PeeWee marine engine

I have never seen that configuration before, and a Pee Wee one at that. Seems back in the 1960's, perhaps in the 1950's as well, F/F and tether boating were popular. There seemed to be all sorts of cottage industries making adapters to fit engines to boats, half-A included. AHC had a special catalog available for only a couple bits, I'd mail off for all their catalogs / sales flyers. It would come in, was on newspaper, would spend hours reading through it to include their latest catalog.

I remember Walt Musciano's book,

https://www.etsy.com/es/listing/931693218/building-and-sailing-model-boats-de

Photo of Walt's book from etsy.com

I would check it out of the local libraries on numerous occasions from when I was about 11 years old even through high school. (Then, libraries kept older books instead of clearing them out.) These model boat books would describe the different power configurations for glow and diesel engines, miniature steam boiler engines and even rubber power. I recall, I think it was Walt's book, that described a balsa carved submarine that was rubber powered. Would dive under power, when the rubber motor ran out, it would slowly make it to the surface.

He had other books on model boating along with other authors. Sadly, those are harder to find these days.

I'll leave the engine alone for the moment. I didn't know that Musciano wrote a book about model boats. I know he was a naval engineer or architect and worked at Sharp & Co in New York. He once made a ho scale train ferry or train ship that was published in a 1959 annual model magazine. The superstructure of the model resembles a lot that of the Savannah, the first and only nuclear powered cargo ship, in the early 60's. That vessel was also designed by Sharp & Co.

That's wild looking on the Pee Wee , they look like production parts but like wise i haven't seen nothing of any of the parts on it before. You have one of a kind maybe , maybe Brad will chime in he's a boat man .

Walt's books are out there $$$$ >> https://www.amazon.com/Books-Walter-Musciano/s?i=stripbooks&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AWalter+A.+Musciano&page=2&qid=1663065113&ref=sr_pg_1 George that book can bee got 137.00

Interesting, rubber powered sub plan in model boat mag this month, a UK title mag

I have some couplings similar to the one on the PeeWee and some other random boat hardware made in Japan by K&O…. A friend of mine bought the hobby shop in town that had been closed for over twenty years and asked if I wanted anything left (and that was 25 years ago)…. Not much but this hardware and a bunch of odd size airplane props….The steering wheel and shifter looking gadgets are electric switches…

I had wondered about the coupling on the Pee Wee, but since Robert posted several as commercial offerings, I suppose they worked.

I should think that at the RPM the Pee Wee ran, any out-of-balance spring could become interesting very quickly.

getback wrote:Walt's books are out there $$$$ >> https://www.amazon.com/Books-Walter-Musciano/s?i=stripbooks&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AWalter+A.+Musciano&page=2&qid=1663065113&ref=sr_pg_1 George that book can bee got 137.00  

Didn't see that one (it got away, ), but bought this hard bound one for $15.

rdw777 wrote:
I have some couplings similar to the one on the PeeWee and some other random boat hardware made in Japan by K&O…. A friend of mine bought the hobby shop in town that had been closed for over twenty years and asked if I wanted anything left (and that was 25 years ago)…. Not much but this hardware and a bunch of odd size airplane props….The steering wheel and shifter looking gadgets are electric switches…

That is some nice stuff... Flag poles, horns, bitts, vent and the integrated switches are very well done. Any idea of size or scale?

Eric, so much for the book, Amazon seller cancelled my order for "technical reasons".



My card is good, perhaps they already sold it.

I've got this book of Vic Smeed. It's got a bit of everything

m

Overlord, you have a nice book there. I remember some of the modeling books from UK in the local public libraries. They were not as common, but every bit as good as Walt Musciano's and other US authors, scads of ideas for all sorts including resolving building issues, designing from scratch rules to follow, special framing considerations, finishes, etc.

Not to be outdone, found a copy of Walt's Ships book through Abe Books, $23.50 for a clean hard bound edition. Should be here in about a week.

Thanks Overlord, The windshields are 95 mm wide, The flagpoles are 52 long for size reference…. Everything in that photo is sitting on a standard sheet of copy paper

Robert

Some boat models out of my book






and a more docile one

Those are some nice classic plans…. Would be easy to make them RC with today’s small equipment…. Thinking about building one?

