Nick's Mehoshi Maru

Discussion in 'Warship Builds' started by NickMyers, Mar 15, 2009.

  1. NickMyers

    NickMyers Admin RCWC Staff

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    Ok, its not a warship, but theres no 'Self-Propelled Floating Target Build' section.
    This is my Mehoshi Maru, based off of the plans I drew up based off of Carls plans. My plans thread is here.
    This is my first build, and as such its a bit rough (The 'not finished' part doesnt help). As of the current status, all the various pieces are scrap-bin wood, and are a bit mix and match as a result.
    The ribs are all cut, and the rails for the fore and aft sections are rough cut out (need filing and sanding on the edges, and proper beveling, and to have their centers cut out). Keels are cut and notched. Some work needs to be done on the notch alignment for some of the ribs. I did a sloppy job on some of them and they dont sit quite center. Most of the ribs still need to be sanded/filed to clean up their edges - especially the interior edges.
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    This is a shot of the very chewed up side of the aft rail. I was in a hurry to get it done before I had to leave. Going to be spending some time with a file to get that neatened up. Good thing I left plenty of extra material on the edge. :D
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    While I was taking pictures, one of the cats decided to take an interest...
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  2. rarena

    rarena Well-Known Member

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    Hey I made one of those too! It's a nice build so far, I like it. Remember don't be too critical as most of that will be covered up and never seen. You are going to slop glue all over it, stick wood and paper to it and then shoot the hell out of it. Sad life for a boat, huh
     
  3. NickMyers

    NickMyers Admin RCWC Staff

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    Hehehe, That thought is what keeps me sane every time something doesn't line up quite right. :)

    What did you power yours with?
     
  4. rarena

    rarena Well-Known Member

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    My target was the USS Saratoga running 2 550's but I have a liberty ship with a single 380 which would be closer to what you are building. The carrier is using two 6v 12 amphrs and the liberty is using 2 6v 4 amphrs in parallel.
     
  5. moose421

    moose421 Member

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    Looking great so far. I just love to see someone build from wood. A skill I have yet to learn. I am just finishing my first build and see your is inspiring me for the next one. I will be watching your build with great interest.
    Thanks
    Kim
     
  6. Kotori87

    Kotori87 Well-Known Member

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    Looking good so far. I like how you drilled holes in the corners of the subdecks, so you can cut the inside out without slicing in through the side.

    A few questions:
    1) How do you plan to install the stuffing tube for your prop shaft, now that your boat is glued together?
    2) What's your plan for making the bottom of the boat? materials/technique/etc?
     
  7. NickMyers

    NickMyers Admin RCWC Staff

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    The pieces aren't glued together yet, just fit together. Right now the plan is to rig up a jig to support the keel on end and run a 3/16" bit through it, hopefully right down the center without significant deviation. If that fails. I'm going to remove the offended potion of keel, drill through a thicker piece and attach it in to the keel piece and fair the two together. Whichever plan succeeds, I'll seal the inner surfaces of the bore and sleeve the ends with 3/16" outer diameter brass tube to form the collars for the 1/8" prop shaft. I did a test drill on a smaller piece of the same material, and went through cleanly, so I'm hoping I can replicate that on the real thing.

    For the bottom, I'm going to plank with balsa strips made of the same ridiculously thin stuff that will be going on the sides. Then I'm going to give it a good coat of thinned resin so that it permeates the balsa. Once that's in I'm going to fiberglass the bottom of it. Then I'll sand it nice and smooth and paint it so I can see all the lovely scrapes every time i run it aground. :D Hopefully after all that it should be nice and strong. If i run it up on to rocks and punch a hole in the bottom because its too thin, well, I'll have to think of something better for the next ship. :/
     
