You guys see any problem with me bringing Suffren with duct tape sheeting as a backup boat just in case something goes really wrong with the King Edward? I don't really want to sheet the Suffren because I need to move the hard area up and would require tearing it all off again. If not, I won't bring her, but just thought I'd ask.
Thanks, Steve. While I highly doubt the KE7 will fail, I just wanted to make sure I had my bases covered.
Got the extra lead ballast cast and glued onto the boat today. To get the Kind Edward down to waterline she needed about 3lbs of ballast. Since there is practically no room inside the boat for ballast, I melted lead fishing weights into a long thin slab to glue onto the bottom of the boat. Cheap wooden mold. The wood I used for the mold had some moisture in it so when I poured molten lead in, it created some steam pockets. Preping the glue surface. E6000 laid down. And clamped overnight.
at some point in the future you might want to add some bondo along the edges or something to make the bottom smooth with the lead attached, wouldn't worry about it for this weekend
Looks like a drag device? But the sea trials looked like it went well, always nice when they go backwards, without going under water.
Sshhhh....you want to get me in trouble. Thanks, the sea trials went very well. No breakdowns or anything. The only problem I had was I launched the the boat with one motor accidentally running backwards. After I managed to get her back to shore (very hard to maneuver like that) and switched the wires she ran very well. Makes me feel confident for the upcoming battle.
I am pretty sure you are fine as long as you are being reasonable. I got the barbette replaced, so i should have the Nassau good to go for Saturday.
King Edward VII is battle ready. Finished up a few things and took her for another trial and I'm calling her good to go! Oh yeah, switching to those new brushless outrunners I had to dial back the speed quite a bit. I just had to...well...you know....OPEN 'ER UP! Speed regulation is overrated. I have video, but can't get to my editing computer right now, so that will have to wait till after the battle. Enjoy!
I've already had to buy several replacements. I really like the MS Ergo 4000 boards, but it often seems that any single drop of moisture on them and they die.
Well, King Edward VII faced the fury of the Imperial German fleet...and survived. Though plagued by gun issues all day she did manage to make it onto the water, battle, and not sink. Rain managed to remind us most of the day how annoying it can be. Hardly a dry spot was to be found. And due to its demoralizing affects, only two sorties were fought. About the only part of the boat that didn't give me trouble was the pump. Awesome little thing easily kept me afloat with 19 belows - 7 on - and 14 aboves (the total damage I took during the two sorties today) I'm sure I could have taken much more. Though now known as the 'Nassau Killer' she wasn't quite up to par today. Only had one encounter with a nassau and that was in the second sortie. Right before the sortie began, one of the drive esc's died and there wasn't time to replace it. So I unplugged it and raised the endpoint adjustment on the remaining motor and ran her like that. While this made turning excellent in one direction, it was horrible in the other. With the King Edward setup like this I engaged Rick's Nassau. Using swift forward and backward movements I was able to keep the bow guns on target enough times to empty what was left of my ammo. I would have got away Scott free but due to the terrible turning in the one direction I accidentally got stuck under Rick's guns for a few seconds. I was able to escape from under his guns and led him in a chase back into the Allied fleet and lost him. Also took a little friendly fire from a comrade, though it didn't amount to much the name of the guilty will remain unpublished. You know who you are. So that's a quick overview of today. Did I sink any Nassaus? - No. Did I expect to? - No Did I have fun? - Yes. Did I expect to? - Why of course yes! Also big thanks to @Charley for helping me get my gas leak fixed. Caleb
Brief overview of what (and what didn't) work yesterday. Guns: First sortie the bow guns were a little overtweaked and along with gas leak out of the one solenoid only managed to fire intermittently. Fixed the leak between battles and they work fairly well second sortie, but they still need some work. Mainly, I think I need to adjust the angle of the Tee to get a better feed angle and bigger magnets on the tees. Sidemount failed to work all day due to bb's getting jammed in the tight tolerance SS barrel. It's going to get replaced with a brake line barrel so is won't jam anymore. Other than that though it appeared that the gun worked well. Drive Line: The drive line itself worked well all day. Only problem was an esc failure that killed the one drive shaft for a battle. Probably the only thing I might do here is get some steel dogbones so I don't have to worry about snapping the little nylon nubbins. Fire Control: Gun boards worked well all day. Only problem I had was test firing the individual bow guns to tweak them. I thought I had set up my radio to be able to test each one independently, but I must have messed up because both of my test firing controls were for the same gun. That will get resolved. Damage Control: The pump was awesome. Worked well all day. No complaints here. Steering: Rudder servo worked well all day, good. So while she wasn't very effective yesterday, I think she has a lot of potential and will be a fun ship to run in the future.
