float test complete and first weigh in done. it floats all of 2 inches down in the water at 13 pounds. will come up to about 17 pounds with mechanicals fully installed.... i need to find lead shot for another 5-10 pounds to bring it down so i don't have 3-4 inches of pen area above the waterline. but testing shows that i don't get much of a water channel as built.
new rudder config makes me happy. using RCENGER's ball chain sprockets which need very little cleanup after printing to work wonderfully. brass pin will be pushed all the way in once i paint the hull and grease the rudder to slow water incursion. i may yet cut that hole in the top deck. im just putting it off until it becomes a pain.
much better. i have room to mess with the servo now. not going to cut a hole in the top as any adjustments to it where it is would still need the sides in that area taken off. guns getting mounted in a 2 1 config with the 1 in sidemount and the 2 in the sterns. but not the stern in the picture. servo is to tall to fit under the deck there and the ball chain style control needs a fair amount of space so the spring and it's connectors have room not to get in the sprockets.
electrical is done. went with deans connectors. my switch works well with my pump. have to see if it is going the right direction once i get some water in it however.... first of my cannon mounts is in and drying. sadly due to my inexperience and build method both guns are going in fairly high up turrets. deciding if i would be better off building my poppit mounts or just drawing some up in cad...again. it crashed about 2 hours into the design. and of course my auto save is about useless. need to set a shorter time between them. all goes well and I don't start messing with other stuff first should have the guns in by mid week and sheet over the next weekend. leaves me with about a month to get testing done.
poppit+servo holder v0.1 is in the printer for a rough print for size and concept proofing. if it works I will drop the STL in the resources file. .1 doesn't work. need to modify a few small things.... and my file self destructed...again. getting very very tired of it doing that. need to move the poppit back 3mm and redo some settings on my printer. think i have it in spiral vase mode... explains many things actually
CANNOT wait to see your ship in May. Your printer will come in very handy for a lot of things. I like printing the smokestacks, not sure why I don't like making them by hand
today I should have all my gun system routed and will get back to work on my SS for the kongo. getting faster at leveling the bed as well. take me about 10 minutes instead of 3 hours now. also helps that i finally got the dammed center level point correct. still need to fine tune the x and z towers as they are slightly off from each other that extremity prints don't always stick. Poppit+Servo V2.3 should work so long as I didn't offset the poppit holder point wrong. sometime during the last 20 minutes of the print it detached from my bed so I didn't get to look at that but I did find I was EXACTLY perfectly sized... so i took out .5mm from each size for better fit. need to get acetone as well. keep forgeting I don't have my chem stash with me yet.
i'm leveling when I notice that the head is flying above the bed.... or i take off the glass to clean it so things actually stick to it. so about every 30 hours of printing or so. And the popit + servo holder works perfectly! files going up in resources when i get a minute somewhat overbuilt but i don't want to have to replace it once it goes in.
because I can. I've routed everything and done a full electronics check. everything works! Sometime tonight I plan on getting the internal armor in. I have a 20'x10' sheet of pond liner(was going to be a pond but fireants)... I think i have enough... for every ship I will ever build
hull on. and i need alot more practice skinning. also need to patch some issues with hull contour next time.
I have used 3M spray adhesive (light mist) to get the silkspan to stick to the balsa. Then use the varnish to seal. Try it on a small piece and make sure it passes the drop test.
You need more chemicals then. And more fire. Much more fire. I may have had a very bad experience with them as a child.
