Just a side note try dragononlineusa.com they might have your mr surfacer. I build alot of armor and buy from them. Kim
Thanks for the lead, I will have to check it out. Final pics of the finished master: And the negative of the plug:
Wow . I would love to see you make a set of Bismarck class rangefinders/radar suite. Those are excellent details your making there.
That's something I might get around to doing when I start my O-class BC. Remind me which part those are, are they the spherical bits on the towers, or the two mounted center-line fore and aft? EDIT: or are you talking about all of them?
There's 3. One above the armored conning tower, one on top of the main bridge tower and one between the AA directors back aft. That would be great. If you do decide to to do this let me know as I would order a full suite for Bismarck and a full suite for Tirpitz. I know Tirpitz had more radar attached to the one on top of the main bridge conning tower.
Well, now that the turret plug is done, it is time to get back to the boat! Yesterday I went down to a build session at Mikey's and finished sheating the bottom of the hull. I cut slots for the stiffing tubes, then drilled thought one rib, and notched another. I also cut out and sanded the deck for the fore and aft sections, and cut out holes where the barbets will sit. I did some trading with Phil for a small ESC for my pump, and Mark smelted some range lead into small ingots for me. While discussing my displacement with Mark (~ 34-41 lbs) he mentioned balast tanks as the way to go. I have to say that I am seriously considering this. He did a pretty nice write up on his 1/96 USS St. George www.rcnavalcombat.com/Forum/tabid/5...fault.aspx so a lot of the brain work is done. I would need to adapt his design to a double keeled frame and probably add in a defined water channel. I could also go with port and starboard balast tanks. Either way would add increased complexity to his design. First I need to get my shafts and motor mounts in place. If I take advantage of the full area of the hull below the inpenetratable area, that would save me about 27 lbs. I would be happy with 20. The rules don't prohibit ballast tanks on surface ships, but they aren't specifically allowed either--so this could be considered a grey area. As Treaty is pretty laid back and a very "spirit of the law" vs "letter of the law" ruleset, I want to make sure this is not going to be a problem with anybody. This may all be a moot point as my tolerances are nowhere a close as Mark's laser cut, CAD designed C3 hull, so mine will be a lot harder to seal. It would probably add about two weeks to the build. I received my shaft struts and motor mounts today, so I will try to get the shafts in tomorrow. If I am productive, I would like to finish "leveling" the sides where I added the sheeting ply up to the deck then glass the bow, stern, and bottom of the hull this week.
For those of you who expressed interest in the turrets, Strike Models will be carrying them soon. (I do get dibs on the first few pulls though) I got my stuffing tubes/shafts in and have realized that I need to do something different on my motor mounts than what I was planning. The angle is too shallow for the BC mounts even with 18" shafts. I could drop in some gear boxes, or I could fabricate fixed mounts out of 1/8" ply. Another thought is to move a section of double keel further out between two ribs and use the BC mounts on the bottom of the hull. I am going to go with a self-flooding, gravity-draining ballast system. Mark suggested I keep it gravity draining for simplicity's sake and to also alleviate any concerns that CO2 might be hooked up to prevent or delay sinking. After I figure out my motor mount problem, I will know if I will be able to do one tank or will have to do two. I am going to keep my water channel at the bottom of the ship, and with my shafts sitting so low I don't think I'll be able to reach my goal of 20 lbs water ballast because I will lose a good portion of the stern. While I'm hashing that problem out, I finished cutting the decks to shape. I still need to cut out the access "hatches", but she is starting to look like a battleship now. EDIT: Also, I am going to try to make sure I have room for big gun cannons if I ever want to run her in the MBG.
Tonight I cut out the hatches to the deck and glued the edges to the subdeck. It took a lot long than expected since I only have a 16" scroll saw. I had to do the bow and middle edges in two sections. Tomorrow, I finish adding 1/32" ply to the outside of the ribs and deck/subdeck assembly, then sand to level everything out and get the contours "just right". Once that is done, I'll deal with the motor mount issue and start framing out the ballast tank(s). No pictures tonight folks -- one tired puppy here.
