Oh god yeah. I've managed to put together a good storage container for my batteries from a 40MM grenade launcher ammo can, and having a slightly less stupid charger will help too. I'm not super cool with LiPo yet due to lack of experience, but we'll see how they go. The size and mass are going to work well in Texas. If I decide they aren't appropriate for the task, I'll build Idaho to accept LiFe cells for her pumps. no biggie.
Well, I've been using EZE-Dope for the boat, and when I ran out, I bought a container of Nitrate Dope. That didn't go over well this morning when I applied it inside my workshop. My house is now filled with fumes, and I am going to switch back to the water-based dope. We'll see how the nitrate dope works out on the starboard side of my hull versus the water-based on the port side, but I have purchased a batch of the water-based stuff for patching, and if need be, to redo the starboard side of the hull. I mean, it's holding pretty well and all, but Jeez it stinks!!! If I use nitrate dope in the future, I will definitely apply it outside. After checking the forum for mentions of dope, it appears that some people are using a light coat of rubber cement to stick the silkspan to the hull, then a coating of nitrate dope to seal it. I'll give that a shot next time. As-is, just waiting for the coating to dry, then I'll apply paint and get the boat ready for the water.
Tub testing is going well. checked the seals and no leaks in the hull, then put her to a full combat load with my original bullet ballast blocks (see stem-to-stern for size and positioning) and about two pounds of lead shot in the forward part of the hull to bring her nose down to the new trim. Bow was down about a half inch further than I want, so I moved the lead shot back until she sat right at the bow, but the stern was a tad low. Weight was 24 pounds. So I removed the new bag of shot, and on a hunch, took half of my bullet ballast and put it in the bow. the other half of the bullet ballast I left straddling the gearboxes. Sure enough, the ballast was just right. so I have a pound and a quarter of bullets in the bow, and another pound and a quarter of bullets in the stern as my ballast, which is actually a tad lighter than the ballast I had last year. It makes sense considering that I now have a LiPo pump battery in the stern, and that my CO2 tank is in the core of the boat between the batteries. Final combat weight for the boat is 22 pounds. I'll rip my aft bullet ballast apart and retape it into two ballast blocks, which will be to either side of the motors, lowering the CG. The bow block.... I'll probably retape it into a shape more fitting its new position. Once the new pump switch arrives from BC, I'll be able to take her on the pond.
Success! So after some help from BC, I've managed to rig up the new pump system. took a bit of fiddling with my transmitter to get the switch function right, but it works! I slapped in one of the new BC pumps from the Idaho build and set aside my Strike pump as a spare for now. Charging up the LiPos right now, and we'll see how the system performs in the morning. with luck, it'll be a total monster of a setup
Took her out on the pond tonight, ran some tests, and the systems are all good. I'll run gun tests tomorrow with the little bit of CO2 I have to make sure they're ready. But tonight, I am rebuilding the rudder. it was choppy on the pond today, and after deliberately driving her under, I went to pick her up, and lost my grip on the stern. landed on the rudder and blew the whole thing up. luckily I was still in about a foot of water, so the water broke her fall significantly. The props and shafts are fine, thank goodness. the rudder post came out with the shaft when I got her home. had a nice crack in the hull around the post hole. Managed to crank out a solid replacement job on the rudder shaft, and I have bent the post back into shape and am currently building a new rudder around it. I think the rudder being made of softwood saved me by acting as an impromptu shock absorber, minimizing hull damage. While I do not intend to repeat this EVER again, I will not be using Maple to make the replacement rudder.
So. New Rudder's built, and after some tweaking, I'm looking at a max area of 4.46 square inches. Of Note, I'm hand-jamming all of the equations with my caliper and don't feel like doing calculus for the top curve. I simplified the equation by calculating my inward curved upper rudder portion instead as a triangle with similar dimensions, which means that the calculation for that is likely an overestimate of area by about 10%, and given that the upper curved portion is about a quarter of the total rudder area, that's an overestimation of about 2.5%. So the rudder is somewhere between 4.24 square inches and 4.46 square inches. That's as close as I'll go to 4.5 with a curved surface, and no, I would never consider a straight edge in this scenario. I'm assuming you guys all use straight edges on the tops of your rudders to simplify calculations.
