Higgins PT212 Patrol Torpedo Boat Kit w/8" Beam 1-31 Dumas

Excellent,great service.....thank you

Dumas makes no bones about this being a toy. I would say that it is a step or two above toy level. It is overall a decent kit. The railings and deflection bars are a bit tedious to assemble if you aren't used to fabrication. I like putting things to gether and I do not see this as a liability.The laser cut parts were marginally to incompletely cut. Building the bases for the torpedo tubes is frustrating and it is quite tough to get them square.If just a few changes were made to the laser cut parts to give some tab and lock action it would make a big difference.The Dumas running hardware (purchased separately) came with a bent drive shaft. I tried my best to get it straight, but, I wound up only using the rudder assembly and piecing together the rest of the drive-line from parts I had on hand (20 years in the hobby and you accumulate a lot of what the wife calls junk...I call it Junque').This is not a kit that is straight forward. It does perform well. Mine is running an obsolete Hughey gear drive and generic 30mm brass prop. This is overkill for this model. For propulsion I am using an old Kyosho 480T brushed motor I rebuilt and generic EBay ESC. I use either an Onyx 7 cell or 8 cell NiMH. I get about ten minutes of run time if driven in a sane fashion. I have not used LiPoly batteries. Really just a matter of personal preference. The ballast wight from the ole' timey batteries helps with stability. You could also use a big A$$ Lipoly.For radio I am using an ACE nautical commander converted to 2.4 GHz operation. I also added the RAM products engine sound module as well as the machine gun sound module. Instead of the speakers I used surface mount transducers from parts express. This allows me to keep the hull watertight as the whole hull basically acts a speaker diaphragm.In summary: it is a fun kit to run that also allows a lot of customization when building.It is not, however, a small child's toy it is a toy for children 16 years of age and older.

My son absolutely loved it, it flies.

A well detailed kit. Designed for the experienced builder. I was able to compllete the building with a minimum of problems

nice model

I didn't know what to expect from a Dumas kit so I started with one of the "easier" models (this Higgins PT boat comes with a one piece plastic hull - as opposed to most of the Dumas kits that require "stick-building" the entire hull from scratch.That being said, there is plenty of fabrication work required with this build. Yes, there are some precut details but there are also many details that are made from raw wood metal and/or PVC stock. This is not a model you will slap together on a weekend. I'm still a bit on the slow and methodical side so I must have put at least 100 hours into this. I would easily rate this a level III (age 13 and above) skill level.The good news is that Dumas supplies excellent instructions. Included were: an in-depth booklet of text instructions, a booklet of numbered sketches that align with text steps and a full size drawing (top view, side view) that can actually be measured for reference. The kit is also very descriptive regarding what extras need to be purchased to end up with a fully operational RC model.I would recommend Dumas and will likely try another one of their kits in the future.