I always leave the sub decks for last. I like to have the guns marked in the hull, rudder box installed, gear boxes installed before I cut out the subdeck. That way you can cut the sub deck to avoid the stuff in the ship you need to work on. Nothing worse then not being able to get at all the stuff in the ship. Next step get your rudders set up and your drive shafts put in.
Interesting. I have always done it the other way around. Install subdeck first, so you don't mount anything in places where you can't access them for maintenance later. HMS Invincible is a very roomy ship compared to some of the previous ships I've worked on, and the Strike Models subdeck leaves lots of room for access.
How far apart do I space the rudders from each other? Also, do I angle them up a little so they hug the ship? Not touching obviously, but very close?
Rudders should be roughly scale location, but to give you a picture... Note that Hovey here has turned each rudder slightly out. This gives him better turning as it simulates the inboard rudder being held over further than the outboard rudder in a turn. There's no need to angle the rudders up to hug the ship.
OT: Such a set up, i.e. angled out slightly would be a disadvantage in a three shaft ship would it not?
I just got done drilling the holes for the rudders. Here are the results. The hole on the left is a little far up from where I wanted it. Is it bad enough to worry about? As you could probably tell, I don't know a lot about boats. Which explains my next question. Is there suppose to be a gap between the rudders? Or are they suppose to overlap?
Our rudders are a bit over scale. At least in fast gun, I am not familiar with big gun rudders so one of those fellows will have to enlighten you as to their usage. Battlestations (1/96 scale) is going with scale shape and size rudders.
I think I see when you mentioned tilted out. Heh. No idea if someone has tried that yet. Personally, I wouldn't try it on my ships ... afraid that the tilted rudders would make the ship roll more or change the efectiveness of the channel effect between the two rudders. Maybe you have discovered something new! Generally, I tend to plan out the shaft locations, prop locations, and rudder locations on the hull in pencil before making any cuts or holes. Next, I'll put in the prop shafts and get them tacked in with the props on them. When that is all set, the rudders are mocked up right behind the props (allowable in Fast Gun) to get the rudder post positions marked before drilling. Overall, the goal is to have the rudders directly behind the props (on a 2 or 4 shaft ship), as close to the props as possible.
Here is a picture of the Erin's props and rudder placement taken to the extreme ... www.rcnavalcombat.com/Portals/0/Use...%20063.JPG
They should be straight, not tilting out. The spacing look close. Get the shafts in first, move the rudders if needed. No need to glue post in yet. With the small stern on the ship I don't know if you'll get push arms to fit. Plan on two small gears on the rudders and one large gear the servo arm turns.
Or you could use sprockets and chain. I used sprockets and chain on Gascan's and my VUs, and was planning to use them on Gascan's Invincible, too. Just make sure your blast shields protect the chain, as it can break if it takes a direct hit.
The plastic sprockets and chain or the metal .25" ones? I use the 1/8" plastic ones on my Maru, but I wouldn't trust it to hold on a fastgun warship. It seems to me that we put alot of propwash and alot of force on our rudders. Josh - one rudder being slightly forward of the other isn't a major thing. You probably won't get the rudders perfectly aligned in every aspect, just do the best you can and decide when its 'good enough' - you can always rework it later if you're really unhappy with it.
The plastic sprockets held up fine when Gascan was hydroplaning his Viribus Unitis with new maxon motors, and they've withstood point-blank torpedo hits on the VU's rudders. The only thing they didn't survive was that one freak shot that got around the blast shields and struck the chain itself directly. So yeah, I think they'll work well enough on a Fast Gun Invincible.
Thats useful to know, thanks. My Maru's chain actually got snapped on the last sortie of last battle with the same freak shot type occurence. Needless to say I'm revisiting its protection.
Looks good. Very nice! When gascan and I did the subdecks on his boat, we tacked it down with superglue then poured epoxy. To pour the epoxy, we ran a line of blue 3M painter's tape along the top rail covering the gap between subdeck and fiberglass. There's something magical about the adhesive on 3M painter's tape that no epoxy I have ever tried sticks to it. Other blue tapes are not so lucky, so make sure it's 3M. We then flipped the boat upside-down and actually poured epoxy into the gaps. It filled in the gaps, ran up and down the whole length of the ship, and stuck that subdeck on like you wouldn't believe. And when we took the tape off, we were left with a perfect finish. When we showed it to Stephen, he actually took a bunch of photos for his new assembly instructions and said he loved it. I'll bet you'd have an easier time doing the same thing with your windows cut out, since you don't have to reach up through the deck hatches in order to pour the epoxy, you can go in through the penetrable windows.
You are probably going to need to heavily reinforce the sides of the step where the main deck angles in. Maybe run some screws or bolts all the way through. They take a terrific beating. There have been a lot of problems with epoxy joints failing in that area over the years. Ron Hunt
