Recently I finished building a reissue of the Lindberg Models Diesel Tug kit, a legendary ship kit originally released in the 1950s. I painted her as a representation of the kind of tugs that would have been used around the Spontoon Island archipelago, just about when the old steam tugs would be retired and scrapped (or preferably opened as museum ships) and the fleets would be converted to diesel. She is a battered old veteran herself though now, and was scheduled to befall the same fate to the new generation of super tugs during the 1990s, but luckily was won at auction after a heated bidding war between a scrap merchant and Pacific Dewolfe, owner of the North Bay Historic Seaport, and will now live on as part of their All Paws-On Deck! education program.

This kit was designed to be motorized, and would have originally included the equipment for this purpose, but unfortunately the reissue did not include these components, so I had to source them from other places. I promptly scrapped a leaky battery powered toy boat from Walgreens that I had set aside just for this purpose, salvaging her motor and prop shaft. The toy boat's switch and battery compartment were unfortunately rusted out, so I used the battery box from a string of decorative led lights, leaving two of the leds still attached to light the interior of the tugboat! The tug now sails beautifully, and is even powerful enough to maneuver my large Playmobil ships and rc Titanic!