It turns into a rubber material, you can press on it and feel in move. Cut it with a knife to open up the channel more if need no problem.
Thanks! I will give it a test in the next couple days before making a final decision. I would rather replace the ESC with one that works as desired than go direct drive.
Yeah, I've been working on her. My G/ma had a stroke a couple weeks back & my life was simply put on hold for a while. I really just haven't gotten around to posting the photos. I promise I will post my progress in the next couple days. I have: the battery mounted the water channel constructed & attached (awaiting fiberglassin') as of yesterday, I have 2 of the 4 guns... I went with Greg's canister cannons... see my upcoming post & review on the subject. (They are freekin' sweeeet....) Transmission & motor aligned, oiled, finished, & mounted I evaluated the concrete cement for use in the water channel & have accepted it for use in the tirpitz. I have done the calculations and am comfortable with the electrical choices I have made... see my upcoming post on the subject. I have purchased most of the superstructure 'decorations' (need one more purchase from BC) & I'm about to order myself an otter box.
Transmission: I evaluated the BC tranny & the traxxas villain tranny. I ultimately chose the one from BC; mostly because the villian's is no longer separable... (yes, I could cut it... but why? It is designed for two motors only.) The T has one shaft, and therefore I want to use only one motor. (Go figure, right?) So I went with BC's GB500 transmission. It comes with 2.5:1 ratio, which is about what I used on the Iowa with reasonably good results. (of course I had 2x2" props) Either way, I think it is a good starting place; which can be tuned later. I know this isn't a product review, but I really liked the simplicity of this transmission. No fuss; just put it together & boom, I'm done. I don't know if everyone knows about the paper rule when it comes to gears & transmissions, but I thought I would post it because I think think it works well. Basic gears theory says a gear must be a little separated from its mate or it will bind. It so happens that (in my experience) hobby gears must be 1 paper's thickness apart. So when I'm setting up a tranny, I set the gears together (loosely, so there is still some play... remember to use threadlock!!!) then I get a piece of paper (usually a receipt); and put the side of the paper right where the two papers mesh. I roll the gears, and the paper is drawn in between the gears. The width of the paper separates the gears 'just right, so good'. With the paper firmly stuck in the system, I torque down on the screws so the gears will no longer traverse away from each other. Then (the fun part) just spin the gears until the paper comes out & vol la! perfect gear mesh!
Water channel: Pre-'glass Tomorrow I'll have some photos of the water channel after it is all 'glassed into place. But tonight, here is a snap of the channel right before I started 'glassin' it. Everything I'm doing with the channel is trying to set it up for multiple 'waterfalls' and to keep the concrete cement where it should be when its drying. Ultimately, the wood will stay in place... but it is only the skeleton for the rubbery concrete cement. I'm trying to provide the pump with the lowest position in the whole ship. This area, what I call the 'trough', is maybe 3"x5" with hard waterfalls on all sides... This is to keep the pump primed with water, even if most of the water is sloshing about. Admittedly, hard to see in the current photos... and probably won't be much better until after the cement is in place. But the point is, I'm thinking about the flow of the water and how I want my system to interact with it in a less than ideal situation. I know I'm spending a lot of time on the channel, but I truly think it is one of the most important systems in the ship.
Battery Tray: As the heaviest piece in the whole ship; it deserves special consideration. I have created a "battery tray" that I believe will keep it in place as well as give me easy access/ removal. What you see is two blocks that the battery rest on (left and right of the water channel) which are ever so slightly higher than the channel itself. The idea being, I want the battery to rest on TWO 'skiis' not four 'skiis'... in other words, if either channel rung is taller than either of the skiis; the battery will 'rock in place' pivoting on the water channel. Not Good. Additionally, the four blocks fore and aft of the skiis are slightly taller than the skiis themselves. They are also spaced farther apart than the battery is long. They provide a 'wall' which keeps the battery in place.. They also make the battery fall in place with a cool little click. hehe.. I'm all about the User eXperience; baby! I used 8 little picture hangers for rope anchors to hold the battery completely in place. Before I mounted them, I dunked 1/2 of one in water for 36 hours, then let it dry. No rust, baby!! And here is the battery held in place with stretchy tie-downs. I've not had the chance to rust test them yet, but I'm not too terribly worried. If they don't work, they are not permanent & will simply be replaced.
