Iron Duke build

Also I have come up with somthing I think will help prevent regulator freeze up, I will be trying it in this boat. It came to me the other day thinking about somthing that John in La said to me, and remembering what I saw in Snipes VDT back during the Houston Nats 2 years ago.

I will take the pump priming output, Snipe uses his to keep his motors cool, but I plan on discharging the water directly on to the regulator, so as long as the pump is pumping some water, it should prevent the regulator from freezing up.

 

I don't have the 09 rules in front of me so I'm not sure of the exact wording for reverse and drag. But I see 2 areas I think your system violates the rules. But not being able to look at the ship myself I'll ask you about these.

Turning system are banned. C.1 "No turning motors or other systems may be used to assist in turning." You stated that an unforseen benifit of the outer motors in reverse only helps your ship turn. How does your system not violate that rule?

You stated that the ship accelerates very fast due to the delay from the ESC to the Team Delta. Timed throttle systems are banned. I.6 "A timed throttle system that enables a ship to exeed it's max for any prtion of the course is an illegal system." How do you not violate that?

This is not a new idea. I was in a conversation about it back in 03 or 04 with several long timers. The conclutions where that the extra motors would suck up too much power and would not be worth it. But now with NIHM this is not an issue. The other conclutions was that a system like that was not legal so why bother. If fact a local semi-rookie asked about this same thing for his new ship this winter. The locals agreed it was not legal in several ways. I can't see a CD at a large regional or NATS letting this go.
Back in 02 it was legal to have unscale drag disk. The typical practice was to glue Vs on the bottoms of the hull with the open end forward. Someone took it one step farther and put a pants leg on the bottom of their ship. It forward it was a scoop, reverse it caused little drag. The CD at NATS made everyone take the stuff on the bottom of the hulls off. The scale drag disk rule was passed that year.
Back in the 90's someone put silicone on the back of the hull skin. It passed a drop test but the silicone sealed after the bb went through. You could put as many belows into the ship as you wanted and it hardly leaked. This too was baned.


I like your regulator & pump idea also Chris' motor cooling use for that water. Though with most ships the bottle is too far forward to make it work. We could use that up here where the water is not as warm. How many times I've had to chip the bottle out of the ship.

 

After sleeping on it, and further thought Bob, I would have to agree with both you and Iceman that they are turning motors, they work differently, but are doing the same thing.

But with the timed ESC, its not a issue of timing really, it just takes the ESC longer to get to speed vs the TD relay board, so for about 1/2 a second it has a burst of speed, it still does not exceed it forward max speed, but you can see the difference between the 2 motor controllers, it was just a side benefit. Since ESC's are legal devices, how can it be considered ilegial? We all know they have a slight delay coming to full speed. Maybe no one has tried using them together before like this, I have only been in the hobby 2 year's myself, so its all new to me.

And your right it is a power hog, I had to go to Nimh's, and double the boats capacity to make it work.

I had not heard the pants leg story before, very good.

Well this is why I posted everything out in the open on this forum, not on the MWC list. There I would of just been attacked, with no one saying why it was legal, or ilegal, just that it was or wasent. And I have already decided not to further persue it, just because it looks like it will cause more problems than it is worth, and more fighting that we don't need.

On the pump primer, I was going to mount a barb on the side of the pump, and then use hose to take it forward where the regulator is mounted. The high output pump motor can put out allot of water out of the primer hole, it should flow forward without a problem. I find even with my bottle having a good tilt on it, after I fire my tripple bow guns 12 to 15 times, I have to wait a min or so, before I can fire them again. If it does not work, I can allways rip it out.

That was a great Nats by the way, we can only hope the future ones are as fun.

 

I was just stating it for the purpose of discussion also. I think it was a cool idea and I am amazed how much we can do to these little boats to make them perform. That is why we always crush at the precision steering events! The rulesets are vague in too many areas and after awhile you have to look at the spirit of the law. You did not do these with the expressed idea of turning, just looking to improve the process. The only place I saw it would become the issue is one set of props turns different speed and/or direction than the other set. If they were to re-write this rule perhaps a "all props must turn in same direction and speed at same time but adhere to overall speed per 100 feet would be a better way to have it. I didn't have any issue with the middle ones being full bore first as it didn't occur to me that they were "timed" even though one could argue that point also. Hell, we're still arguing stringer issues! I had to cut above the armor belt on my sodak cause there was a space between the 3/8 and the 1/8th. The person was right and I agree with it. I'm glad to see this is a freindly discussion and not an all out war. I always try to get the consensous when I have a question reguarding rules also. Then if I find out I was wrong (like in the stringer) out comes the dremel! I'm sure it won't change the war for me too much. I still get shot and sink no matter what

 

This next sentence is after another night of sleep, and further thought on the subject.