  8. NickMyers

    NickMyers Admin RCWC Staff

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    Had some time yesterday so I headed over to my brothers garage to get some work done.
    Got the mid section rails cut out and fitted, and cut out the fore and aft rails that were previously only drilled.
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    Ever so curious...
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    In the bow frames, looking aft.
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    Also got some supplies. The brass is from OnlineMetals.com, the rest from a trip to HomeDepot
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    Hoping to get the aft keel drilled out for the propshaft today.
    I'm waiting on my bow block material to arrive. I'm going to carve it out of balsa block and then fiberglass the areas that might take impact. In the same order should be my balsa stripper (none of the Hobby shops near me had one, so I had to order) so I can cut my hull planks.
    If the weather warms up a bit and stops raining I'll be coating all my ribs, rails and keels with the spar varnish before assembly. Thay'll also probably get some fiberglass resin coating well when I do the impenetrable areas.
     
  9. Kotori87

    Kotori87 Well-Known Member

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    Looking good. minor correction on your wooden-hull terminology: the "rails" that you were working on is properly called the sub-deck. It's the shape of the deck, but goes under the deck, hence sub-deck.

    A few more thoughts.

    1) planking. If you're using balsa, there's not much point in cutting it into planks. Planking is a very difficult process to get right, and it's only worth doing if you're using material that is both decorative and strong. Balsa is neither. All you need to do is lay one plank down each side, to define the bottom edge of the penetrable, then wrap the rest of it with a few very large sheets of balsa. If you were really feeling lazy, and your balsa was flexible enough, you could theoretically wrap one sheet of balsa from one side of the subdeck to the other, covering both sides and the bottom in one fell swoop. You'd then have to be very precise in your fiberglassing, however.

    2) glue. I personally like extra-thick cyanoacrylic superglue with accelerant for assembling frames. To strengthen the joints and waterproof the wood, I then paint the entire hull with a layer of epoxy, and sometimes even put extra layers on the joints, just to make sure. Gorilla Glue is good stuff, and is both strong and sandable, but it takes longer to dry and you really don't want to breathe the dust it makes when you sand it.

    3) Brass stuff. I recently saw a really neat method for making fine brass rudders. The person took a 1/8" brass rod, then cut a slot partway down it with a very thin bandsaw blade. He then cut the rudder out of sheet brass, the same thickness as the slot, put the two parts together, and soldered it together. I'll try to take pictures if I get a chance. I have a very nice (and highly classified) custom-made tool that makes even nicer rudders, but this is the best method I know for building rudders that isn't classified top-secret by the WWCC Axis Navy.
     
  10. NickMyers

    NickMyers Admin RCWC Staff

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    Great, thanks for the clarification on terms there. I've been using them interchangeably primarily out of laziness to figure out which is the proper term. I will do my best to remember this.

    With regards to the planking, this build is primarily a 'play with things and figure things out for the future' build. Future builds I intend to plank with something sturdier, but balsa provides me a cheap and easy way to experiment on this ship at this time.

    CA & I dont get along. Invariably it gets on me and then everything else adheres to me and it. Gorilla glue I can clean up without removing flesh. Dust isnt a major concern to me, I have a respirator if I have a need to sand down the glue, which I dont see as being much of an issue if you're not overzealous with it.

    The brass rudder sounds awesome, I'd love to see that. You wouldnt be able to do much with that in terms of shaping though would you?
     
  11. eljefe

    eljefe Active Member

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    How is this ship progressing?
     
  12. NickMyers

    NickMyers Admin RCWC Staff

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    Slowly as of late. Work has been real busy and my weekends subverted by other needs. I also have Phill's Suffren that I'm borrowing for the summer, so I'm a bit distracted by that as well.

    The various pieces have all been coated in the spar urethane to seal them up. I've got my prop alley cut out, but I've decided to do some more modifications to the rear keel piece to accommodate the rudder, so after I do that I'll need to reseal the cuts. I might just be lazy and do that when I fiberglass the bottom.

    I haven't cut out the deck pieces yet, nor figured out superstructure plans. Still need to get a prop for it as well and the internal electrics.

    Hoping to pick up this guy this weekend:
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    Should speed up the process a bit for the deck pieces, and plenty of other projects :)
     
  13. eljefe

    eljefe Active Member

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    Really? I would think an unarmed Japanese freighter would strike more fear into its enemies than any French ship bristling with weaponry--at least you know the Japanese will fight back!
     
