I plan to get an X7 eventually as well, and regulate my FlySky I6x to secondary duty. but that will be once I have a few more battling ships.
The FlySky radios are just rebranded Turnigy ones from Hobbyking. Check their prices before you buy, you may be overpaying for someone's name brand.
They are. There are a few other companies too. I've seen flysky cheaper than hobbywing, and vice versa. I'm fairly certain, but I could be wrong, that Flysky is the OEM and the rest are licensed out. I do know Hobbyking themselves has their name as a brand for them, as well as their Turnigy brand name as well, pretty much selling the same transmitter under 2 different brand names, as well as having the FlySky named ones as well. and who knows, Hobbyking could have bought Flysky as well. I forget the name of the other 2 companies that are the same transmitter. One I kknow has a few knockoff cars and they include their branded version of the flysky transmitter with it, they don't sell t seperately
Looking for some insight and comments. Marked out my windows for my ship and want to post it here before I make my first cut. Top black line= Deck 2nd Black 1/8th in line = armor belt Green tape = waterline just for reference Top of 2nd green line = end of the window yellow at front and back = solid area 2 in front, 1 in in back
Looks good. If you are building to traditional fast gun rules with 15% hard area then you can add several more ribs. Somewhere around 26 ribs 1/4” wide, spaced about 2 and 3/8” apart. Also the aft hard area line is typically vertical measured from aft-most point, 1” forward (doesn’t follow contour like bow). Should check the applicable rule set if you haven’t already
Thanks Kevin, You’re totally correct, I had missed 7 ribs. I have thus utilized those extra 7 to place a greater number in the box and a few in the stern. Thanks for the save..... I cant imagine having to put extra ribs in after I cut everything out.
Couple of small updates: I purchased the majority of the remaining parts.... tank, cannons, multi-b board, receiver, transmitter, solenoids, etc.... now got to figure out how to lay it all out and get everything else together. I know you’re supposed to buy the radio last, but I got this Frsky Qx7s for about the price of a standard Qx7 so I had to buy it. Lol Also put some time into the deck. Here are a few pics
Got the barbules mounted in the deck... now on to mounting the guns. Question for anyone following this build, what is the best way to mount the guns.... I’m having a difficult time coming up with something that will be secure and will allow me to adjust later. Any tips would be really helpful. Ive seen some images of different mounting (mounting block on deck) but I’m curious on how everyone attaches the rest of the cannon to the ship.
This is what I’ve been doing and so far it’s been holding pretty well. Essentially a sleeve of brass tube that fits over the gun soldered to a brass machine screw. One nut above the deck and one below, let’s you make small elevation adjustments. For a dual gun setup up I’ve used a piece of brass bar stock with the sleeves soldered to it and the machine screw mounted to the middle going through the deck. Hope this helps. If you make it to the July SCRAP battle come take a look and you can see more examples on my boats.
this is really helpful! I plan to make it to the July event, as I’m hoping to get some more picture and insight into battery usage and placement within the ship of various pieces. I love how you do this, as it allows you to make some adjustments. Thank you!
Taking inspiration from the example above, I have a solution which should work for now. At this point I’m kind of at a stopping point until I determine what size battery I need. I need to Finish the water channeling and such but figure I should wait until I have the battery. I figure I want the battery as low as possible and thus should minimize the angle of the water channeling in the area of the battery. Next weekend is the next SCRAP battle at Prada so hoping to head out there to check out some of the ships and batteries. Looking to run it off 6V and given weight shouldn’t be an issue with a scharnhorst, if you have a recommended mah needed for this boat please chime in and make a recommendation.
What chemistry are you going to use? Old school/cheap would be a 20AH SLA brick. You've got the weight and space for 40AH of NiMH if your wallet needs lightening I run 40AH of NiMH in my Haruna. I don't even bother to change batteries for the afternoon battle with SCRAP so I have more time at lunch to patch lol Seriously though, those are 2 good choices. There's Lipo but I don't know anything about them. I think most of SCRAP is using SLA, so if you go that route someone will probably have a spare if you need it.
Wow, looking good. I like how you have all three barrels at the same angle, most fast gunners don't do that but I think it looks better.
20Ah per battle should be good, probably would use 10- 15ish most battles. If you want to use lithium I’d recommend the headway cylindrical LiFePO4 cells, there are 15Ah single cells, you’d probably want about 8 cells (4 per battle, 2 in series and 2 in parallel). Price is around $35 per cell which can add up. If local people still use SLA then it’s best to stick with that, pump stream might get droopy while accelerating
I see a lot of big gun boats where they all line up (because they all shoot). I just thought it was silly to have one of the three barrels pointed different. Not sure if there is a reason everyone does that, but in terms of just looks and ease, lining them all up seemed like the way to go..... certainly looks better lol. I’m trying to figure out how to best attach the top of the turrets now.
Here is an update.... since last posting Ive made quite a bit of progress. You can see from the pics below I’m getting pretty close. In the bow I got the tank settled and the various solenoids mounted to the ship. In this pic you can also see the general layout of the front of the ship. The aft Mid ship here you will see the two SLA batteries in a little tray. With both batteries in the ship is at 30 pounds which is under the max, but is likely a bit more than I would like it to way. Ive heard that 27/28 pounds is kind of the ideal weight for the Scharnhorst... I don’t really need both batteries, so in theory I can take one out and have room to spare as they are about 6 pounds each. The batteries are 12V 15Wcell, 15min, which according to specs provides 12V 9.Ah each which should be more than plenty... I think. A SCRAP buddy, Andy, helped out with the superstructure. I have a printer, but it simply couldn’t handle the size of the SS, so he hooked me up with some printer time on his unit! Super helpful and I cannot thank him enough. I have materials to sheet the ship on order which should arrive next week. Until then I plan to figure out how to get the SS to stay on the deck. I’m thinking small bolts from the bottom of the deck into a piece of wood glued into the bottom of the SS. If anyone has any recommendations or insight on the best way to mount a 3D printed structure, I would love to hear it or see some pictures. And how about the secondary turrets? Best to just glue them down with E6000?
Does the superstructure float? If it doesn't float, it's probably way too heavy. If does float though, consider using it as a recovery float. For that purpose, you'll want a couple of pins up forward, and a couple of pins back aft. They should be somewhat loose, ie a 1/8" pin in a 1/4" hole, no more than 1" long, to ensure a good deployment of the float no matter which way you sink. The big WWI battlewagons *usually* have enough time to run for shore, but even the best ships can go down quickly in deep water due to rams, pump failure, operator error, etc. If you don't want the whole superstructure to be your float, you've got options. Pins, magnets, screws, glue, all sorts of methods will work. The biggest trick is to screw down the secondary turrets. Those things are a pain to replace if they get blown off, so your best bet is to drill a hole through the bottom and put a stainless screw in there. After that, even if the glue fails the worst that'll happen is the turret will spin around.
Made a bit more progress.... Got it sheeted. I was actually very worried about this step of the process, but it seemed to be a bit easier than I anticipated. I then got it floating in the jacuzzi to water test it.... overall it did good, however there appeared to be an area with a bit of a small leak. Nothing major, but I found the locations and patched up. The back is sitting a bit high, and thus I need to add some weight back there. Trying to determine the best method to use for the weight, whether to just use lead or something else. And here she is all painted up... I went with the 1943 style paint job as I love the concept of the two color hull which is intended to make the ship look smaller (farther away) than it really is.
