I am planning on using one, I did fill it with foam that I'm goin to hopefully cut out with a hot wire foam cutter. I'll post some more pictures after I get the foam cut.
I went ahead and cut the foam on the outside of the hull and sanded it down. There are a few smaller divots in the foam that I'm going to fill with epoxy tomorrow. The shafts are in, and the area will be foamed in tomorrow. So far, the spray foam has worked well. It cuts with a serrated blade, and sands down with rough grit sandpaper. I haven't tried cutting the inside yet, but it should be easy enough with a small knife.
Don't waste the time filling the divots... lay the fiberglass on the foam (once its sanded smooth) and glass it as-is. Are those soft copper tubes that you're using for driveshafts?
You're right they are soft copper, but they're there as placeholders until I get the actual shafts so that I can go ahead and foam the stern without having to drill out the foam for the shafts, should have been clearer on that. I wasn't sure weather the divots would have an effect on the fiberglass or not, but I guess I have my answer, thanks for saving me a few hours work
If you haven't foamed the area with the copper tubes yet, spray the tubes with PAM cooking spray right before you do... wipe it all over them, and put them back in the boat. It'll help keep the foam from sticking to them.
A bit of an update: The Good: My local auto shop has fiberglass and epoxy, so that's one problem solved. The Neutral: I decided to chisel out the foam after I add fiberglass and add liquid cement to help with the weight and maybe use it as a battery holder if my Idea works out. The Bad: A few of the ribs are canted in the bow and stern, so I'm going to remove those subdecks and straighten out the ribs and cut a new deck/subdeck combo so it won't be wavy. Hope to have all this done at the end of the week, and start working on adding the electronics.
Hi, I just put an update containing a preview of the SS in the Dropbox folder, under version name V02. This work is not final, but the Fore SS up to level 3 and aft level 1 is close enough. for the moment, since I am not done, I only included the SketchUp 3D model, this mean no DXF for the moment. In this state, all the SS is stored in a single layer, all levels piled up. When I will be done, they will be classified under different layer for easier browsing. good luck! And for my part, I will be offline for the rest of the week. Daniel
Cutting the water channel may be difficult. If the foam seems to be working well, I might suggest using a few shallow layers vice one massive one. I know the can is pretty much ruined once you start the first spray though so there is a cost issue there. It would at least allow more control when building in the battery-laydown area and water channel. Please post pics of the water channel work and a summary of how easy/difficult it turned out to be. I'm very excited to see how this project comes along.
Right now she's on hold, there was some major waviness in the hull I'm going to have to fix before I continue.
That's unfortunate. Step back, take a deep breath and re-attack. Don't let this deter you from finishing this beautiful ship. My Tirpitz took me a little over a year but I'm so very happy I completed her. Good night and good luck.
Don't start too many projects at once. It's like trying to rake your lawn with ten different rakes, taking a turn with every one. It takes longer than if you were just using one.
...yyyeeeessss.... and so ANOTHER one gets the disease.... soon, I will infect the entire battling community... Alll too easy...
You'll see her soon enough, I'm going to build one of the big frenchies for Battlestations, much more room than a sub
Dear Friend, hello from Italy! I want to build a 1/144 model of Tirpitz, I read that .....I can't find the section where to download this plan....can you tell me? in Any case thank you for this marvelous forum! Best regards, and happy modelling! Davide Lazzarotto