  14. NickMyers

    NickMyers Admin RCWC Staff

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    Once my little Maru is complete, the enemy shall rue the day they sailed against it!
     
  15. absolutek

    absolutek -->> C T D <<--

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    Any updates on how construction is going? I've started my own mehoshi maru, and am curious how you did the driveshaft through the keel.

    Thanks,
    Chase
     
  16. Kotori87

    Kotori87 Well-Known Member

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    As the person who drew the plans you're probably using for the Mehoshi Maru, I believe I can answer your question. You've got several options.

    Option 1) make your keel about 1/2" to 3/4" thick, then drill a hole through it with either a drill press or a power drill. You'll sacrifice a lot of efficiency from your prop, and this solution is rather crude and inaccurate, but it certainly makes manufacturing easier. This was done on the original Mehoshi Maru, that I based my plans on.

    Option 2) if you've got a mill, you can make your keel 3/8" thick and mill a slot through it. I did this on my PUMA class transports, and it worked very well.

    Option 3) sandwich it. This one's tricky. Basically, you build the keel up like a sandwich, with two 1/32" plates as the "bread", and a 1/4" plate as the "meat". All three plates are cut out to the same shape, but the 1/4" plate also has a 1/4" channel cut through it for the propshaft to go through. To assemble it, you glue the two halves of the 1/4" plate to one of the 1/32" plates, then glue in the stuffing tube. Finish it all up by gluing on the last 1/32" plate. This method has not been tried yet, but it is what I had intended to do when I drew the plans for the Mehoshi Maru.
     
  17. NickMyers

    NickMyers Admin RCWC Staff

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    To answer trhe question of how I did the prop alley..

    I initially cut 4 aft keel sections with the intent of jigging them vertically and drilling the alley out with a 3/16" bit. This actually worked out semi-well, but I let te project sit for a bit afterwards and soon discovered that the pieces had warped on me. I didnt feel like trying to crap a stuffing tube through it as it was, so a different solution was in order.

    Obtained 2 1/8" thick pieces of pine, cut them to cover half inch above and below the prop alley and the length of the alley (so aprox 1.25" by 2.5" if memory serves). Laid the pieces out on the keel section and marked where they should be tacked on. Set the least warped piece of keel on the radial arm saw (which happens to have a 1/4" kerf on the blade I was using) and cut straight down where i wanted the prop alley to be. I new had a 2-piece aft keel designed to have a perfect 1/4" x 1/4" prop alley. Lined the two pieces up with the pine pieces and glued the pine securely to the keel sections. Left them clamped to dry. After they were well bonded I sanded down the pine pieces for 'feather' them in to the keel to give a more rounded and natural appearance.

    This is similar to Kotori's #3 Plating method, but stronger and doesn't require as much work to ensure that pieces are the same shape.
     
  18. absolutek

    absolutek -->> C T D <<--

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    Thanks Nick & Kotori. Hadn't thought of trying to sandwich a couple of boards together but that definatly sounds like the way to go for the driveshaft.

    --Chase
     
  19. NickMyers

    NickMyers Admin RCWC Staff

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    I was initially a bit skeptical of doing it, but it worked out really well I think. I'll try to find my digital camera and grab some shots of it in the near future.
     
  20. NickMyers

    NickMyers Admin RCWC Staff

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    Unfortunately I couldn't really get any clear shots since I had already begun shaping the area with filler - and the camera wasnt too keen on focusing on the very end of the keel, but the concept is simple enough I dont think imagery is needed really.

    In other news, rather than plank the entire thing, or wrap it all in balsa, I decided to take a shot at forming the hull by gluing in styofoam blocks, rough shaping them and then doing the hullform shaping with a layer of wood filler. I'm fiberglassing over this (the filler prevents the resin from eating the styofoam as well). Now to get the weather to cooperate long enough to finish the fiberglassing outside...