OK, plastic molds are 'baking'! We'll see tomorrow how they turned out. I hate buying RTV...SOOO expensive!
Well, I screwed up the mold. Oh well, what do you expect from my first mold. I'll take pix of what I did & what I did wrong tomorrow. Apparently, you must seal wood to keep the rtv from sticking to it then ripping. DAMN, $15 down & no mold. I'll try again tomorrow. I think it needs to be a two piece mold too.
Justin, if need be, we might be able (if the size isn't too big) to machine the mold straight from a piece of plastic plate...
OK, So it's been about a week & I thought I'd share with you what I've been doing all couped up in my garage. I am nearly finished with the waterchannel. WOOHOO! Took down right forever. But as I said before, I think its worth it. The last step is to shape it with concrete sealant, a whole lot of sealant. This stuff takes forever to dry apparently... As I poured it last weekend, and its still drying. It has a nice thick skin on it, but I can tell the insides are still liquid. Everyday, it seems to be getting tougher and tougher. The package says it will take a week to dry, and I assume since I'm using much more than a standard application it could take even longer. If I could do it again, I would do in in layers. I don't particularly care how long it takes, as long as it dries completely in the end. Must admit, I'm a little worried it won't dry completely. Guessing even if it doesn't it wouldn't be a big problem, as its tough enough right now for battle. And worse case scenario is it gets poked, but even then the goo won't come out (unless its a pretty big cut). Oh well. All I can do at this point is wait and hope. You gotta admit, though... It looks absolutely fabulous.
Why are my CO2 tanks in the picture? ---> Because they are being molded with the sealant! They are each being held in place by 4 magnets & I must admit I really like how they are shaping up. The magnets are holding the CO2 tanks nice and snug... turn the boat upside down and shake it, those bottles aren't going anywhere. Yet, grab ahold of one & pull... they come right off. *very niice* Ooh, since I didn't take any photos of the 'naked' CO2 bottles; I should mention they are angled so the CO2 stays on the bottom of the bottle. However, I think I will modify them for horizontal use just the same. I also wanted them as close to the bottom of the ship as possible for balancing reasons, so they actually needed to be molded directly into the waterchannel. What I did was I wrapped each tank (& the pump hose) up in saran wrap & poured the sealant. The result: a perfectly functional, bumpy finish. Which is quite OK, because one of the nice properties of the sealant is if I don't like a section I just cut off the offending parts & re-pour. So, I figure I'll let this dry; then I'll cut it until its smoother do a better job wrapping the bottles (or use some form of mold release) and try it again.
I've also been casting the adapters for my new pancake cannons. I'll create another thread showing how I did that: Visit this site But anyway, here are the adapters: Notice how close the barbette is to the deck. Puurrfect.
Looks great but how much does it weigh now? Also is this for fast gun with two tanks? I see what looks like your pump outlet hose and it looks bigger than typical fast gun. Its really looking good.
Last time I weighed it I had some 10 lbs to spare. That was before the sealant though, but that seems pretty light actually. I can weigh it tomorrow, but I think I'm still good. Two tanks for fast gun, yes. Not going to run out of CO2 + it balances better that just one in the middle. The outlet looks big because it is on that side, if you look down the hole you will see the standard compression outlet. Don't worry, not trying to break any rules!
So I then moved on to the D-Turret... I used the same mold, just only the bottom part. (Two piece mold) BTW, you can see the new 'compressed' top for the pancake cannons... They let the barrels be mounted a lot closer to the deck, and send the shells out much closer together hopefully to provide a tear in the opponent instead of just two holes. The reason the D-turret has only one barrel is because Greg was out of pipe & I haven't gotten around to buying any. But don't worry, my aft cannon will be a twin. Just try to tell me those cannons don't look SICK!!! [:0]
That is possible... the König is a smaller ship. OK, so you guys got me all worried... So I ran out to the garage with my scale. With deck, superstructure, motor, CO2 tanks, regs, batt, guns; basically everything except CO2, balsa, electronics, & CO2 valves.. She's @ 31.8 lbs & I'm allowed 41 lbs. So it added maybe one pound; it is, after all, just rubber.
The Konig weights more than my PE, and the PE has 2 tubes in it, 20 oz. My 2 Mogami's both have 1 tube in them, and they can only weigh 12.3 pounds. The thicker it is Justin, the longer it takes to dry. The Mogami's took like 4 days, 1/8 in thick, the PE was around 10 days, since it was 3/8 inch thick.
My small Gloire has about 3/4ths of the tube in it and still only weighs 9 lbs 12 oz ... a full 1.5 pounds under heavy weight. The stuff works great! The ship barely rocks in turns ... it's that stable. The smaller the ship, the less you need in it. Justin, those are awesome looking cannons! I want two for my Richelieu. Heh.
So did you weigh it before you started the sealant? Is that how you came to the weight of a pound? I may want to do this in my ship. I need to build up the sides and such. Also which fast gun group are you working with? Will it be ready for MWCI Nationals? If so you should bring it up to MN.
THAT's GREAT NEWS! She has less than 3/8" in most places. I used 3.5 tubes for her. I didn't, so all I can do is guess from my weight a month ago. It at least added 1 pound, and no more than 3 pounds. I don't think it increases in weight as it dries. SO just measure the weight of the tubes before you add them. I'm with WCC in Washington State; an IRCWCC group. I doubt I'll be going to nats with her this year, either mwc or irc. I don't believe in taking an untested ship to nats. I think it would make for a frustrating time. When are nats this year?