EARLY CHRISTMAS!! Greg finally released the beta of his much anticipated CANISTER CANNONS! & I got my copy first! hheheheh... I haven't had the chance to fire them yet; but I will start testing them this week. He has really spent a lot of time considering every aspect of this weapon. I'm really quite impressed with the quality of design and workmanship; way to go Greg! I (tried) to center (darn camera-aspect ratio) this weapon on my rulered table so you can have an idea of how small it really is. For those of us that have used an indiana-style gun... remember to wipe the drool off the computer monitor. Greg says he could mount one of these in his Karlsruhe! Very nIIce! The plastic tubing is quite obviously too long, but I'm not yet in a state where I can/should cut it. But needless to say, the whole gun's footprint could be cut down to somewhere around 2"x4". Tomorrow, My updates will include the fiberglassed water channel & what I did to make the transmission feel 'oh soo nice'. Which will bring this thread up-to-date.
A combination of both. They function exactly like traditional fast gun cannon in a different package, however they will also fire 3/16 bearings as well as BB's
Nice, when are they going into full production, and how much are they? I see Basin Shipyards is still moving?
I am waiting for some test results from justin before I make many more of them... I am hoping in the 75$ range, give or take, depending on materials cost... basin shipyards is basically done, I think, but the molds have been passed off to tugboat.
Cannon preview: Started working on the cannons yesterday; here is a "Spy photo" from my phone. Allied dogs, BEWARE!
I've decided the fiberglass work is not that interesting; so I'm going to hold off on posting any photos until I get another system finished. Probably the CO2 tanks, or cannons.
OK! Tirpitz finally has teeth! grrrr! So the problem: The original tirpitz gun mounts were 2.672" in diameter (Thanks Greg, for the readily available size! []) And the new pancake cannons are exactly 2". The new guns would just slip right through the original mounts! go figure! So what I've decided to do is create a plastic 'adapter' that will.. (ready for this?) adapt the new guns to the old mounts. So the only two ways I know to manipulate plastic are 1.) with a CNC (which I don't have) or 2.) create a wooden 'master' and plasti-cast the final versions. So, I started making them using my scroll saw.. but got really lousy results. Really Terrible! By a strange cast of fate, greg's obscure diameters are a near perfect match for the inner diameters of common hole saws. Using the older 'crappier' hole saw design (which is really hard to find anymore), I mated one inside the other and created perfect o-rings. So, I cut the wooded o-rings as I needed & got these results: By mounting them up top, I have a lot of room underneath. Now, putting the housing in place: MMMM..... Tasty american targetsssssss... Hey, is that my hat?
Now the Tirpitz's cannons are not very tall. This is all the down angle I can get from the inside top of the turret to the top of the barbette. What do you all think? Needs more down angle? There is actually two options available to me if I need/want more down angle. #1 I can cut into the barbette. Can I cut into the barbette & still be legal? #2 Greg and I have discussed a modification to the top of the cannon which will allow (theoretically) quite a lot more down angle to be had. I'm really hopeful for this part when he finishes it. I think it will make quite a difference. So I'm going to put my knife back down and wait for Greg's new piece. As you can see I'm only using zip-ties to get the angle I want... Hardly any condition to fight! ...yet Off Topic, since the Tirpitz is the first ship to bear these cannons (and hopefully the first to fight with them)... would that make them "Tirpitz-style cannons"?
damn straight I would like to claim that the whole "matches the inside of a hole saw" thing was intentional, but that odd diameter was what I got out of my first set of cannon..... Ha!.. That is a really really nice way to mount those cannons... I may have to look at molding a plastic housing to let other folks do that. I will be bringing the other superstructure and hopefully another cannon kit with me when I come to tri-cities this weekend... -Greg
What do you think of gluing the final adapter to the top pancake? (Only the top, so I can still take apart the assembly?)
