Making a super Scale Lobster RC boat!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:01]In this video, I'm making this perfect scale model of my real down east lobster boat.

[00:00:07]One, because I love skill boats so stupidly.

[00:00:14]Two, because I need a real boat to test some modifications on. And three, you guys really like my original tugboat, which has thousands of downloads. And it turns out if you go to AliExpress, you can just buy one that someone printed out and is selling, even though I said not to do that. But hey, I guess that's the price of putting your stuff online for free. You can't really stop it.

[00:00:30]We're going to make a bigger scale model that you guys can obviously print at home. It is the largest 3D printed lobster boat, maybe. I think it's either ASA or ABS. It's a notoriously hard material to print with that this is made out of, which is why I didn't want to do it myself. That's why when PCB way offered to do something, I was like, "Yeah, I got something for you right here. It's a very big boat. It's huge and it does not disappoint."

[00:00:54]>> You designed this whole thing.

[00:00:55]>> I designed the whole thing. Come on.

[00:00:57]Does it look familiar? It's based on my actual boat, Dave. It's like a replica of my boat. And there's a reason for this, cuz not only is this a really cool giant RC boat build that we'll be doing, but it's an actual test bed for a hole experiment I'm going to do on my actual boat. But right now, it's just held together with pins because I want to see how big it is. But we need to assemble this thing properly so we can actually use this. All right, look at our glorious boat. I actually didn't design it to be this big, but it has these indexing pins that we'll use and we'll slide together. And because this is printed out of ABS, we can solvent weld it together for a very strong bond. Also with some fiberglass around the seams and stuff, but this should be a very, very tough bow that we can take some very big waves. Since PCB Way offered to print this, I took them up on it because it's so big. It does not fit into my printers. I mean, obviously, I could slice it, but I wanted to see how PCB Way does with very large prints. And so far, I'm very impressed. Another thing, too, is since this is ABS, and ABS is very toxic smelling, so I mostly just print PLA on my machines, so I don't have to deal with it. Okay, we need to put this thing together. Let's start with the hull.

[00:02:03]So, why did I choose ABS?

[00:02:06]Well, ABS is much tougher than PLA when it comes to heat temperament, mainly getting it hot or leaving in a hot car.

[00:02:13]So, ABS is the superior plastic to use.

[00:02:15]I also have some history using ABS and you can solvent weld it which is perfect for this boat and removing some of these layer lines cuz while they are a little bit thick I imagine PCB way had a very big industrial printer to print this thing out on considering that the parts are very uniform and not warped >> acetone. It's time for the solvent welding. So, the ABS will be dissolved by this acetone and will be pretty much fused together permanently, which is awesome because it doesn't rely on any super glues or anything like that, which I would normally use for some PLA parts.

[00:02:46]And we're also mechanically screwing lots together, so we don't have to rely too much on the index pins to hold together. Some M3 stainless screws will hold the whole boat together. And this wouldn't be a boat project without some TotalBoat finishing stuff. So, I had this TotalBoat Total Fair, which is an epoxy based filler compound we're going to use to fill some of the thicker layer lines and make this thing a lot less bodywork and sanding.

[00:03:11]This part is giant. It's 3D printed by PCB way. Oh, did I also mention PCB way is the sponsor for this video? It was so easy. I just simply uploaded my files to the website, got an instant quote, and then just in a few weeks, I got this giant plastic boat delivered to my doorstep of my own design. Now, if you didn't know, PCB way can CNC aluminum, such as these giant brackets for my past boat project, injection molding, and they also made these carbon fiber plates for an upcoming project. So, they do tons of things. So, check out PCB Way if you're trying to make anything come reality. And like their name says, they also do printed circuit boards. And for you, dear viewer, if you use PCB Way 10, you get $10 off your order of $30 or more. So, huge thanks to PCB Way for obviously making these videos a reality.

[00:03:53]But now, it's time to get back to work and finish this boat.

[00:03:56]heavy layers of primer to cover up more of the layer lines and we hit it with a nice coat of paint.

[00:04:09]I didn't really feel like taping off a lot of these scale details where I can just use a paintbrush to paint some of the uh well in the real boat. I have some total tread here, but this is just some gray spray paint I got from Walmart and it looks pretty fantastic.

[00:04:23]Now it's time to work on some of the running gear for the boat. What I have here is some oil impregnated bronze bushings, which basically work great in marine environments in saltwater, which is where I will be putting this. And I've also found some of the expensive commercial products you can buy for RC boats tend to have the same things. So, we're using a/4in stainless shaft, quarterin bronze bushings, and now I'm going to work on some of the rudder stuff. Now, I really like working with brass, and it's generally pretty easy to work with, and it's very sturdy and tends to not flex under load, at least extremely high loads. Even though brass does have some of the zinc content, so in salt water, this may not be the best.

[00:04:54]But hey, this toy boat isn't really living in salt water, so brass is going to work pretty good for now.