I changed my mind on the ballast tank after some discussion at the battle today. My Clippard items are in and assembled. Now on to finishing the hull.
I fabricated mounting brackets for my solenoids over the weekend. The wood is mainly for support, and the solenoids are screwed on through the 4mm holes in the bottom of the valve body. My goal is to have everything except the rudder servo accessible via the middle hatch or by removing the barbette covers which will act as mounting brackets for the cannons. I did a test fit of the larget assembly to veryify my measurements were sound. I have been thinking about running this in big gun as well--or a fast gun event if the local club will grant a waiver on a hypo. In order to make it more acceptable for waivers I am going to have to remove the filler that follows the line of the bown and stern subdeck through the middle of the ship. As these are just spruce strips CA'd in, I should be able to just wrench them out with some channel lock pliers, then take an exacto then file to any left over wood. This area must be penetrable in fast gun and under NTXBG rules (it seems that if you meet their construction rules, you are legal with almost any big gun club). I have 2" of bow, 1" of stern, and 22 1/4" ribs (with the closest rib gap 2" edge to edge) on a hull that is nearly 73" at the waterline. I did get some motor mounts made out of 5/32" ply and I just glued them to a rib. I now have nice shallow angles for the dogbones to the shafts.
I removed the spruce strips in the middle area. It took longer than expected at two hours. I also started adding the finishing/blending ply along the outside of the ribs and caprails. I am about 1/3 done with one side. Hopefully, I will be far enough along to fiberglass the hull bottom this weekend. I will probably take the two solenoid assembly off the mounting bracket to alow for more options for placement of the internals. These might just get cable tied to the shafts. I'll be stopping by the Xenia battle on Saturday, so I will not have all weekend to work on the boat. Also, I will have to see how I feel after my surgery tomorrow. I just might have to take a break from boats for a while.
I have starting finish work on the hull. The bottom has been sealed with finish grade epoxy and I fiber-glassed about 2/3 of the hull. I still have not drilled my rudder post hole. After eight years of faithful service, it appears that my Ryobi drill has given out--either the batteries or the charger. Replacing them is nearly the same cost as a new drill--who doesn't need an excuse to buy new tools? I also picked up 25lbs of #8 shot at the local gun store. That should give me enough ballast for my next several projects. I still have one big order that has not arrived. Hopefully that gets here next week so I can get hard-core on the internals
Awesome build thread, Dustin! She looks great! If you don't mind my asking, what make and model are those solenoids? I like the looks of those... Thanks, Carl
Carl, those are Clippard MME-2PDS-W012 12v solenoids. I have finished fiberglassing the bottom of the hull. I still need to double up on the bow and stern, so one more layer will be put down in those locations for extra protection. I will also do one more coat of finish grade epoxy on the bottom of the hull for some additional sealing. I also started sealing the inside of the hull. The 1st coat is about 50% done.
Today I sealed the inside of the hull and added just over 15lbs of lead shot to the bottom of the hull. I started to put in the self-leveling concrete sealant on the shot but my first tube ran out. It looks like I will need at least another tube and a half to finish the water channeling. I estimate the hull, shot, and sealant will weigh about 20lbs. Hull 20lbs Batteries 4lbs Full 9oz tank 2lbs Regulator 1lb Pnumatics 3lbs Loaded cannons 2lbs Motors & pump 2lbs Elextronics 1lb Decks & above 2lbs That puts me at 37lbs. Standard displacement is just under 34lbs and full displacement is just under 42lbs, so I have some wiggle room both ways. I can still remove 5-6 lbs of shot if anyone thinks I went over board on the ballast. All imput is welcome.
37 sounds ok, though perhaps try it at the standard displacement first then add weight as you feel is necessary.
Mike, on your advice, I removed about 5-6 lbs of shot. Once I get the last of them out of the water channel (it was a bit trickier to remove the loose shot that I realized) I will finish with the sealant.
