thick resin is a bit time-consuming. But this also has its advantages; you discover quite a few things that are not optimally solved. More on that later…
Before we put the boat in the most impossible positions for curing, we naturally took care of small details to advance the construction a bit. This is how the frame for the deck structure was created, and the rear staircase was glued in. In the next few days, we shaped it – “what a sanding effort!” But for now, we are very satisfied with the result.
Now that we’ve spent days coating the inside of our boat with thick resin, there’s plenty of time for smaller tasks on the side. For example, we’ve already reinforced the transom and milled out some necessary recesses.
Alright, now to the propulsion. The original one from aero-naut, “well,” it might work, but it’s not really what we envision for our boat. We wouldn’t be ScaleMonkey if we didn’t step up the technology, and that’s why we chose the Gundert shaft system. These are rigidly connected to the motors, which guarantees perfect concentricity and thus vibration-free rotation of the shafts. For the drives, I made a motor mount from carbon with special receptacles, so they can be easily installed and removed later. It was quite a puzzle to get all the angles right, but it fits.
The shafts of our system are 5 mm thick and supported by plain and ball bearings. For the propeller mount, we use a 3/16 DogDrive.
Similar changes will also be made to the rudder system, because a 3 mm brass shaft… that can’t really work. Here I use a 5 mm shaft with a stainless steel blade. This combination should also withstand more agile cornering well.
Our rudder system is designed for very powerful servos, such as the KST BLS 359 WP or the KST CM3510MG V6.0. These two KST servos are waterproof and have a power of 28 Kgf.cm or 35Kgf.cm. For this reason, we decided to reinforce the original servo board from aero-naut so that it does not twist. For this, a carbon overlay was milled and glued to the original board. You can purchase this servo board, as well as the rudder system, in our shop.
The installation of the servo board should ideally be done before planking the deck, as there is enough space to drill the holes for the new rudder tubes. However, it is also possible afterward with a little more effort. We also epoxied the cooling water inlets for the speed controllers into the gluing of the rudder tubes in the hull.
Now that all work on the hull is completed, we can finally start on the deck. We glued the first and second layers of mahogany veneer to the frame structure with white glue, as described by aero-naut. The only deviation is that we did not paint anything with pore filler. Since the entire boat will then be painted with Miposeal, this is not necessary, and the adhesion holds better. The second layer was sealed with Miposeal after the white glue had cured, as we want to glue the third layer of mahogany with resin. In my opinion, this is necessary because the inlays should be glued with 2-component adhesive, and you also get, how should I say, a leveling layer.
As described by aero-naut, we laid the inlays into the top layer and glued them on the underside with 2-component adhesive (our resin). Since the whole thing should ultimately be nice and flat, we placed cling film over it and weighted it down properly with weights to cure. We let this dry for a good day and then, as already mentioned, glued it with resin onto the second layer. With a great result, we think.
Schöner Bericht über dieses geniale Boot. Ich selbst baute bisher nur von in gfk bzw cfk und hätte mal Bock was aus Holz zu bauen. Gibt es zu diesem Boot einen Bericht mit 2 Jet Antrieben? Denn so würde ich sie gerne aufbauen da sich der Rumpf dafür anbieten würde. Hat jemand von euch Erfahrung mit solchem Vorhaben?
Da ich ebenfalls gerade am Bau der Comtesse bin, würde mich der weitere Verlauf Eures Baus durchaus interessieren. Wie ging es denn nun weiter?
PS: Welche Gundert Wellenanlage ist es denn genau,. und wo bekomme ich diese her?
Grüße Michael
Guter Beitrag… ich habe schon eine Prinzess von Aeronaut gebaut, da kann ich einige Punkte bestätigen. Aber im großen und ganzen sind die Bausätze ganz ok.
Stephan
Super Hammer Beschreibung!!
Weiter so!! Bin schon so gespannt!!
HenrikDaniela
Sehr sehr gute Beschreibung mit vielen guten Tipps! Danke!!!
Ich baue die Comtesse auch gerade, gibt es denn noch einen weiteren Baubericht???
Wäre toll!
Liebe Grüße! Christian
USA / English
Are you interested? Then click here for: Part 2