[00:05:12]This is a cool trick you can try, too.

[00:05:14]If you have some superlue and some baking soda, you can actually make a really impromptu, very quick filler that dries ultra fast and is ultra hard.

[00:05:27]It's time for some power system. I have these big drone motors which turn these very, very big propellers. And I think that's going to be perfect for this boat because this boat generally turns a very big propeller and I don't want it to go too fast. So, we're going to need high torque, low RPM.

[00:05:44]Now, I'm going to go with a belt drive because I think it's going to be ultimately quieter than using something else like a gearbox. So, we're going to try this thing out. I got these HTD3 belts, which were kind of hard to find on Amazon, and I'm going to print some parts out and marry them together with the boat. Now, it's time for some scale details, such as the mast, the smoky stack, and some other small stuff I have on a real boat.

[00:06:06]I want to clear windows in this boat, and I printed out the windows in multiple parts, such as these frames that we can set some acrylic in, cuz maybe I want to try some FPV camera footage inside the boat and drive in some big waves in the future, but that's probably going to be a future video.

[00:06:18]Some more of the scale details are the stainless steel railings I have. I don't know if I can solder stainless steel, so brass is going to have to work for this.

[00:06:32]Now, I want to make sure I can tie this boat up pretty good and not have it break away. So, I opted not to print this Samson post that I would use to tie the boat down out of plastic. And we're going to make out of some steel instead because I know this isn't going to come off anytime soon. It has to be sturdy just like my real boat.

[00:06:56]Finishing up some of the tedious little details is this transom gate that I have on the real boat for launching projects in the water. And the last thing I want to do is put this foam gasket in so I can make the boat waterproof so water rolling over the back of the deck doesn't get my electronics all wet.

[00:07:10]Okie dokie. It's time for the first splash. Uh, it's not fully done yet, but this is the last day we have warm weather in Ohio, so I really want to test it. So, let's throw it in this water and see what happens.

[00:07:24]Well, it works. It floats.

[00:07:35]>> Well, it turns out my design kind of sucks.

[00:07:39]The problem is the plastic parts and the motor and the spacing is just a little bit too far away. That causes the belt to kind of compress under tension and it kind of pops out of the teeth. So, I'm going to try something a little bit different and maybe just go ahead and print some parts out. So, I have some herring bone gears and we're going to see if this works a little bit better than the belt drive, which I think I need to go up in belt size for, but I don't want to order anything off Amazon.

[00:07:58]So, we're going to try this.

[00:08:04]My real boat also has a bow thruster, so I want to recreate that, too, because that's super cool. And if you didn't know, you can actually just run RC brushless motors wet underwater. So, just spraying a little bit oil on them after you're done with them. They actually live a pretty good long life.

[00:08:17]It's time to recreate the arch on my real boat. This is basically an A-frame David. And I'm going to make it out of aluminum just like my real one.

[00:08:45]And the last thing I need to do is modify the controller to become the perfect boat simulator.

[00:08:54]This is the Radio Master Pro. and just taking it apart because it's honestly a cheap little radio I can kind of sacrifice for this project. So, no biggie if I don't really get it back in working condition, but it's going to live a pretty cool life being this perfect boat controller. It basically needs to function like my real boat, which has these throttles like here. And the steering is also on a wheel, which I kind of wanted to replicate. So, we're going to do that, too.

[00:09:22]It's done. We have bow thruster controls and we have steering.

[00:09:29]Uh we have in gear idle.

[00:09:42]Take it back out of gear in neutral.

[00:09:44]Reverse is the same thing. Reverse.

[00:09:52]It's exactly like the real thing.

[00:10:01]Reason why I did it this way rather than removing the potentiometers is it doesn't have any potentiometers. These radio master radios have hall effect gimbals which is really interesting. You know how magnet has like a north and a south? It's actually polarized this way where it's split this way. So north is up here and the south is here and when it moves the magnet magnetism changes and the whole effect has a little thing that reads it. So, it's kind of cool how that works. So, a little side track there. That's why I kept the original housings. See that throttle there and up here? Can't really see it, but the selector is in there. So, neutral and then it hits the little switch. Micro switch goes the other way and it's all wired in to the controller.

[00:11:13]This boat looks super awesome. I'm very happy with how it's turned out so far. I need to make one more quick change because the boat makes a little bit too much noise. So, I'm going to introduce these new parts and go direct drive because, well, it turns out I had enough space to do this in the boat to begin with. So, we're trying this now.

[00:11:32]So much quieter.

[00:11:35]Another lovely snowy Ohio day in the middle of spring. I hate this place so much.

[00:11:41]>> Unfortunately, Ohio's being weird again.

[00:11:43]And for some reason, it's snowing now.

[00:11:45]even though it was 70° just the day prior. This isn't the best outdoors weather, especially for someone who doesn't like to be cold. Let's go to Florida.

[00:12:10]This boat moves perfect. It moves just like the real thing in the real salty ocean water in Florida.

