Scratchbuilt River Boat Inspired by the African Queen

[robert goslin]

I'm going to need another boat for my upcoming Jungle Cruise inspired mini exhibition layout.
Like Walt Disney's Jungle Cruise ride, I'm taking inspiration from the movie, The African Queen, staring Humphrey Bogart, of whom I am also a big fan.

The prototype is 30' long (actually mentioned in the movie) so I've scaled mine to be the same.  And I've roughly worked out it's about 8' wide. So quite a bit smaller than my other boats.





This boat sits very low in the water, so this time, instead of a foam core, I've just laminated two pieces of 2.5mm mat board together, and then added a 1mm balsa deck.




I then scribed in the deck boards with a mechanical pencil


I'm hoping to use this boat to circle the lower, river portion of the layout.  The previous La Quila boat I made to do this function is a bit hit & miss.  Sometimes comes off the magnets.
So I have added the magnets underneath, and also four tiny 7mm ball rollers to smooth out the ride.



These little rollers let the boat sit about 1mm above the water surface, and roll in all directions.

[Rick]

Rob, that's a neat prototype to model.
I'll be sure to follow along.

BTW, Africa Queen is a great movie.

[Jerry]

Rob a very interesting build coming up.
Count me in to follow along.

Jerry

[Pennman]

Rob,

Man overboard! You can count on me to follow along.
Will this boat be used to harvest gators? 

Rich

[robert goslin]

Thanks Rick. Yep a great film. Surprisingly, the only film that Bogart won an Academy award for.

Thanks for your continued interest Jerry.

Thanks Rich.  Not sure about harvesting as I have so many Crocs.
I ordered 12 toy ones that were a suitable size for O scale.  But then also found another 20 suitable ones in a local trash & treasure store.  So plenty of crocs for several layouts.  Most will need repainting.

[robert goslin]

I have now added the sides to the boat. As is my usual practice these days, I'm just using stiff card.
I attached one layer of card to the sides of the mat board hull.
Then laminated a 2nd card layer to the inside from the deck upwards.  This produces a very rigid finish.

[Philip]

Great Start and a worthy movie!

 

[robert goslin]

Thanks Philip

[robert goslin]

I've now added the gunwale around the upper edge of the hull.  Used two laminated layers of basswood strip for this.  And have enclosed the front portion of the hull using balsa sheet.
Then added the ribs.  Used 1.5mm x 0.75mm styrene strip.





Next up I will start painting.