Woo Hoo! My prototype kit for the Bogue CVE finally arrived today. I'm going to be building the ship for my daughter so she has something of her own to run this year. Since the ship is pretty roomy, has decent displacement and only one prop, I'm also hoping it will make a good entry level ship. Plus I just want to see some carriers on the water. The superstructure is built up out of 1/8" lite ply. Here's the parts: Most of my problems with the kit were with the flight deck and supports. Nothing too big, it went together after a few swipes from an exacto knife.
The hull is made up of 1/4" birch ply parts The hull went together pretty well, once I figured out which direction to build the ribs. I started putting the ribs in the sub-deck and nothing was fitting. Then I realized that I was putting the bow ribs into the stern. I guess after not doing any work on the drawings for two months you forget how everything is supposed to go together.
Assembled ship. Some more errors in the fit between the superstructure and the hull, but not too bad. At this point, no glue has been used. Sponsons and island parts are included And just for a little inspiration, a flight deck mock up.
Nice. What is the spacing and thickness of the ribs? Also, how far below the waterline is the impenetrable rail? I'm wondering if this is legal in Big Gun...
Wow. I mean wow. This is exactly the type of kit that is needed to get people into R/C modelling. Package it up with a shaft/prop/motor/esc combo, throw in a 2-channel radio and you have a ship. Plus, it looks brilliant.
Having almost finishing a 4'x5' cnc router (with the idea of selling tank kits). I wonder how much you all would be willing to pay for kits such as Mark is producing? Steve Tyng
First, thanks for all the positive comments. There's a fair amount of work that goes into developing a kit, and to have it appreciated makes it all worth it. This kit was designed and drawn in CAD by me and I have it cut at a local company called Fox Lite. They actually make sky lights, but they have a 4'x4' lasercutter and since the company president is a R/C modeler they also cut models on the side. Over the years they have produced hundreds of kits and accessories for Radical RC and they are also willing to do one off models from individual modelers. The kit cutting is fairly reasonable too. I won't have a final price until I finish development and we know exactly how much wood and laser time is needed, but I'm hoping I can sell these at about $75, just like my Baltimore kits. So they should be much cheaper than a fiberglass hull, and easier to put together too. The construction is designed to be legal for the rule sets I have read. The ribs are 1/4" and are spaced 3" center-to-center, except ribs 2 and 3 which only have 2.5" between centers. The rear edge of the first rib is set back 2" from the bow and the front edge of the last rib is 1" from the stern. So for the fill calculation, you have 41.33" * 15% = 6.1995". Subtracting 2" for the bow and 1" for the stern leaves 3.1995" for the ribs. 12 ribs * 0.25 gives 3", leaving 0.1995" left over. Total fill using 1/4" for the ribs is 14.5%, if we use the actual thickness of the ribs which is 0.230", the fill is 14%. The notch for the impenetrable rail is set at 1" below the waterline, which is set for about 10 pounds displacement. The distance of the rail is just set by a notch in the ribs, so if need be the builder can leave out the rail and set the impenetrable area wherever they want to set it. In the back, the impenetrable rail is set at the 45 degree turn of the bilge, which is more conservative than the clubs that use 60 degrees.
The way these laser cut models look reminds me of those so-called kits that are produced in glossy magazines, and take 12 months or more and hundreds of dollars to collect. (An exercise in frustration, to be sure.) With these however, you get all the parts, all at once. Brilliant! Even freight costs are no longer a drama with these flat-pack beauties. IKEA, at your heart out.
That meets WWCC standards. I'll tell the rest of my club at the events tomorrow and next week. I wanna get one for me, but I've got two more ships to finish up before I start any more projects
The CVE has been officially named by her future captain - the HMS Queen. I finished cutting some replacement parts and started gluing stuff together tonight. I'm trying a new feature with this kit - a customizable water channel. Rather than using a double keel with both ribs and keels notched to key them together, the double keels for the water channel are notched while the ribs are not. This allows you to position the double keels at any width to accommodate your pump. There is a center keel that runs the length of the ship that is used to initially position everything. Once everything is glued together, the center keel and center parts of the ribs are cut out to make the water channel.