[00:12:22]This is where the BHM31 meets its offspring, the tiny little boat.

[00:12:29]Okay, but for real, this thing looks amazing. It works really, really well.

[00:12:31]And it's going to be a perfect hydrodnamic standin for modifications to the real boat, but just on a smaller scale so I don't spend all the money modify my real boat just to find out something works or doesn't work.

[00:12:49]It's just like the real thing.

[00:13:21]heard a sound this morning. Sound like a bird. You know where the bird was when we were sleeping on the boat? I guess they don't have a They must not like model boats. My boat got crapped on both of my boats at the same time.

[00:13:39]Well, the boat looks great, but you may be wondering why I built this weird controller. Well, it turns out one of my favorite childhood memories is this place called Kings Island and they had these boats. What you did is you put a quarter in them and it had these real ships wheels in a throttle selector and you got to drive these tugboats around.

[00:13:55]The boats are super cool. I remember them. And if you got them to go between the lighthouse, you extend your running time so you could just drive your boat in circles really slowly some more. I really like that thing. So that's why I built this cool controller. Well, it turns out this game was kind of hard. So now they have my real boat and it works just like the real thing. Let's have a little docking competition. Oh, it actually turns out before I challenge them, check this out. I've got a Formlabs 4L, which opens up a lot of potential opportunities with projects.

[00:14:19]And I just printed this out. Never printing a resin propeller in my life.

[00:14:23]Wo, that looks super neat.

[00:14:25]>> And this thing came out so amazing. It looks so good. It is spray painted, but this is made out of rigid 4K and it is super strong. It is a lot stronger than the plastic propellers. We're going to put this on the boat cuz this is going to increase my performance because this doesn't have the little layer lines.

[00:14:40]Well, I mean, it does, but it's so good the resolution that you really don't even see them. And the paint filled in all the little cracks. I'm super excited to try this out for some future projects. I have this boat. I have some unwilling contestants. We're going to see if they can replicate this King's Island attraction. We got a fun little challenge. They're going to have to drive around this boat, go in a big circle, and then come back into this dock. Let's see who can do it the fastest. You have your gearbox selector.

[00:15:03]So, the engine is running like the boat does. This throws it forward gear, and this throws it in reverse.

[00:15:08]>> I'mma punch this.

[00:15:10]>> Don't use too much power. All right. And go.

[00:15:19]>> Actually, that's not too terrible.

[00:15:22]You >> got to be perfect. Okay, let's see. 40 seconds. That's not too bad cuz he hit the dock really hard and he would have done damage to the actual boat. That's an additional minutes worth of damage. I just made it up.

[00:15:34]>> You never put it.

[00:15:36]>> And go. You're on the clock.

[00:15:38]>> Law throttle. It's lock throttle. Get the throttles. Oh, >> you're driving.

[00:15:45]>> Don't slam into the dock. So, go forward. Get ready to go forward a little bit.

[00:15:49]>> The handle's stuck. Get down.

[00:15:51]>> 43 seconds.

[00:15:52]>> All right. Who's next? camera. You want to go?

[00:15:54]>> So, this is your neutral because this controller is just kind of janky.

[00:15:57]>> And go.

[00:16:02]>> I have to go around >> around the island. Yep.

[00:16:04]>> All right. Looking good. You haven't crashed like old man. No.

[00:16:08]>> Now you got to put it back in the slip for reverse now. Give it some throttle.

[00:16:13]They can go faster. Back through >> and ran in the dark too. 57 seconds and go anywhere you want. You can go around.

[00:16:27]>> Yeah, you might have to give him $5.

[00:16:29]>> That's good.

[00:16:33]>> I overcompensated.

[00:16:35]Ready, >> set, go.

[00:16:38]>> First turn.

[00:16:44]Whoa.

[00:16:47]Oh no. Oh no.

[00:16:49]>> I got to put that slip.

[00:16:51]>> One minute penalty has been applied. Oh.

[00:16:53]Oh.

[00:16:55]>> Oh. Two minute of penalty has been applied.

[00:16:58]>> And go.

[00:17:02]>> He's flying right out of the gate.

[00:17:04]>> Easy. Super fast.

[00:17:11]>> Your thing sucks.

[00:17:14]>> Oh, nice.

[00:17:17]scared.

[00:17:18]>> So, it's good enough.

[00:17:19]>> He's expanded the his slip size.

[00:17:22]>> Oh, no. No. No.

[00:17:26]>> It's broken.

[00:17:27]It's broken.

[00:17:29]>> Oh, no.

[00:17:32]The camera.

[00:17:34]>> Okay. So, the conclusion is my controller kind of sucks, but they're all not too bad at actually driving a boat. Even some of them intoxicated.

[00:17:41]>> I don't have a little bit.

[00:17:45]Can you even get a DUI driving a boat?

[00:17:47]>> Yeah. Yeah, you're going to get in a lot of trouble.