That thing is ridiculous! ridiculously beautiful and quick built! on the subject of sails, I've been following brooks advice and used Tyvek "paper". Tyvek is best know in the form of reinforced overseas letter envelopes. its pretty much indestructible, works with like paper, and can be printed on. sail making with it is verry very fast and easy, so might be good for starting and you can make fabric sails later on once you know how you want them exactly. http://www2.dupont.com/Tyvek/en_US/index.html The only thing is it can't be reefed as wrinkles are permanent. Cheers Phillip
I did consider Tyvek after reading Brooks' ship threads ... but after I had already bought a ripstop polyester (mylar) material. Ah well. The mylar is paintable and wind impregnable, so should work a lot like Tyvek. We will see. I mentioned in the last post, but thanks again for the advice on using vangs on the yards. That simple line solved so many problems with the yard rigging.
Most welcome i hope it works ! Some thing i`ve noticed in your rigging what might help you in the future is not to make too many fixed length lines. If later on you decide you want to change an angle, or retension something or maybe untension it for some reason (maintenance?) is to include Bowsies in your rigging a bowsie is a very simple device, there is a very nice description here: http://www.ec12.info/Rigging%20Tips.htm DanL has a very nice method of hiding these by making them look like rigging blocks! http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12292897&postcount=8 i can`t wait to see your Ship on the water she`s gonna be a beauty
DanL's blocks were awesome and impressive. The original intent was to make use the same on the Requin. But ... trying to get the line past that 90 degree bend in the top block was too much for me. So instead, the blocks on the ship are simply dowels with two holds drilled through at 90 degrees to the other. The block is adjustable, using bamboo spikes driven into the hole that the line passes through to keep it in place. At the moment, the spikes are holding in place after being pressed into palce with finger pressure, but before the ship sails I'll use a pair of pliers to give the spikes a squeeze to really set them in place.
Meatbomber, have you ever tried ironing Tyvek? I want to straighten out the sails on Constitution, since they got wrinkled during shipping.
Nope never tried ironing it I try to not get them wrinkled anymore or kinked.. usually I just replace the sail, my courses and topsails come right off the yard by pulling the wire that holds them on, the topgallant and royals come off including the yard and must be cut of the yard to be replaced. But I doubt it takes me longer than 15 mins to cut and prepare a new sail
It has sails! Sails! For the moment, ignore that the sails are clear ... they will be painted a nice linen color eventually. The sails are made from ripstop polyester film, aka mylar. I purchased the stuff from a kite web site before finding out about Tyvek as sail material. I shied away from ripstop nylon due to weight and its tendancy to absorb water over time. From here, I'll start working on the internal stuff, rudder, and installing the radio. Though it looks like the ship is nearly ready to launching, there is still at least a week's worth of work to accomplish before the Requin can sail without cannons.
Although it has been a while since the last update, the build has not stopped. Turning attention to the internals, the first thing to take care of was positioning the 3.5 ounce CO2 bottle in the hull. The bottle and Strike Models lightweight regulator was too long to fit in the stern half of the hull with the sail winch servos. So the bottle ended up positioned at an angle. The hull bottom was recessed to cradle the bottle in place. Next up was the internal armor. For those not familier with internal armor, it is material hung on the inside of the ship to prevent BBs from damaging internal componants. For the lightweight Requin, I went with a rubberized cloth typically used to make banners in graphic shops. Although it is possible to shoot through it, the key to prevent that is to mount the top in place and let the material hang freely so it gives and absorbs the BB hit. 3.5oz bottle and rubberized cloth internal armor in place. In the side of the picture is the rear deck hatch with its two waterproofed sail winch servos mounted. The servos are low cost Hobby King brand. The drums spin in a firmly mounted basket with barely a whisper of a gap. While taking the servos apart to waterproof them, I noticed a heftly sized servo motor of the likes I haven't seen in standard sized servos since the 80s. The top end is all metal geared and plain bushings. The case is thick with big overlaps that fit tight enough that I had to press fit the case back together. It will be interesting to see how these servos work out. A fancy struck me to do a little bit of detail work, so the front half bulkhead and the quarterdeck bulkheads were crafted and installed. Also the front mast got some semi-scale bracing. Some bow details is added. And a little bit of stern detail is added. Although not exact scale, it does portray one of the noticable features of the original ship.
I couldn't put it off any longer. The rudder was going to be a pain. For the past week ideas have been floating around on how to mount the rudder to the hull. The typical brass rod and tube was possible but would have been a royal pain to put on the ship. It was about that time that my eye lighted upon the piece of brass piano hinge sitting on the work bench. The hinge was left over from another project. Viola! An easy answer to the rudder hinge problem! Out came the ever handy multifunction tool with a straight cutting blade to carefully cut a slot in the hull's stern keel piece. The hinge was shortened and test fitted ... and it worked perfectly! A brass piano hinge slotted into the keel equals quick and easy rudder hinge! The rudder itself was copied from the plans then expanded to 300% size. The expanded part is under the water to hide and preserve the illusion of a scale sized rudder. The original's rudder was heavily carved on the upper half. Since this is a combat semi-scaled ship, I passed on trying to duplicate the carvings. Heh. 300% enlarged rudder varnished and mounted on the ship. Next up is the rudder servo and control arm. It has already been installed ... just haven't taken the pictures yet. Heh. Now that the rudder and internal armor is done, there is nothing stopping the Requin of getting sheeted. I expect to start that tomorrow (Thursday) night and finish it up Friday night. It is remotely possible the Requin may get it's maiden voyage this weekend sans painting.