Of course with them possibly being turning motors, as you and Bob point out, the same arguement that works against them, also would ban the center motors and props, since their prop wash across the rudders assists with the turning. Drag disks just slow the boat down, does not in itself help with turning the boat, but to get the boat on speed, but another benefit of drags disks, is the increased prop wash from the center motors across the rudders, thus helping with turning, so,

So I think calling them turning motors is pretty thin.

Thats what I like about this forum myself, we all get on it and can discuss issues, and such, and remain calm. Sometimes the e-mails come across pretty strong, but I don't think most of the time that it was that persons intent, just tryin to clarify their point of view is all.

I agree the rule should be re written like what you stated, or no opposing thrust systems can be used, or somthing of the sort..

 

You've got an ESC on the outer shafts. so let's think about stick movement. Not being able to see the ship, is this how the radio is set up?
Stick at center, no motors moving. Ship sitting still.
Stick full forward center shafts on TD at full power. Outer shafts on ESC at full power (As programed). Ship is at speed.
Stick 1/2 forward center shafts on TD at full power. Outer shafts on ESC at 1/2 power (As programed). Ship is over allowed speed? Since the ESC is not at full power the outer shafts are not creating as much drag.
Is that right or did you find a programing way around it?

Your other point of the "normal" motors assist in turning. Again an argument I've heard before. If the ships did not have motors the hobby would be pretty borring. It's an "other system" you've come up with. The "other" meaning that motors doing things out of the "norm".

It's good that you've decided to unplug them. It's not a good thing for the club members to have to rebuild all of their ships in order to not be meat on the water. When stuff like this comes up on any mailing list the list will got hot real fast. It's really hard to have a "talk" over e-mail with 50+ people. Lots of people get mad. Now if you sat those same people in a room and talked it over face to face, very few would raise their voice. It's an e-mail problem.

 

I love the way you install the mulitple shafts and motors. The subdeck install looks clean and tight. Nice fit there. The prop shaft struts how are they attached? Are they through the hull bottom or are they just glued to the surface?

 

Hi Bob

No you are right on the stick movement, but I always throw mine from one extreme to the other. But you could reduce your stick movement, and gain no more than about 1/2 a second in speed if you were good enought with the stick throw, I did try to do what you are asking, and with the pinions that I was using, since everything is a balancing act, that is what I was seeing. When I first tried the setup, my TD boards was set at 33%. To make sure I did not inadventently do this, on the TD board I set it to respond at 66% vs the 33%, which pretty much causes you to give a full stick movement to make sure the boat starts to move forward. After I did that, it did not seem to matter me pulling the stick back, because as soon as you did, to try to get a little bit of additional speed, the center shafts would stop.

On my other arguement, and you saying you have heard it before, does not make it right does it? To make it right would require that everyone used scale propellers, and then adjusted the pinions, and drag disks, to get on speed, not put the biggest props you can fit on it, then have the max sized drag disk, then swap out the pinions to get on to speed, which is what everyone does now.

Curt

Thanks for the complement on the install of the shafts Curt. The subdeck actually has not yet been installed, just cut out and inserted, to make sure when I was putting things in the hull, that later install did not throw somthing off. I cut the inside section out, and sanded down the inside with a spindle sander, then used a 3/8 router bit to make the deck edge. Dons hull when delivered had a perfect 7.5 inch beam, mine out of the same plug, at the top of the deck rail was in about 1/8 of a inch at the center.
Here are a couple of more pics. The stern with the Dap in it, it just does not self level as well as the other 2 brands. At least I found at Lowes today some more of the PL brand.

Here's one with the bow I just poured in. As soon as its dry, I will do the sides one at a time with a slight tilt. Looks like 3 tubes is all it will require, right at 2 pounds.

 

Back to more interesting things.
Ron has some 2 part plastic mix he uses for his bussiness. He takes the extra and pours it into motor launch molds, you might have seen these at NATS. As is the plastic almost floats. With some micro balloons it would be lighter then water. The nice thing about is is that it dryes in 5-10 min., it does not shrink and you can screw into it to attach things. I think it would make a great water channeling material. Kind of like the concrete sealer but faster drying.
I don't know what it's called, where to get it or how much it costs. Do you think it's worth looking into?

