I finished cutting out the hull yesterday, wearing out 3 Dremel cutting discs because it was 3 plys thick on the sides, 4 thick at the bow and 6 on the lower part of the stern 'windows' next to the rudder post locations. The hull bottom at the stern is 1/4" thick. I was able to get the centers of the rudder shafts 1" apart, cut their stuffing tubes to correct length and made their armour sleeves. They need armour because they're very close to the aft pair of hull windows with no room to put vertical armour between them and the hull sides. The rudder shaft pilot holes were drilled out to 9/32" and short guides made from 9/32" brass tube were installed, using a jig to allign them correctly. The guides protrude through the hull bottom far enough that the rudders will just clear the keel when sitting on them with the rudders' washers in place. The Robbe rudder kit stuffing tubes were shortened to give enough clearance under the deck for the rudder gears and a rudder arm on top of the central gear. Their lower ends allign with the bottoms of the guides in the hull. Lengths of thick-walled 1/4" brass tube (left over from making BB cannon barrels) were cut to fit over the rudder stuffing tubes as armour. They'll go into the 9/32" guides in the hull bottom. For additional protection the armour sleeves will have pieces of thick vinyl hose over them. Being metric the stuffing tubes aren't a tight fit inside the thick walled 1/4" tube, so will have heat shrink tubing applied to fill the gap. The rudders should be installed in a day or two. Then I'll make a jig that sits over the stuffing tubes, with the gears sitting on the jig when attached to the rudder shafts. I'll be able to sit the center gear in place and drill the 1/8" shaft hole for it in the jig. Next the gears come off and I drill through the 1/8" hole in the jig into the hull bottom. After that I enlarge the hole enough for the next largest size of brass tube and install the sleeve for the 1/8" center gear post in the thick hull bottom. This is similar to the rudder installation used for HMS Warspite but that one didn't need armour sleeves because the stern was wider and the rudder shafts were within the internal armour. The rudder gears are the same as the ones used for Warspite and came from an RC car shop: aluminum 32 pitch 17 tooth for the rudder shafts and 22 tooth for the center shaft, which will give me 60 degrees of rotation for a 45 degree servo thow.
Rudder post guides glued in position. Note how close the rudder assemblies will be to the hull sides. That's why the rudder stuffing tubes need to be armored. Need a little body fill around the guides.
Rudder assembly components: On the left is an assembled Robbe rudder kit with its stuffing tube inside a thick-walled brass tube for protection from BBs. There will be a section of plastic hose over the brass tube for additional protection. This is the stock nylon rudder which hasn't been shortened to reduce it's area. On the right is a brass armor sleeve and a rudder stuffing tube with heat shrink tubing applied. This was done because the stuffing tubes are metric and not a tight fit inside the thick brass tubing. The interior of the armor tube was widened with a few passes of a 1/8" fine rat tail file until the stuffing tube could be moistened and pressed in as a very tight fit.
Completed rudder assemblies for Indefatigable: from bottom to top the components are rudder and shaft, washer, stuffing tube inside armor sleeve, o-ring (in flared top of stuffing tube), washer and gear. The rudders have been reduced in height from 50 to 32mm so they'll only protrude 2-3mm beneath the keel. They should be lengthened 5mm horizontally to achieve maximum allowed area of 1.875 square inches. That'll be done using the technique described in the Profintern build thread. The 1/4" OD brass armor sleeves will be glued into the brass guides installed in the hull bottom. Test fitting showed the rudders clear the hull by 1.5mm when turning up to 60 degrees. The gears are aluminum 32 pitch 17 tooth and came from an RC car hobby shop. I used the same gears and Robbe kits with larger rudders for HMS Warspite.
A box of Rivabo props of various sizes (30, 35, and 40mm diameters) and blade numbers (3-4), plus custom-made prop shafts for Indefatigable and Profintern arrived yesterday. There are spare props for completed models and new ones for Indefatigable, Profintern and Rodney. A ship modelling shop in rural Nova Scotia went out of business and sold their stock of props at about 1/3 off regular price - I've used Rivabo 4mm thread props on all of my RC combat models. The owner still makes prop shafts and tubes to order so I got ones made that minimized the total length of the drive trains, leaving more room for batteris and other equipment, particularly in Profintern's small hull. Shafts made by companies like Caldercraft or Graupner were either too short or longer than needed, wasting space. Last weekend the geared rudder system was installed in Indefatigable and operates smoothly. I had to decrease the height of the Robbe rudders by another 3mm/~1/8" because they were still protruding below the keel. Although the rudders were originally very close to the right size, they were reduced in height from 50 to 29 mm and had to be enlarged fore and aft to regain the allowed 1.875 square inches. One was enlarged last weekend by my usual method of gluing layers of 0.5 mm styrene around the Robbe nylon rudder. Photos to follow. I hope to install the drive train in the Indefatigable over the holidays. I need to find longer Allen bolts for the Battlers dual output gear drive so I can install it and the 545 motor on a standard motor mount. The gear drive has no mounting points and the combined thickness of the gear drive housing and the motor mount is 3mm too thick for the bolts that come with the gear drive.
