guns in, turrets finished and painted. just waiting on the mag padding, electronics, and regulator. Here's the spaghetti mess in the stern, along with the solenoid positions. Center of Gravity is a little to the stern, but will likely correct once I install the gas can etc up in the bow. here are the "exterior finished, interior still an incomplete mess" photos. I'm going to start measuring the gas lines this weekend, and rigging up the harness system to hold the lines underneath the subdeck of the port side. starboard will be electrical lines.
BTW those green lines were already on the guns, courtesy of Steve at Strike. I'm going to chop them down to a more appropriate length at some point.
Looks good man. I can’t quite tell, but do you have internal armor in the extreme stern and on the casement area? If not, you should put something there, otherwise it significantly increase the risk of internal damage and in the stern could cause double holes by going through both sides
Oh yeah, the stern's armored. That rudder plate makes it hard to put armor in the stern, so I have multiple layers of interlocking armor. you're only able to see the secondary layer in that photo. the primary is hidden under and around the rudder plate. The casemates are as good as I can get them, but not perfect. I was planning on using the rest of my polycarb to make a small add-on for the troublesome parts of the casemates. meh, they came like that so I kept them that length. Nothing five minutes with a saw and a powerdrill won't fix later when I get an idea of what I am doing. What are your reasons? catching on other boats?
Yup, overhanging barrels WILL catch on other boats (or anything else you get close too), in which case they will either rip up the side of the other boat (not cool), bend, or bust the mounting free. Non of those are good. Also the enemy can use them against you, for instance if they were to catch thier bow in that little crook they could push you around pretty easily or atleast use it as a pivot to get their bow sidemount exactly where they want it and empty the mag into your hull, there isnt a ton you can do in that case unless you can out run the attacker, even then the attacker will still get a few seconds of free target time, remember you cant shoot them because your barrel is in front of their bow. Then again if you go dead in the water they are pretty handy for other boats to use to push you back to shore.....
got it. speaking of, I ended up catching my bow sidemount on my truck door when I went to put it in this morning. so.... yeah definitely cutting them down. nearly destroyed the mount. luckily the lock nut was loose on the mount so no damage. Anywho, here's the photos from last night. I'm running the electrical wiring for the solenoids and getting the pneumatic lines run out. Today, I'll be hitting up the hobby shop for servo lines and other such tomfoolery. thinking of sticking the receiver to the underside of the midships deck plate above the batteries, the battle board just forward of the bow solenoid... and I don't know where would be convenient to stick the ESC. I could put it in the stern next to the motors, but it's crowded back there with all of the mags and solenoids. I might run all of the wires and just put that sucker in the bow since it would reduce the number of long cables to just the motor power lines and the line to the receiver. I've got the batteries tied down with velcro strips and straps. may remove the strips though. those batteries are not going anywhere.
Just in case you havent already thought of it, or been told, bear in mind ships dont always sink level. Or rite side up. Make sure those batteries are secure so the ship can be upside down without them going through the deck.
Hey, I haven't disappeared. just dealing with the move right now. I made sure to keep all of my boat tools separate, so I'll be doing minor build stuff until I have to catch the Ferry on April 7. The before and after photos of my cabin are hilarious. Yesterday Morning: Yesterday Evening: Just got the rental down in Park Falls squared away. twice the size of my cabin for half the price. plus a garage.
400 square feet if I'm being generous. $900/mo rent utilities included. Anchorage is pretty expensive so this was the only place I could afford to live as a Government minion.
Wow, that is expensive! Back when I was renting I never paid more than $1.00 per square foot, and usually less... I am familiar with tight quarters, though. I just spent 6-1/2 years in a 624 sq ft cottage with my wife, 3 kids, and an 80 lb greyhound. Our new 1600 sq ft house feels huge!
yep. I'm really looking forward to getting down to Wisconsin, where the place I'm going to be renting is twice the size for half the price, and I'll be buying a place later this year for the Alaska equivalent of beer money. The boat's still over at my CNC milling buddy's house getting fitted for a crate. he sent me pics of the cad for all of the padding and it looks pretty cool. I'll post up pics before I take off next friday.
Also: Sometimes living in Alaska doesn't suck. gotta mention that because our legislature just voted to give every man woman and child $2,700 this year. just for being here. Unfortunately, I'll have to pay nearly all of it to the state of Wisconsin in the form of taxes next year. The part that I'm not giving to charity, which is usually 30-50% of the take.
