I have a Graupner Micro Magic rc yacht. It was given to me half-built so I do not know how it found its way to Nova Scotia, but it’s a great rig. It’s build quality and sailing characteristics far surpass my old Victoria’s or any other small rc yacht I’ve ever sailed.
Is this model making any inroads in North America? It seems to be very popular in Germany and the Netherlands in particular (if you can judge by the amount of activity on the 'net) but there’s almost no presence that I can find on this side of the pond. I think it would make a great class here.
I really built my boat directly from the plans, but recently bought another to build this spring.
After my first experience here are some the changes I plan to make with the new one:
Bond the seams of the keel trunk really really really well. On my boat this was already glued when I got it, and is a source of leaking. The keel pushes open the poorly-bonded seams and lets in water. I’m going to try Stabilit Express this time, which I had to import to Canada from Europe.
Make the mast collapsible. I don’t think this will be too hard and I recall finding some instructions online (in Dutch) for the change.
Toss out most of the decals and use Krylon for plastic instead. Particularly the grey deck and black windows look much better in paint than the bubbling labels.
I may consider some of the mast and boom vang mods I’ve seen the Dutch club using, but my completed Micro Magic sails so well as it is that I’m not too interested in fiddling with it. Why mess with a good thing?
Are you planning any mods? More importantly, are there any other sailers in North America sailing this model? Soon I will have 2 but I don’t really want to be a class all on my own…
i too am building the micro magic. it would be nice if the MM caught on this side of the atlantic. i recently bought the kit from Hobby-Lobby and it was missing parts. They are currently sending the parts to me no problem.
You can order stablit express from dymond modelsports www.rc-dymond.com and uhu hart as well. just call them up. they do have a store in oshkosh wisconsin if the part in canada that you are at is near there.
i plan to order another this srping and build it for my daughter ( or for me if this one fails sea trials !) if i put any mods it will be on the number 2 boat. for now the only thing i am ‘moding’ is the antenna. how are the stock sails and sheets? also, did you bond the keel permanently? or did you keep it removable?
In the US there doesn’t seem to be any group sailing the Micro Magic. As you pointed out we already have quite a number of active groups of small inexpensive boats (Victoria, Soling 1M, etc.) here in the US so it will probably harder for another boat in the same type to catch on.
Agreed – there are lots of other classes. It will take quite a while before the MM hits critical mass no matter how great it is.
The stock sails and sheets seem to be very high quality and I have kept them all. The sails have a very tight weave and hold their shape well, although the stock battens are not bonded to the sails very well. Two of mine blew off the first time it hit the water. I replaced them with strips of polystyrene attached to the sails with silicone, which to date have held up well.
I did not make the keel permanent, but followed the plans leaving it removable. I find this much more convenient for long trips, as the boat can sit on its side without a righting bias.
It’s mostly just descriptive though. I would like to have his building tips, but as a typical north american I’m pretty limited when it comes to other languages.
I think you cant translate pdf files…but try the MM forum, they do speak English and Eric the Admin is a really nice guy…we do have 2 things in common, the MM and something else (grin!)
If you have a full version of Acrobat (not just the reader) you can convert the PDF file to rich text - or you can use “Paper Capture” an on-line OCR reader/converter that Adobe provides on web site.
Thanks for the tip about back-converting pdf’s to rtf’s. I knew about the Google translator but usually it’s results are mixed at best, particularly for something technical like model boat construction.
I’m trying the Google translator all the same. Most of it is jibberish but I’m trying to piece it together from what I already know from my first MM build. It’s extremely time consuming but I’ll try to post an unapproved, rough translation of the T. Dreyer documents for the benefit of all when I’m done. So far his insights seem to be very valuable.
Depending on how it goes I’ll do the same for the other material and generate an English site for MM builders (giving the credit to the Deutsche authors of course). I might even seek their approval!