Okay, to get slightly back on topic: Here are some videos that got posted to facebook but never here. First is the first gun test fire with them mounted in the boat, second is a flooded hull pump test. Big thanks to @Beaver for a 10~ page long private message conversation that helped me build my first cannons. These are 100% Will construction which is scary. The fact that they actually work is even scarier. Tight tolerance stainless barrels, drilled plastic pistons, solenoids mounted directly to gun, gas bypass directly to the breech, big tube everywhere, accumulators and check valves right off the solenoids. I threw every trick I saw in other boats at these things, seeing them work was a big moment for sure. Can't wait to build the next set for Courbet, already have tons of improvements to make for Mark II. When it comes to the pumps, tests have shown that the hull flooded to the deck rim can be pumped out in about 60~ seconds depending on pump throttle and if the IiC (its a new french navy term, Idiot in Control) has the pump spinning in the correct direction. You do the math to figure out the gallons. Now for the current events update: Marked hull waterline and painted. Damn that looks good from here. Dont get any closer. It gets worse the closer you look. Now with 100% more waterline tape. I had an issue with B turret gun barrels when I decided to give them the el bends, as they say in Mexico. So out came the welder to make new barrels. Yeah, I'm officially past trying to solder the stainless for the barrels. I have a shitty harbor freight wire welder that is more than enough to make the gun barrels and their sleeves all one piece of metal. Stainless is still steel, and the welded barrels have been tested and are far stronger with a better final finish vs the soldered. To make your tight tolerance stainless barrels, first whip out your $70 chinese welder. Then you make a bunch of nasty tack welds to secure the collar/sleeve/Thicc section to the barrel. Then you chuck the barrel in a cordless drill and hold the nastiness up against a running belt sander for a bit. Not quite perfect yet in this pic. Here are the new B turret barrels and the freshly sawn-off A turret barrels. Someone call the ATF, these guns are looking an awfully lot like their barrels are closer to 15.9" instead of the legal 16". Shorties in A turret. Chopped em to keep from getting hung up on stuff. Sorry for lighting. Snubnose. Ends at the deck rim. New bends in B turret. Much less dorky looking. Sitting right at about 19* down angle. I say 19* because 20* is the rule limit so I just made sure they were right on the inside of 20*. B turret overhead shot. Impact point should be pretty darn close together. And with that, the only thing left for Bart is full on sea trial. Toss her in the lake and give her a run around. Days are slowly counting down until the April Ambush, but at this point she could leave as-is and be good to go. I don't want to show up unprepared as per my trademark, so further sea trials it is.
Finally got out for sea trials after a number of bad weather days, transmitter-left-on-battery-dead days, car battery dead days, etc. Boat handled acceptably, needs a bit more ballast I think in the nose. Maybe a bit in the stern. I have the weight for it so might as well. I also think that I may have goofed when marking the waterline, I think it follows the curve of the bow upward. Whoops. Good thing I'll be re-sheeting in 2 months. Pic and a vid. She turns acceptably for a 6~foot long single rudder boat I think. Sinking the stern down some more should help with the cavitation. Seems to be about on speed, should be perfect for the 26 second South Carolinas and the 23 second german dreadnoughts. Actually I have no idea what she's doing speed wise, I'll need to run a test either this week or once we're down in NC next week.
swap the screws. that'll fix cavitation. port on starboard, and vice versa. then invert your throttle.
Before I do anything else, I'll add some weight to the stern because I have some weight to spare. This boat, for being as large as it is, has a relatively small rear end. The props sit almost completely outboard of the hull, so there is no good "roof" to keep the water under the boat. Probably why the only fiberglass Richelieu hull available is totally out of scale in the back end.
cool, well do what you need to do, and if that does it, that does it. do post up the solution that works though, I'm intrigued
Well JB is about as ready as she can be for the upcoming battle. Spent the last 2 days working on guns and solenoids, working them all through their paces, making sure when the time came to exchange pleasantries that I'd be prepared. Boat is ready for transport, batteries are starting to get cycled through for their top off charges, new boat toolbox setup is packed and ready to go. Next major update will be the AAR in about 2 weeks.
When retrieving the JB, watch out for the leeches. They like rookies cause they are tender, and bleed profusely .
With the screws swapped, it will cut down on cavitation, move faster, and turn better. Rick King and I spent a couple of weekends testing with his Sheer, in, out, 3, 4 blade, different sizes. Turning in at the top, pushes the water back against the hull, and wraps back against the rudder, not away from it. The fellow with the Texas had the same issue.
Weather's poor for the next few days so I dont think I'll have time to test this before the battle. I'll give it a shot. Swap the props L for R and what else? Reverse throttle, or reverse motor rotation L for R?
I just inverted my throttle in the radio. props should be rotating this way. @djranier told me about this last fall and my boat had a huge jump in performance as soon as I did
Huh. well then. glad I included the photo. Maybe you might have better success with them the other way? I dunno, I hope something materializes to fix your problem though, because cavitation sucks
I'll try more weight, will play around with props, etc. I have some things to try, for now the boat is operational and seems to be pretty close to her intended speed. Would like to get acceleration up and I know the drivetrain has the acceleration in it, just need to find the magic mix.
good plan as any. I think you mentioned making her a tad stern heavy a while back to try and fix the problem, maybe that'll do it.
Yeah and I also have a set of 4 blade props to test out vs the 3 blade I have on it now. I'm thinking the 4 blades may slow her down a bit but we'll find out with further testing. I'm at 100% on the endpoints for throttle so it'll be a gear change for any drastic adjustments. A side effect of the voltage swap at the last second. Dropping from 12.8v to 11.1v lost me about 550~ shaft RPM. Will probably amazon prime some gears to go from 2:1 to maybe 1.75:1. In fact the more I think about it, the more I'm not even sure what the tooth count is on the motor side gears. I think they're actually 14t, giving me about 2.28:1 gear reduction. Definitely think I can step that down (up?) to a 18t~ or at least a 16t.