A most beautiful model. I'd hesitate to shoot at it (maybe that was the idea*grin*?). re rudder: you might want to plan on a clear plastic extension. I don't think an RC rudder, at least for multimasted ships, can be too big. I prefer adding area to the aft end of the rudder, rather than to the bottom. This makes the rudder have a sweep-like action, useful for sculling to complete a tack if necessary. If the plastic is bolted on with 2-56 hardware, then it can be removed easily if you determine its not needed. For the maiden voyage, I'd really want it installed, just in case. I've had ships that would not tack or wear due to rudder too small; since I can get to all sides of my usual sailing pond, recovery of ship was not a problem. There are cases I've read where the model was lost at sea on maiden when the vessel could not be steered back to shore, most sad :-( The advantage of multimasted ships, over sloops, is that it is possible to use the sails for steering. This requires separate servo control for sheeting the sails aft of the CLR (center of lateral resistance) separately from the sails fore of the CLR. Looks like you are going that route. Slacking the sails fore of the CLR just a little helps immensely in heading up to tack. Slacking sails aft of the CLR helps wears; in fact, it is often impossible for my models to wear w/o slacking aft sheets. Never having sailed a model lateen rig, I don't have any experienced advice to give, so I'm just speaking about the multimasted vessels I've sailed (schooners and squareriggers).
Good point about rudder area. We may need more. Although the AoS rules state "300%", the figure is a guesstimate and may need tweaked when we start getting ships on the water. Brooks, do you have an idea of how much larger the rudder is on your ships compared to the original? It may help us get a better idea of what is needed. The Requin's rudder can be modified easily enough, either with extensions or trimming. Hmm ... maybe I should trim the bottom and add the area to the trailing edge ... Good stuff!
I based the rudder area on what I did with mini Constitution and Victory, since they are both roughly 300% oversize. If that proves unworkable, though, we can always change it.
I'm going with a 'healthy' size rudder I can always cut it smaller. I need to speed up my progrees, so that Mike doesn't get hours on on-the-water time with his cebec ahead of me practicing with Minerva!
Welp, you may have another week to get the Minerv on the water Tug. Tonight I tried to start sheeting using 2mm Depron foam sheet. Everything looked good at first. The Depron worked nicely around the compound curves in the bow. But ... as soon as I put Weldwood cement on the Depron, ugly melted depressions started to appear. Heh. So note to self ... Weldwood glue (or nitrate dope) will eat Depron foam. Most likely I'll go back to wood sheeting and all of the prep work that goes into getting it ready to put on the ship. At least until I find a suitable contact-like glue that won't melt the Depron. So the Requin will not make the water this weekend. It might make it during the latter half of next week, and next weekend for sure. At least this gives me time to paint the thing before taking the first sailing pictures. Heh. Oh, the ultimate goal is to have cannons in the Requin by the February battle.
Foam safe CA will work fine and available at any hobby shop. I'm not a CA fan for sheeting even though it works fine. Going to do some research today and see if there isn't a foam safe contact adhesive out there. I vaugely recall 3M having something ...
Mike, my rudders on topsail schooner and on 4 masted barque are 4-5x scale size. These vessels are 1:40 and 1:100 scale. I have not read your discussions of rules. Is there a limit on rudder size, and if so, why? I'd recommend no limits on anything that affects the Sailing of a ship until you have some experience sailing them. Otherwise, I see frustration looming . Once you've got some sailing time under your belt, then modifications to ships rules to make combat more to your desires will be appropriate, and will be based on experience, not theory . My experience has been that sails scaled to the hull length work fine (eg. 1:40 hull length, width, depth, and 1:40 sail size). Scale sails will move a ship with authority, usually exceeding the scale speed. And the scale sails and spars look right for the hull size (very important to me, personally). I'd not recommend you shoot for scale speed unless you are very very patient...scale speeds make ships look like they're sailing in molasses. Also, tacking is very difficult w/o hull speed. In the real ships, their inertia was the saviour. But models don't (usually) have sufficient inertia at scale speeds, due to detrimental scaling effects of area and volume. In contrast to the sails, however, anything below the waterline does not scale well, eg. finkeel and rudder. Underwater components need to be oversize. If you look at the scale sailboat models of the pre-RC era, especially in Gt. Britain, you'll find that even the hulls are not scale in depth/draft. This was probably due to 2 reasons: 1. to achieve better grip on the water when beating to windward. 2. to achieve more buoyancy to support lead in the keel. For most weather/sun conditions, supersized below-waterline parts will not be obvious or distract from the look of the vessel while on the water.
I don't build framed hulls, so don't have experience to offer there. Whether or not you'll need to deepen your hulls for more buoyancy to support combat gear is something I don't know. I only stuffed servos below deck on my topsail schooner. A scale depth hull worked fine for my purposes. The topsail schooner hull is bread&butter built from heavy pine lifts. It ended up heavier than intended. I was unable to install as much lead ballast as I had planned. But, by extending the finkeel deeper, I got the righting force I wanted with less lead ballast (located on the end of the finkeel). If you guys find you need more buoyancy to support RC gear, combat gear, and ballast, the trick of cutting back lead and just running it deeper in the water is one you might try.
Mike, Meatbomber is the Depron expert. He's built several Depron flying boats, so should have a good handle on a waterproof glue for you. UHU makes a glue stick that some modelers use, but the one I have is not waterproof.
