Heh. It seemed particularly clever to me, as the same day that you posted it, I was rotating stuffing tubes by hand into a hull. Next time I'll save myself the wear and tear on the hands!
Greetings From Florida: Well, the craft stick built ship Bebop pass all of the sea trails with its plain Dollar Tree gift wrapped paper soaked in Beryl Nitrate dope. Repeated handling, moisture, bumps, and usage can cause leaks to form. I plugged those leaks with small sections of epoxy. Frames and bulkheads can be skipped if the ship is small enough. Longer hulls would benefit . laying the "planks" horizontally rather than vertically reduces the leak issues. For a middle school shop class that has limited resources, craft stick boat building would work as a semester project. A
Again, for a middle school shop class, one of Mark's laser-cut wood kits would be dandy (The USS Texas/New York kit, which I now have some experience with is a true bargain at $100 - it was so well cut that, when framed, could be held at one end, in one hand, and was so sturdy that it appeared to have been already glued when no glue had yet been applied), and would ensure some basic conformity to hydrodynamic principles, and authenticity, and a host of additional advantages, including not having to reinvent the wheel and figure out how to do with inferior materials like craft sticks. However, it is, of course, your option to ignore all the good advice you have been given on this forum. Good luck with your project.
$100 per student for a base hull--that would be a hard sell to my school principal for a pilot project. However, the USS Brooklyn @ $75.00 may be doable per student but I would have to cross my fingers. About 10% of the students in my middle school were declared homeless by the state and $100 is serious cash. I endeavour to keep the startup prices down. I seek to kill shop fees. The craft sticks had their issues. I had to toss out a bunch of them because they were not straight or had some other type of defect. I do not think I would have needed to deal so much with leaks if I had stuck to balsa. I also agree with the assessment that the hull shape would be very basic. A.
How about we work up a simple hull (say, 6 or 8 frames) made from cheap 1/4" sand pine plywood? a 4'x8' sheet of that is under $10 and would provide several small ships, and the students would get good training without killing a lot of time.
I was thinking something like a stand-off scale DD that could be decorated to suit the builder (like change the SS around without affecting the guts), with a common hull, one prop, one rudder. Stronger and it'd really only take a scrollsaw and a sander (or a hand-held coping saw and sandpaper+elbow grease).
I don't recall saying $100 per student or one hull per student. You could have teams of students building 2 or 4 hulls depending on class size. You need only 2 ships to have a battle. All of our club ships in our group were built by a team of builders (some rough-cut out ribs with the scrollsaw, others sanded them to final dimensions, others laid out keels and cut them, various ones worked on varying superstructure parts, then there were the mechanical guys and the electronics guys.......). Teamork can really help get a ship done - doing one per person is often far harder and more time consuming. If you want one ship per student, you might want the far less expensive (and more complete) Golo, and arm it with a single airsoft gun. At least for the pilot project. Later, if the class is polular, you could offer the kids choices of one of the larger ships, or team-built ships, depending on their (and your) budget. Again, good luck,
I talked with Astrosaint via pm, and so I am drawing up the USS Salamis-class destroyer, a stand-off scale (way, way off) model for simple RC naval combat. Salamis is 50cm long, and 10cm wide, and should draw 3-4cm of water, combat loaded. Soooo, I was out sick on Friday, and managed to get some Sketchup work done on the school boat. Behold: USS Salamis! Above: USS Salamis 3/4 view. The whole front will not be solid, but I haven't gotten the bow section done yet The bow is more 'merchantish' than 'destroyerish', but it's intentionally that way, so that there are no compound curves that would make sheeting tricky for kids who've never battled before. The whole thing is made from 1/4" sand pine plywood (cheap cheap cheap!). The deck will be from a plastic 'for sale' sign, reinforced a bit Stern inside view... the small hole way in the back is for the rudder post. The big notch in that same piece of horizontal wood is sized to fit just about any standard servo, which will turn the rudder! I intentionally deisgned Slamis as a single prop, single rudder design, with lots of room for experimentation in the design; Some of the hard edges at the stern could be sanded to be round, lowering drag. The profile of the bow ahead of where the balsa is glued to it could be changed. Rudder shape could be experimented with, or a clever student might decide to upgrade to two rudders (or heck, three!). The standard servo will be able to handle the load of another rudder if someone tries it, and they're cheap! I'm heading out to the shop to build the first of class for testing the design (i.e.- does it go together like the plans say it should?) *Why USS Salamis? By some people's reckoning, had the Greeks been defeated at the Battle of Salamis, they would have lost the war, and Xerxes and his Persians would have been firmly in control of Greece, and the development of democracy and western civilization as a whole would have been either delayed, or prevented entirely, making the Battle of Salamis the most important naval battle in history. Besides, who doesn't like a desperate fight against overwhelming odds?
With those lines it could almost be an ironclad. Perhaps go with an ACW themed ship for the pretty parts.
It might, but I started from a clean sheet, armed only with the dimensions I wanted to make it fit. The merchant bow I blame on restricting myself to no compound curves. I want it as easy to sheet for the students as possible. If they get hooked on RC naval combat and want to get into it for real, they can learn the hard parts later
It is sitting in the shop right now, waiting on me to grab the shrink-wrap to enclose it in for pool testing.... going to see how much weight is needed for it to achieve design waterline. It's short but very beamy, which will make it more stable and that's a good thing in ships driven and battled by high school kids...
You can still avoid looking "merchant-ish" if you sharpen up the bow. Especially if you bring the bottom in more than the top, so it forms a nice V shape. The sharper the V, the pointier the bow will get, and you still have a very easy skinning job.
Ask and you shall receive. It's just fitted together to test the pattern. The forwardmost and aftmost frames are proper frames that align the subdeck and keelboard. The middle 3 are just verticals that fit into notches and are there to hold the balsa. I also put the rudder servo in, and laid the CO2 regulator inside to see where I was going to fit things. The bow of the keelboard and subdeck aren't curved yet, that'll be tomorrow. This is a closeup view of the stern, showing why we test-fit... the servo fits... after you cut out that cross brace (after the frame is glued in). I haven't fitted the diagonal piece that goes behind that frame (in front of where the prop will be). Below is a closeup of the bow, which is still square The solid vertical piece is the aft end of the forward solid area.
Salamis looks pretty good in wood. You know, the kids, if they wanted to, could even make aircraft carriers out of them. What speed do you plan on having these run at? Keep posting pictures as she comes along. Beaver
I think the superstructure should be entirely up to the students. As long as they mount the one gun some where reasonable.
