I'm going to be building an Alsace-class battleship for Battlestations. She's 110" long and 14" wide, with a standard displacement of 113lbs at a speed of 34 secconds. She'll be armed with 12 1/4" guns in three quad turrets. I picked up the plans from the post office today, and just realized how huge she is. The 20oz Co2 tanks are tiny compared to the whole ship. I'm planning on running her with two Johnson 970 motors powering the center shafts, and leaving the outer two unpowered. For power, I'm going to use four 12v 7.2 AH batteries put imbetween the CO2 tanks. At the very least, I won't run out of room inside the hull
Well, if the world didn't have crazy people in it, life would be quite boring. Very interesting project. She is almost the same size as the Rodney I was planning on building. Good luck.
That is total madness indeed. And way cool. I think I remember another guy that showed up at our workshop with a set of plans for that monster in 96th scale. We decided that he either needed to build a smaller boat, or we needed to get a larger shop. So he built a scrappy little Arkansas, and frustrated pretty much everything on the pond with it. I am still going to therapy. Mikey
What kind of recovery system will you use? Will there be a ballast tank work up to get it back to the surface?
I may be crazy, but that's what makes it fun For a float system, I'm thinking about fiber-glassing a metal plate onto the bottom of the hull with an eyehook in the middle. A balloon would be attached that will fill with Co2 that would be remotely activated when she's ready to be recovered. To activate it, there would be a separate receiver attached to part of the SS that will float to the surface, wired to a solenoid that will fill the balloon. Or I could not get sunk
The Henry was the first by the Gustav , Gerrys Saipan was sunk by the Hood, and I believe the Strasbourg succumbed to a Sweed (and maybe a clogged pump).. I think some of the tin cans have been sunk, the Tashkent, or the Mogador.
So I have a question, would it be possible to use Dap caulk for the same purpose as liquid cement as used in the Bearn thread? Link:http://www.lowes.com/pd_219921-68-11540_0__?productId=1061075&Ntt=dap&pl=1¤tURL=%3FNtt%3Ddap&facetInfo= I'm wondering because it might be possible to cover the hull in something like a plastic tarp, and fill the spaces between the ribs with the caulk, and when you remove the plastic, have the hull shaped for fiberglassing. Just thinking aloud here, as this could be totally wrong
Bit more done, the ribs are traced out, with the subdeck and keel soon to follow. If the weather warms up, I might be able to cut out the hull this week
With the magazines for the cannons costing $150 to laser cut, I decided to go a different route, I'm going to make this entire ship with a 3D printer. I've settled on a Wallace design for simplicity's sake (http://reprap.org/wiki/Wallace). I'll be using M8 rods and NEMA 17 motors instead of the normal M6 rods and NEMA 14 motors. I'm aiming to make the print area 16"x30"x16", which would let me print most ships in 4 sections. I'm still reading up on the electronics, and I'm trying to figure out how to run the OPENScad code to tell me what length rods to use, so it'll still be a month or two before I can get all the parts put her together. If anyone knows of a good tutorial that will help me learn about the electronics needed, it'd be much appreciated
The Tashkent, Mogador, and Arkansas all sank during a free-for-all. The Arkansas had one hit from the Mogador, but the pump died. So far all of the ships that have battled except for the Hood and Gustav have sunk IIRC. Best of luck on the build, I really wanted to build that ship but did indeed settle on the other end of the size scale.