Here’s an old boat that was our swimming pool racer when my kids were little in the early  80’s…You can tell it had a hard life by the burn marks inside …. Lots of experiments with power plants….The instructions are still in the box and marked 1955

Musciano Ships book came in. Time is late, so I did a scan of the just the rubber powered submarine.

rdw777 wrote:Here’s an old boat that was our swimming pool racer when my kids were little in the early  80’s…You can tell it had a hard life by the burn marks inside …. Lots of experiments with power plants….The instructions are still in the box and marked 1955

Robert, I could see how that the soot in the boat right interior may have been caused by say, an unmuffled left exhaust K&B Torpedo .09 or .19, or, perhaps something more sinister as say, firecrackers?

When we were still adolescents, would make paper boats. In Biloxi, MS we'd have occasional rains during fireworks season, there were rivers in the streets, in those paper boats we'd put fire crackers, blow them to bits.

GallopingGhostler wrote:................
When we were still adolescents, would make paper boats. In Biloxi, MS we'd have occasional rains during fireworks season, there were rivers in the streets, in those paper boats we'd put fire crackers, blow them to bits.

The horror! The horror!  

Today, rather than teach kids a little responsibility and give them the chance to exercise it, the solution would be to outlaw firecrackers (already done in most places), outlaw paper boats and stop the rain during fireworks season.

Hi George, At one point I had a “Speed 400”  and six sub C nicads in it… Happily over powered ….The prop is aluminum so we could twist in all the pitch we wanted…



The kid’s “pool” was just a round metal stock tank about 10’ in diameter … I had to launch the boat both tilted and on plane and  it just barreled around the edge…. If it ever got its nose down it would torque screw itself to the bottom como submarine….On one run the cells got so hot one of them vented with a lot of smoke and sparks and hissing…. My kids and a few neighbor’s kids witnessed the spectacle and got quite a laugh out of it!!!

No fireworks in the boat but when I was a teenager we would get penny bottle rockets, remove the stick and tape them under the nose of cheapie balsa gliders. Course they blew up at the end of the burn…. We figured out how to dig out the pop charge at the end to remove the bang…Later we figured out to tape chewing gum wrappers under the fuse to not burn them so bad….Hold it til fire time and give it a little toss…Some of them would last a few dozen flights or so…

andrew wrote:

GallopingGhostler wrote:When we were still adolescents, would make paper boats. In Biloxi, MS we'd have occasional rains during fireworks season, there were rivers in the streets, in those paper boats we'd put fire crackers, blow them to bits.

The horror! The horror! Today, rather than teach kids a little responsibility and give them the chance to exercise it, the solution would be to outlaw firecrackers (already done in most places), outlaw paper boats and stop the rain during fireworks season.

I hear you, Andrew. My father gave me a Marlin 30-30 lever action when I was 16. By the time I joined the Army two years later, I had no problems zeroing my "assault weapon" M16A1 and scoring good at their ranges. I was glad when I was 12, now I could buy cherry bombs, M-80s and the larger rockets. Age 11, I could only buy standard firecrackers and bottle rockets. Now, they've taken away responsibility for kids to learn risk assessment at an early age. Used to be 11 and 12 YO could guard crosswalks and escort students across. Now, I see parents doing these duties, because it is too dangerous for kids.

rdw777 wrote:Hi George, At one point I had a “Speed 400”  and six sub C nicads in it… Happily over powered ….The prop is aluminum so we could twist in all the pitch we wanted…



The kid’s “pool” was just a round metal stock tank about 10’ in diameter … I had to launch the boat both tilted and on plane and  it just barreled around the edge…. If it ever got its nose down it would torque screw itself to the bottom como submarine….On one run the cells got so hot one of them vented with a lot of smoke and sparks and hissing…. My kids and a few neighbor’s kids witnessed the spectacle and got quite a laugh out of it!!!

No fireworks in the boat but when I was a teenager we would get penny bottle rockets, remove the stick and tape them under the nose of cheapie balsa gliders. Course they blew up at the end of the burn…. We figured out how to dig out the pop charge at the end to remove the bang…Later we figured out to tape chewing gum wrappers under the fuse to not burn them so bad….Hold it til fire time and give it a little toss…Some of them would last a few dozen flights or so…

Those were the days.