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When I am not building cars or aircraft, I tend to stray into other areas of the hobby.  Case in point is this Revell Hemi-Hydro speed boat.  I build this a couple of years back after buying an estate collection.  The kit was complete minus the trailer.  Not wanting to scratch build a trailer, I decided to mount it on a pedestal.  The benefit of this is that the work that I did under the boat is now plainly visible.  Some of the modifications that I did to the kit include:  scratch building a cover for the V-drive, angled the mountings for the gauges, added moldings around the seats, open storage area in dash and made new header pipes using solder and plastic tube.  The headers were chromed using Alclad ll as were the valve covers, fuel tank and other items.  The motor has been detailed with spark plug wires, fuel lines, alternator, oil line, coolant tank and lines and heat exchanger.  I also scratch built the skag, prop shaft and mounting, along with the adjusters for the cavitation plate at the rear of the boat.  I even built a "floatie" for the key chain.  Look to the left of the steering wheel and you will see it.  

The boat was painted using Model Masters paint.  I don't remember the exact color names other than one was a purple and the other was an orange.  A reference to the colors is in the boats name, " NEHI", as in NEHI soda.  The "bubbles" are yellow decals that I cut from a solid sheet of decal paper.  Yes, that is a lot of bubbles, 127 to be exact.  I then added 3-D effects to the bubbles using acrylic paints.  The orange stripe was made using orange decal paper.  The model was then clear coated using MM clear from the spray can.

Enjoy the photos.

 

NEHI Two 001.jpg

NEHI Two 007.jpg

NEHI Two 002.jpg

NEHI Two 003.jpg

NEHI Two 004.jpg

NEHI Two 005.jpg

NEHI Two 006.jpg

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Thanks everyone for the kind words.

 To BigTallDad, in regards to the steering wheel, I have seen boats steered from either the left or right side.  I am not sure if that has something to do with the manufacture or not.  Anyway, the kit came with left side steering and I just left it that way.

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The stand is left over from some long ago and forgotten airplane kit.  All I did was drill some holes in the vertical part and then added lead shot to the underneath of the base, which I then covered with sheet styrene.  I did this to prevent the model from tipping over.  Thanks again for all of the nice comments.

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On 8/24/2018 at 4:43 PM, Hi-Po said:

The stand is left over from some long ago and forgotten airplane kit.  All I did was drill some holes in the vertical part and then added lead shot to the underneath of the base, which I then covered with sheet styrene.  I did this to prevent the model from tipping over.  Thanks again for all of the nice comments.

So it likely is from one of those old East German airplane kits.  The boat does look great!

Edited by peteski
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  • 2 weeks later...

Absolutely one of the best jobs I've seen on this kit.  To answer the OP's question, yes, the steering wheel IS on the correct side for a traditional inboard flatbottom ( although some owners have put the wheel on the right....why. I don't know ).  The kit is called "Hemi Hydro" in reference to a Hemi in water,....not that the hull is a Hydro ( hydroplane ). The kit's name has always struck me as wrong. It is a re-boxing of an earlier offering which, I think anyway, they should have left the box art as-is.

Revell-HotRodHydro[14].JPG

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Um, the unreleased artwork looks a bit cheesy. Looks like a mix of Photoshop copied/pasted graphics, not done very well.  Looks like some of the early Model King boxarts. Is that a Jairus signature there?  His work is usually top-notch.  Unless this is just a concept rendering?

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Yes, that is Jairus' signature.  It is probably a concept rendering, and not a finished deal, but I like where he took it. Jairus posted this concept on a boating website where we were talking about scale boat kits, and he posted that Revell was considering new box art....this being something he was working on. Still, to my tastes, I think the "Varooom" and "Miss Behavin" box art hits home better than the "Hemi Hydro" illustration.

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  • 4 months later...

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