On the way to work today I had top and side view 1/144 plans of Indefatigable copied. This weekend I'll cut out the decks from the plan, tape them to a board, draw the deck outlines and access hatch locations, then prepare a one-use deck mold. Kim and the Scotties just left for a week so I can do the work in the basement. If all goes well the decks will be completed over the weekend. Deck installation will be in early January after the prop shafts are in place. The mounting plate with the rudder gears is removable and has to come out before the decks are glassed to the hull. That's done through the hull 'windows', applying small pieces of fiberglass cloth and resin in the angle between the underside of the deck and the inside of the deck stringer.
Over the weekend I made and waxed all of the deck molds for Profintern and for Indefatigable's quarterdeck and the bow section of the forecastle deck. Unfortunately I underestimated the amount of balsa strips needed to make the molds and couldn't finish the rest of the forecastle deck. I hope to get more balsa after work and finish that mold tonight. It'll be a day out of synch with the deck making process. The gelcoat goes into the molds tonight and resin and glass tomorrow evening. With wrapping to do for Christmas the main deck mold probably won't be finished this week. Sorry, no photos. Kim took the camera with her to NB for the next week.
I wasn't able to get to the hobby shop for more balsa so the mold for the largest section of the deck (from the breakwater to aft end of the forecastle deck) remains incomplete. Last night I finished making the bow and quarterdeck sections. Those will be glassed to the hull after the drive train and dummy shafts have been installed. The main deck section's mold won't be finished until next week; then I have to wait for Kim to be away for 2-3 days so I can make the deck. That's not likely to happen until some time in February but I can work on water channelling, install the forward pair of hawse pipes in the solid bow section and start building the superstructure. Photos of the deck making process will be posted next week.
Here it is almost 2 years after the last post. I shot a bunch of photos of the deck making and downloaded but didn't post them - now I can't find them on the computer. With Kim leaving for Europe for 8 weeks and me working part time I can finally get back to work on Indefatigable and make the last large deck section. I hope to have the decks installed on 3 hulls by the end of September (Rodney, Indefatigable and Profintern).
Well, Following that line of thought, While Kim is away Bob should play!!!! We have a 2 day Sept 30th and Oct 1st you would be welcome to come share BB's with us here in GLAS Land.
What's GLAS stand for? The only ship I could have ready in 4 weeks is 1.5 unit monitor HMS Gorgon; not worth such a long trip with only a small combatant. I just sold 3.5 unit armoured cruiser HMS Minotaur to Larry Dingle in SC, and am starting refits of HMS Suffolk and SNS Canarias. They won't be finished until December.
What nick said works well for me, and Hot coffee early in the morning. thanks Craig And if you showed up Bob, I promise we would find a boat for you.
Thanks, but I'll have to decline the invitation this year. Ralph Coles and I should each have a battlecruiser ready by Spring and I'll have 2 heavy cruisers available as back-up (Canarias and Suffolk). Ralph's self-employed and able to travel to US events pretty much anytime.
Hey Bob, what are you guys using for plans for the superstructure? I can't seem to find anything good enough. All the ones that I have found either don't scale well or are way off of correct scale.
I have R.A. Burt's 'British Battleships of World War I' which has detailed drawings of the above water hull and superstructure of New Zealand as in 1913 and as considerably modified in 1919, plus many photos of all 3 Indefatigables. That chapter provides all the info you'd need for a well detailed combat model.
After a delay of almost 2 years work on Indefatigable has resmed. I laid up the forecastle deck today in its one-use balsa mold. The mold had been gelcoated 2 years ago but the resin still reacted with it today and will bond well. Curing will be finished tomorrow afternoon and all the deck sections for Russian CL Profintern and Indefatigable will be removed from their molds. Photos will be posted. Much against my better judgement I was persuaded to return to work full-time for September, which had a big negative impact on ship refitting and building. I'm back to working 1-2 days per week in October and will have at least 2 weeks to install the decks on Indefatigable, Profintern, Rodney and Vanguard before the weather gets too cold. Kim's in Europe for 5 more weeks so I can lay up parts inside (on the kitchen table!) and put them outside in a roofed porch to cure.