 

I was actually looking for some thing that dries faster, this stuff works great, but is slowing my build down. Ask Ron about it, but from what I have seen on line with the 2 part stuff its a bit expensive, but then again maybe not.

Boy were we all jellous after seeing Ron's great business/boat building setup, I loved all those CNC router tables he had. I'm still trying to convince my wife to let me get a small one.

 

Ron can make some cool boat stuff. He's got a couple more items he's working on.
He gave me the place to get it localy. He said it's "#80331 two parts A&B" Don't think that'll help you yet.

 

i still think the bow is wrong. and why not build a Q.E. almost the same ship and i think better + 25 more shots . nice work tho you do build very nice and clean .

 

Well we have 3 sets of plans from different people, and none of them show the bow protruding out like your picture did. She had a 32 ft 9 inch draught from the waterline down. Looking at your picture would mean that the bow needs to protrude out an additional 20+ ft to look like your picture. When in fact she only protruded 9 1/2 ft. On a 600+ ft long ship, that is not much of a protrusion. Thats only slightly over 3/4 of a inch. I just went out and measured it, and it is slightly under 3/4, so it is off about 1/8 inch which is well within what the rules allows.

Here is picture of a model. http://www.steelnavy.com/images/2002AprilGallery/fbid1-25.jpg

Here is a actual picture of it, still hard to see since its from the front, but you can see the forward bulge sticking out. But when you compare the part that sticks out, to the overall height of the ship, its like a 8 to 1 ratio. You can use the chain hanging down, and its less than that from the tip of the bow back to where it would intersect the bow from the top, where your picture is more like 3 to 1.

http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/images/irondukeclass4.jpg

I was going for the shortest ship, with twin rudders, with casemates, that ran at 26 second speed. Plus with a bad back, I was looking for the lighest weight available. The ID fit the bill to perfection. With further research, another additional benefit, she had the lowest freeboard of all the British Battleships. Since the ID met all my specifications, she is shorter than a QE, she will also turn better, and with the lower freeboard, be harder to hit. The 25 extra BB's to me does not outweigh the other advantages of the ID. With a slower ship, she needs to turn better than the faster ships to survive. Why I went with a VU, as my 28 sec boat, she is very hard to sink, 499 ft.

 

Not to mention there are very few IDs actually on the water and battling. It's a rare ship at the moment.

 

what ever look at the picture at BC its not the same the bow is wrong but you like it so its all good i dont but. like i said you do good work http://www.battlersconnection.com/html/IronDuke.htm

 

I'm sure Dave used the Sambrook Marine Plans to make the plug. Sambrook has a reputation for having accurate scaled plans. It doesn't mean that the plans were right, but it does mean that until someone else can trot out a set of the original builder's plans, then this is probably as accurate as its going to get.

 

The ram bow is an easy fix if you don't like it just add some more bump to it.
The 25 bbs she gives up to Warspite are close to a wash with the fewer hits she'll take above the waterline. The only drawback is those 25 bbs are in the haymarker. If you're good with that gun you can get 10-15 belows with those bbs, in two sorties that's a sunk ship. I'd call them even.
There are not a lot out there because the hull just came out. In the next couple years you'll see a lot of them. Then I guess Yogi will be right "No one goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

 

djranier you and I use 2 different approaches to outfitting the same ship yet we both have the same performance on the water. It's not just the system we used it's the ship itself which suits the system so well. The PE I built for bb26 turns on it's on central axis, can turn backards in a circle, is dead on it's combat speed, ect ect. The point is the VU is one of those platforms that is exceptional for this hobby if set up correctly be it through geared rudders, escs geared drive systems on all shafts or be it just 2 drives motors direct drive with a rudder linkage system. If the ship systems compliment the hull dynamics, and the external systems than that ship will perform if handled correctly by it;s Captain above and beyond what most people would expect. I can name off a few such ships like Yamato, Bismarck, Lutzow and many many more. .
As far as I see there is nothing illegal or wrong with the way you set up your ship. It is a great example of pushing the boundaries without overstepping those boundaries and your experience and skill in handling the ship makes it so great. It's a great model that I am using as a guide to building my other ships so if mine turn out well part of that is learning from your build threads here.
So in my book well done keep it up and Thankyou for your hard work