Ioann Zlatoust - Saint John Chrysostom - Russian PreDread - IRCWCC

Welcome to the latest build in SpudsWerk's Shop, the Evstafi Class Predread, loan Zlatoust, "The Saint".

She has a 74 foot beam so is allowed one sidemount. 28 sec, 2 shaft, 1 rudder. Very short, fat Predread.

I watched this last month as Tugboat's Evstafi jumped around the pond and was very impressed with the ship.

If I get her on the water soon, she will fight as axis along side my VDT, and afterwards will go allied. She was captured by the Germans early in 1918 and handed back over after the end of the war. So she may fight either side.

So here we go.... Za Rodina


Frames being laid out



Time to skin the bottom in prep for glassing. I used balsa between the ribs to form the water channel before skinning


I stained the deck area before glassing bottom in case I got some on the wood. It is hard to stain wood after resin is in it.


The nice slanted bow area for the anchor... even has the pen area done..


Decking fitting with raised super


Casements where fun on this one...



Here you can see the channeling. The pump area has not been cut out yet. I like to cut this out after the glassing of the bottom.





The hollow super


The VDT in the background getting ready to skin for NATS


Some internal brackets for pump and motors


The bottle area



Pump mount


Still using a carl pump with Charlies Auto switch... keeps on ticking!


Universals for the brushless 3mm to 1/8


motor mounts


Battery is under the bottle


Almost ready for wiring...

 

I started with bow guns in my Zyrini. That had a slight down angle and hit 1.5' in front of the ship. They worked great for shooting targets. Not very good for shooting ships, even a tall convoy ship. The main problem was the small size of the ship. If the water is anything but flat calm the ship pitches all over the place. A couple of big ships driving near you and making a waves was a killer. The bow guns never really point at the same place when firing. I had lots of bbs fired, not a lot of hits. I had made the guns and the ship able to flip from a stern sidemount and bow guns to twin sterns and a bow sidemount. After one year I changed and it has worked much better.
If you keep the current down angle you might have more luck.
I put 3-5amp 6 volt packs in it, what size battery are you using?

 

8ah 7.4 lipo

 

I started with a Stinger pump in mine but it used too much power so I changed to a 380 cruiser motor on a BB sized pump. Went from 20 amps to 10 amps.
What do the brushless pump and drive motors need for amps?

 

more

 

The one battery will last for about 5 or 6 sorties.

I have 4 of them and they charge in about 45 min.

 

The turrets on the Evstafi class are taller than any I have seen in the hobby....... Down angle is not a issue with the bow guns at all.

 

Check out the American pre-dreds if you want a tall turret, one is mounted on top of the other.

 

You'd still have to mount it in the lower turret where the main armament was though.

 

Yes, but the top part of the gun could go into the top turret, just have the barrel exit the lower turret. Then again, that is a turkey of a ship

 

Nope, it is clear that secondary is a additional turret on top of the main. All guns have to be in the main turret...

 

That is a kewl looking ship though, and the main turret is rather tall... look at the sailors close by for est height.... lots of casements at waterline too... nice

 

yepper

 

LOL. I usually have issues with down angle and the top of the elbow, this unusual arrangement where it truly is one turret bolted to the other would give you plenty of room for the elbow. The gun barrel would still exit the main turret face.

 

Too bad the ship was launched in 1904. Missed our cutoff by just a couple of months...

 

And yet it is still on the ship list, and therefore approved according to the rules.