This Sunday, some of the locals got together for a small battle at the Versailles pond. We managed to get in a two sortie Battlestations battle. The teams were again France vs the World: France with the Strasbourg (Mikey) and Mogador (Phil), and the world with the USS Saipan (Gerry) and Gustav-V (Dustin). Sortie one consisted of the Saipan manuvering to get its fixed guns on the big Frenchie, and said Frenchie taking advantage of its rotating quads. The Mogador was running around the pond sniping at a distance, and the Gustav was limited to shots of oppertunity because of its slow speed. The Gustav took a spectacular hit that sent the forward mast to the bottom of the pond. After awhile all ships but one were on five and we brought them in to re-arm. Sortie two was much of the same until the big ships parked close to each other to trade salvos. The Gustav pulled up to the Strasbourg and managed to get off a torpedo shot and a few rounds from the mains. The Saipan and Mogador were on five when the capitain of the Strasbourg noticed his ship sitting low in the water. He hurried the ship to shore and it started taking on more water. It was declared sunk and we rushed to pull it out of the pond before the eighty-eight pound ship filled up with water. The issue was determined to be a clogged pump. Overall it was a quite enjoyable day. Rumors of the capitan of the Gustav singing the Sweedish Chef theme sond can neither be confirmed nor denied.
My favorite method is 1) having a screen on the pump intake, together with 2) building a 'pump house', basically a wood frame with a solid lid (that has a hole that the pump motor just fits through), which you glue screen around all four sides, with a small hole on the side that lets the pump discharge tubing exit. Basically, extra screen to filter the water before it gets to the pump, thus keeping little bits of wood and muck far from your pump inlet. I didn't have that on Lil Scharnie at this battle but it'll be added in a refit.
I've started using some aquarium filter stuff around my pumps, has done wonders for keeping the splintered shards of balsa out of my pump. Note: The above may not be the exact correct product, but the box looks about right. The fitler material itself is fairly open and water flows through easily.
The fish filter stuff didn't work too well for me ... I suspect because of the Titan motored pump was powerful enough to draw air into the water as the water passed through the filter, which in turned caused priming issues. I went with a method used by Dave Ranier; screen material across the top of the water channel to catch the big stuff, then additional screen material in the water channel before the pump. Of course, the pump has a piece of screen across the bottom intake. Essentially, it is a three screen filter with space between each screening element. It has worked extremely well for over two years now with no sinks due to a clogged pump. The downside is that teh screen pretty much has to be replaced every year as it wears and tears from normal use. Still, that isn't much of a problem since the ships get reiftted every winter anyway.
Yeah, the fish filter stuff is fine at lower flows, but at high flows, the headloss goes way up and you get priming problems. My old I-boat had a 1/4" square mesh over the water channel that did great.
Good to know. I haven't had to switch to higher powered pump motors yet as our local battles are smaller in size.
I have most, if not all of that stuff here somewhere. My main problem is that I work on stuff that I feel like working on, even if it really isn't one of the higher priority things. So I have known that I needed to work on improving my screen for my pump. I just never got around to it. Perhaps now, I will move that item up on my list of things to do before our next battle. It was a great sink, as it took a very long time. I will try to post some photos soon. Mikey
