We Are About To Launch... Stingray!
Paul Harrison's Scratch Built, R/C Stingray Model
Photos by Paul Harrison
I had made a few kit models of Stingray and Thunderbirds and like to see them just like the real thing.
I decided that I would like to build Stingray in quite large scale as I had loved the shape of the craft since watching
it on TV as a kid.
I started by buying loads of balsa wood from a local model shop; glued it together and hacked away at it,
smoothed it until the shape was right. All the dimensions were scaled up from a plan in the Centuary 21 magazine.
The cabin was made from partly balsa and fine modelling ply, the fins are the standard type ply. Once the shape was correct it had several coats of fibreglass resin to give the surface a hard shell.
I have spoken to several modellers since and apparently I went about this the wrong way, but still I achieved the result I wanted.
Once painted I added some finishing touches such as windows, the periscope (which was an old phone aerial with a piece of shaped aluminium at the top), torpedo launchers? on the wings and lights in the torpedo tubes at the front. Then I made the cabin interior as near as I could from what is seen on TV as there was no plan for this in Centuary 21 - oh and Troy and Phones were made from toy soldiers, with slight reshaping.
Once Stingray was finished I wanted to see it on water, so I then powered her up and fitted her with radio control. She was almost perfect sitting in water for the first time, just had to add some weight at the front, just shows you how great the design was from Derek Meddings.
Once I could see that it was going to look good on the lake, I needed a Terror/Mechanical fish as well, so I built one of those too.
