1/24 1956-U-8 Hawaii Kai III by Brad Hagen

1/24 1956-U-8
Hawaii Kai III
by Brad Hagen

The Pink Lady

The Hawaii Kai III was owned
by Edgar Kaiser, a successful industrialist and the son of Henry
Kaiser who was successful building the Liberty ships during
World War II, turning out a ship every 45 days as well as having
one of his crews build a Liberty ship in a little over four
days, a record that will probably never be beat. He was successful
in a number of enterprises, including building his own cars
which were known for their safety features. The Hawaii Kai III
was one of the finest race boats of the 1950s.

The Hawaii Kai III used the
relatively new revolutionary design by Ted Jones which made
the boats faster, easier to drive, and safer than their predecessors.
These boats still remained dangerous to drive until the early
80s when the drivers were encapsulated, using canopies for F-16s
that were rejected by the Air Force. Even though these boats
were 30 feet long and 12 feet wide, they theoretically only
touched the water on the rear part of each sponson about the
size of a man’s handkerchief and the propeller, they were able
to get their great speed of roughly 185 mph on the straightaways
from the boat resting on a cushion of air between the sponsons.
Here are some stats from two of its more successful years:

1956:
Owner – Edgar Kaiser (Oakland)
Designer – Ted Jones
Builder – Les Staudacher
Length – 30ft
Beam – 12ft 3in
Hull – 3 pointer
Colours – coral pink & cream [also described as “tropical
rose and coral mist”], no trim on tail fin
Detail – metal clad plywood
Weight – 6,600
Power – V12 Allison
Drivers – Howard Gidovlenko & Jack Regas

Winner of Sahara Cup & Rogers
Memorial Trophy

1957:
Detail – Mobil horse on tail; plus Hula Girl, trim on tail fin
Power – V12 Rolls-Royce Merlin
Driver – Jack Regas

Winner of Silver Cup; Roger’s
Memorial; Sahara Cup; & Madison Cup
Won the Nat’l Championship
Set the World’s (kilometer) Record – 195.32 mph.

Between 1956 and 1960, the Hawaii
Kai III won 10 races and set numerous speed and endurance records
that stood for years. She is fondly remembered for her sentimental
victory in the APBA (American Power Boat Association) Gold Cup
race in 1958. For boat racing, winning the Gold Cup is similar
to a racer winning the Indy 500 or the Monaco Grand Prix.

Why pink? Edgar had the boat
painted in that color in honor of his father as it was his father’s
favorite color.

Model:

I have always loved these boats,
unfortunately, models of them are very rare, I have seen one
styrene model in 1/25 and there are some 1/48 boats made by
CraftMasters from resin and white metal. The only option left
for some static models is to scratch build them.

I have a small forest of balsa
wood, but most of it is fairly hard. I bought some contest grade
wood from SIG, I
have bought supplies from them since the early 80s and I still
think they have some of the best balsa wood. The contest grade
wood is a little more expensive per sheet, but I found it’s
well worth it for the ease of cutting the parts out and bending
the wood over the top of the boat. I bought some 1/16 and 1/32
thick sheets 3 inches wide which was just slightly too narrow
for the bottom, four inch-wide sheets would have been better.

I cut out the bottom of the
boat and ended up having to glue on roughly a 1/8 inch strip
of wood so it was wide enough. I pinned the bottom of the boat
down so it would stay flat while the four rear bulkheads were
drying. When gluing the front fourbulkheads in position on the
sides, I kept measuring over and over again on all four corners
and crosswise like an X to make sure it stayed completely square,
if you don’t, your boat will be twisted.

I mostly use Elmer’s glue (white
glue), it is really cheap and easy to clean up with water, the
only downside is it does add a lot of building time since it
takes a while to completely dry. With superglue, you could probably
build up the entire boat in one or two sessions, I have some
bad reactions to that glue unfortunately.

The plans show 1/8 inch wide
stringers for the top, I used 1/16 inch square stringers, it
worked, but next time I think I will use two side-by-side. I
cut the middle former for the nose like the plans, next time
I will make the part between the second and third bulkhead larger,
I didn’t need to cut it that way since I am not putting any
radio gear in this. I ended up breaking it and then glued in
a large rectangular piece of wood.

I glued on the rear lower sides
of the body and also the bottom of the sponsons. Some of these
parts work better if you cut them slightly oversized and then
sand down to the correct size, that’s a lot easier than cutting
them slightly small and starting over. The front corner of the
sponsons seemed pretty delicate, I ended up gluing in a few
layers of scrap balsa and then trimming and sanding them to
shape. That will give more area for the front sides and tops
of the sponsons to glue on to.

I ended up gluing a couple layers
all the way across the front and sanding them down to give more
area for the top decking to glue on to, it will also make that
area solid for the final sanding to shape.

