I'm thrilled to announce a new boat that's designed to be built in a weekend. After a couple of years of development, I have a new kit that I designed specifically to help get new members into the hobby. The Emanuele Filiberto Duca D'Aosta is a light cruiser that uses a new molding technique -- the sub-decks are a seamless part of the hull mold. The barbettes are also molded in, and the stuffing tube holes are pre-drilled. The goal is to have a ship that can be put together in a weekend by a new builder, or used as a loaner or backup boat. We are having an introductory sale on the ship: $20 for just a hull and deck, $160 for hull kit with all the superstructure and stuffing tubes, and $500 for a solenoid version battle kit (plus shipping in each case). The battle kit will need radio, batteries, and one servo. Hulls are available immediately. Hull Kits with superstructures will be shipping in about a week (final adjustments of the superstructure is needed). Battle Kits will be shipping about a week after the battle kits. I have over a dozen hulls in stock, and can ship quickly for summer builds. If there is a large demand, my molding shop an pull four or more hulls a day. Here's to helping the hobby grow -- order away! http://www.strikemodels.com/duca-daosta/ We have more pictures on our website, and we will be updating them as we get them finished and rolled out. Thank you, Stephen Morgret Strike Models
OK Stephen. Looks like I may be called on in the near future to assist with a couple of Duca's. What inquiring minds want to know.... is what adhesives will stick to these hulls? Thanks
Adhesives are a little on the weird side. The base material is polyethylene. I've had one person report that very slow curing epoxy works (but not any of the faster ones he tried). The West System G/Flex does work, and here is a fun little video on how they used it on a kayak: View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a5RlcP-4JE . Kayaks are made of the same stuff as the Duca and uses the same process to make the shell. CA glue is not very useful against the hull itself. If you look up "kayak welding" on YouTube, you can see many repairs being made. However, the glue that I personally ended up using for most of my work is one that we have largely avoided in this hobby (as near as I can tell): hot glue. I know that I am going to receive some flak for this, but hot glue is really helpful for these builds and has some interesting properties. The best way to put it is that hot glue is a semi-permanent adhesive to polyethylene. If you apply it, it sticks quite well, but you can wrench it off without visibly damaging the underlying surface material. It is easy to apply in that it can flow into crevasses and still build up bulk instead of just flowing away. On my fit model (that went on patrol yesterday), The stuffing tubes, rudder post, rudder, superstructure, and drive motors were all secured with nothing more than hot glue. I've been testing hot glue on my NC for holding guns down, and have not seen any problems. I've actually used hot glue for balsa, as well, though I prefer to use silicone caulking (it dries much slower than hot glue cools, but caulking completely fills in the gap and is also completely removable). The last couple of things in favor of hot glue is that it is FAST to use and that you can pick up $20 cordless hot glue guns for pond-side use. Stephen Morgret Strike Models
Plans are a little more of an issue. This is the first kit I've made where I did not have the right to distribute the plans (though this is being worked on). The hull and superstructure were based off of the Profile Morskie set. Knowing that this was going to be a problem, I laser etched the location of the deck parts above and below on the deck levels. The etchings are to be on the underside of the deck so they will not show up on the finished model (and the sheet material is clear, the blue protective film comes off). CA glue works fine for the superstructure. Stephen Morgret Strike Models
not tried this yet ( i will when duca arrives) View: https://www.amazon.com/Loctite-LOC-18396-Bottle-Cyanoacrylate-Adhesive/dp/B001OBQ8VO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500065781&sr=8-1&keywords=770+Prism+Primer%2C then ca on whatever you want bonded to it. hot glue sounds nice however.
Looks like this stuff might be good to have for a Duca project. Nice video on the bottom going over polyethylene gluing. https://www.tapplastics.com/product/repair_products/plastic_adhesives/tap_poly_weld_adhesive/435
A lot more adhesives will work on PE, acetal, and nylon if the surface is flame treated. The treatment activates the surface. The flame just barely has to pass by the surface; you are not at all trying to melt the surface. Stephen Morgret Strike Models
The spacing is set up for 1.25" props. I also just tested a Dremel cut-off wheel. They work just fine, but the angle might get weird. Stephen Morgret Strike Models
I just finished pulling the first parts from the stack mold. All of the tooling is now done for the Duca. The rudder, foam stacks, turrets are all available on the page for the Duca here: http://www.strikemodels.com/duca-daosta/ . The Duca has a fairly tight aft end, so I have a chain drive set up in my models for rudder control. The sprockets and chain are also available on that page. Stephen Morgret Strike Models
Stephen brought out his test assembly ship to the battle and I talked him into letting me drive it around for a few minutes. View: https://youtu.be/cJlajTCcKx0 It wasn't combat rigged yet, no guns and no pneumatics, so it needed some weight redistribution and is running light overall and light in the stern in the video. Sorry about the lousy quality, my phone's camera is.... not very good.
Supports to hold hull upright on bench (it is a curvy hull) are in the resources section for 3d printing
Just received my Duca d'Aosta hull. I love it. It is a sexy hull. I have some holes where the hull side meets the deck, and in the prop shaft fairings. Should I use the TAP product to fill these, hot glue, or some other adhesive. I was planning to use tape on the outside of the hull as a dam and fill from the inside, but I am not sure if I can flame treat the inside of the hull effectively. Does anyone have any advice or pointers for me? It is not outside the realm of possibility that I end up with a molten lump of plastic. I would like to say it is unusual for me to set myself on fire, but statistically it is a coin toss.
flame treat is easy. if you melt even the surface you have done too much. I did my entire interior with a propane torch in ~45 seconds or less
So I am remiss in getting pictures up, but I think I have a really easy to replicate duca layout. I will try to get pictures uploaded tonight along with 3dp files for internal components. all in all, if I take out the time I spent just figuring things out, it looks like it would take about 4-5 hours (with parts prefabbed to correct shape) or way less to get the ship fully fit out to test run prior to cutting windows. In my case, I was letting a 6 year old run it just for fun, so I intend to get it fully running sans windows first to ensure it handles properly and then cut the windows last.
that is the first full trial run of internal removal of everything except for drive motors and rudder. For drive motors add ~2-4 minutes more, and about the same for the rudder servo. Once the cannosn are fully tested and it is fully balasted, I will cut the windows and sheet. I plan to add an additional barrel alignment bracket for the cannons though.
