Tequila Sunrise - Hemi Hydro speedboat

[alan barton]

This has been a long term project starting with the reissued double kit with the 60 Chevy stepside . I straightened most of the warp on the trailer, cut the single wheel fenders off and glued two new axles ( Evergreen Tube) across the frame to help restrain the warpage. This was all painted black.  I got the hull assembled and started the painful filling of the entire hull - the moulded in floor ribs create a veritable railway line of sink marks on the bottom surface!  I got to that point and parked it for a while.

In the meantime I got some other boats finished and kept re-reading various TIm Boyd articles about them. I had intended to leave the Revell hull full width, so that it could be compared to the narrower AMT hulls but man, was that sucker ever wide!  After trying to ignore the voices in my head (mostly Tim's!) for a few years I finally just grabbed the razor saw and cut 'er up. No going back now.

While I was at it I separated the dash/cowl from the front decks and did my best to rebate the edges to take a wooden deck. Rather fiddly work and I am not sure I would do it again.  I had some plastic adhesive backed cherry wood that I got from a craft store and it looked magnificent so I made a template and cut that out. This faux wood was already planked so cutting it was a bit tricky but we got there eventually.

I got the Testors gold pearl on it and it looked pretty good but not quite what I was looking for so it went back to the bottom of the pile ( bottom of the ocean?).  Some time later, I got a promotional email from Slixx decals and in their new name sheet there was the name "Tequila Sunrise"  A light bulb went off!!!

I ordered the decals and then while I was waiting airbrushed the bottom of the hull and partially up the sides with Tamiya Bright Orange.  The decals were a perfect complement to the paint and then the whole thing took on a life of it's own.

There was one final obstacle however, in my zeal to get the bottom of the hull as smooth as possible, I completely overlooked that there were four holes on the centre line, through which the skeg, propeller shaft and rudder were attached to the hull. These all disappeared when I remove 6mm or so from the middle of the hull.   Re-drilling and shaping those holes in an already painted hull was somewhat stressful.

And then I lost the deck!  I still had more of the material but I started to worry about the thickness so Instead I cut and trimmed a very thin piece of styrene ( like paper thin), masked the calking lines with fingernail tape and sprayed brown primer followed by Testor's clear over the lot.  I am very pleased with the final result, although I know the original deck will now turn up somewhere!

So here is the ingredients list:

Revell Hemi Hydro.

Narrowed Hull

Reworked front deck area.

Stock engine with plug leads.

Stock v drive and "chassis"

Unknown fuel tank

57 Chevy accessory instrument panel, put on a diet!

Stock steering wheel and side panels

Narrowed floor boards and AMT Hullraiser seat.

Narrowed chrome thingy on the back

Trailer - stock frame with dual axles and matching fenders

Unknown "parts store" style taillights

Scratchbuilt tow hitch with chains.

MPC chromed Cragars with AMT firestone thin whitewall tyres.

This brings my boat fleet to eight, with about five to go.  The Chrysler Hydro Vee kit never seemed to make it to Australia so I don't have that one but considering it is out of scale, and the amount of space the 1/25th scale ones take up, that's probably not a bad thing!

Hope you enjoy my speed boat!

Cheers

Alan

 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by alan barton

[ChrisR]

Looks great!

[TonyK]

Wow, that's a lot of work you did and it shows. This boat looks excellent! The trailer is excellent too. Enjoyed looking at the pics. Nice job!

[alan barton]

Thanks Chris, thanks Tony, glad you liked it.

Cheers

Alan

P.S., Just looking  back through my photos and spotted a honking great lump of masking tape that I used to help position the seat.  Ugh!  Gonna fish that out now!

[PappyD340]

Awesome build Alan, nicely done!

[espo]

I like all the extra work you put into the Hull. That's the one thing that always bothered me about this kit as it made it look like a Tug Boat in my opinion.  Your paint work and the theme, name, looks great on this. The Trailer is very nicely  detailed as well.   I built one a few years ago and used an after market kit with a Jacuzzi pump to make it a Jet Boat.   

[Hmann68]

Clean and sharp build! Very nicely done ?

[Slimguy]

Terrific build Alan...it looks wonderful!  Really enjoyed your narrative as well.

[alan barton]

Thanks Larry, David, Chris and David. It is always nice when your peers enjoy your efforts.  I wish you could see it in person - the colour change from orange to gold is much more obvious in the light and really gives it the look of a Tequila Sunrise. I am mostly a rattle can guy so anytime I get a nice finish with an airbrush it puts a smile on my face. In this case, Testor's rattle can pearl gold, Tamiya Orange airbrushed to a fade away and Testo'rs high gloss clear rattle can to finish.

Cheers

Alan

[slusher]

Absolutely stunning boat, sir!

[High octane]

A beautiful job on that boat Alan and it shows that you've put a lot of work into it, Congrats on a job well done!

[Muncie]

Way cool! Beautiful hot rod!

[misterNNL]

I built one of these when the kit was first released. I painted the hull candy orange over metalflake , Real walnut front deck, black velvet upholstery and used the Howmettt Turbine engine for power source. The tow vehicle is am AMT '65 Chevelle craftsman series coupe. That has candy paint that fades from candy orange on the front to candy gold on the back. The first show I ever took it to was an IPMS event and every single other entry in my class was either a battleship or an aircraft carrier. I won first place and the other entrants were Not Happy.

[tim boyd]

Alan....congrats on finishing this project!    Hope it was fun in spite of all the challenges....and yes, the paint is the perfect finishing touch.  

And I wish you could see Tom's boat/tow vehicle combo....even better, I wish everyone here could see these two boat and trailer projects next to each other.  I think everyone would be amazed at the similarities between the two, even with about 55 years of difference in the completion dates. 

TIM 

 

[alan barton]

Tim, it was mostly fun!  Getting the hull narrowed and cleaned up was frustrating in spots but as you have always espoused, it makes a big difference to the final appearance. It probably would have been finished years ago if I had taken your advice when I first got it! Revell kits from this era are notoriously fiddly but when you persevere you are rewarded!

Tom, if there was any chance of popping a photo up here, I would love to see it and compare - it is one of my favourite parts of modelling - the ol" "compare and contrast". I would especially like to see it hooked up to your tow vehicle. I don't have a tow car nominated for this one yet.  When I do, I won't be able to do my normal colour pairing because we can no longer buy Testor's paint in Western Australia and although I squeezed two hot rods,, a boat and a trailer out of the one can, there is no more where that came from!

Thank you Steve, Nick and Carl for your comments. There seems to be a lot of interest in these hot rod boats, it's just a shame that we have to hide them in "All the Rest".

Cheers

Alan