I glued the back half of the
top decking into place and pinned everything. I should have
stopped there, but everything was going along so nicely, I tried
to glue the front half down. Big mistake. It took a lot of work
to get the front down while keeping the back down, ended up
using some clamps in the front.

Here I have the top decking
on both sides and the middle front glued in place.

There’s a lot more information
on the net on these early boats than just a few years ago, but
it’s still very hard finding detail photos. I have only found
a couple photos of a instrument panel and the top part of the
seat of some restored boats, so with some of the details, I
will just have to apply some artistic license.

I built two three sided boxes
using the cockpit opening to determine the size, I then glued
them in place on each side of the bulkhead. After the glue dried,
I cut away the bulkhead between the boxes and then scraped with
a dull #10 blade to smooth it out. I then applied one layer
of black pantyhose with Elmer’s glue thinned around 50/50 with
water. I put a couple coats on a few minutes apart on the wood
first so it would soak in, then I laid a piece on the front
and back of the box, in the middle I tried using one large piece
but it would’ve been better using three pieces. An old R/C plane
technique, pantyhose and glue can be used like fiberglass cloth
and epoxy, not as strong, but a whole lot easier to use without
the smell of epoxy and without the tiny little glass fibers
from the fiberglass cloth getting into everything. That’s what
I will use to cover the entire boat, probably with two layers
to give it a nice smooth finish and a hard shell to protect
the soft balsa wood.

Elmer’s glue dries clear and
since I didn’t put more coats of glue on to fill the fabric,
the texture ends up reflecting just enough light to be interesting.
I should have put at least another layer of glue around the
top edges which would have made it easier to cut off, the fabric
kept getting caught on the knife.

I found out it was a lot easier
to use masking tape to hold the parts down while they dried
instead of all of the pins.

Here you can see the opening
for the cockpit and engine. This boat will have a cowling over
the engine which wasn’t used very often in the 60s, and also
over the cockpit which they all had.

I glued the rear sides of both
sponsons on, the wood didn’t want to bend around the front very
well, I ended up breaking the front of one side and both fronts
didn’t stay tight while the glue was drying. An easy problem
to fix. It would’ve been a lot easier if I would have wet the
wood down first and taped it into position while it dried which
would’ve helped form it around the front and taken some of the
stresses out of the sheeting.

I kept cracking
and breaking the thin parts behind the sponsons, I glued down
one layer of pantyhose on each side which really helped strengthen
the area. The black pantyhose is a much heavier fabric, I was
hoping it would give a little added strength to the larger curved
area behind the top of the sponsons. When it comes to trimming
the pantyhose after the glue has dried, a sharp knife is a must,
when I started, mine was kind of dull and it was a nightmare
trimming it away, a new blade had it gone in no time.

I cut out the bottom
part of the cowling/rear deck area and taped it down since there
is a slight curve to the boat from the front of the engine to
the transom.

The plans show
that area built up out of thick pieces of balsa, which is always
an option. I used the cross-section drawing for the pattern
to cut the formers out and then used the side drawing to get
the correct height for each former. After gluing those in place,
I then glued in some vertical and horizontal pieces to help
give more strength and rigidity to the area so it helps keep
its shape when I remove it from the boat for further work, also
to give more gluing area for the sheeting.

I had my boat sitting
on the back of my desk, my cat was investigating something new
I had put back there, was backing up and thought she was on
something solid, unfortunately, the top decking didn’t take
it! There is a small hole in front of the engine area and a
larger one on top of the right sponson, she sure had a surprised
look on her face and thought she was in trouble, my fault for
putting it there. Shouldn’t be too hard to fix. I was working
on cleaning an area ou and then I was going to put the covering
material over the top and bottom to make it a lot stronger to
give it more protection, figures!

Here I am fixing
where my cat stepped on the boat.

I’m laying down
some pantyhose over the top of the hull, you can either wet
it in place or get it wet which helps you to stretch it out
some and for it to lay down. Then I put on a good coat of thinned
white glue (or carpenters glue), then I take a metal teaspoon,
dip it in the water and gently rub over it in a circular motion,
not quite sure how to describe it, but you can see the white
glue working through the pantyhose.

After it dries, I would normally
give it a couple coats of glue. After it’s dry, then it can
be gone over with lightweight spackle or couple coats of sanding
primer fill in any remaining weave and then lightly sanded.
It does take time for it to thoroughly hardened all the way
through, but it will give the boat a nice hard shell. You could
do fiberglass outside, but you definitely wouldn’t want all
those little fibers inside, and the fiberglass cloth might be
too thick for the 1/48 scale?

Unfortunately,
shortly after these photos, the boat was accidentally crushed.
Hopefully my next one will turn out better, this one was a testbed
for some different techniques.