Lil Scharnie winter of 2012 refit

Got quite a bit done today! Lil Scharnie's forward and stern subdecks are epoxied in place! Pics and commentary to follow tomorrow after presents and playtime

 

So, yesterday I got the stern subdeck fitted, and then epoxied in the bow and stern subdecks. Below is an image of the stern subdeck during fitting. As you can see, that's a tricky lil area, and it's not a precise fit. That's okay, and I'm not concerned, it'll get filled in with epoxy.

below is a view of Scharnie as I am getting the height set right; the subdeck needs to be 1/8" down from the edge of the hull, to allow for the deck to be added (which is 1/8" thick).

The little stick of 1/8" thick ply (the ruler in the pic is 'pointing' at it) is how I set the height. I get a large area set to 1/8" down, and use CA glue in spots to tack the subdeck in place. Do this with good ventilation if you love your airway and lungs!

Ah, all fitted, height is set, and the West System is carefully applied. You can barely make it out in this photo, but there is masking tape under the subdeck and against the hull, to keep the epoxy from going anywhere but where we want it to be. The clamps on the back of the forward subdeck are encouraging the hull to close that 1/16" gap on each side.

more of the same, but looking at the stern; I included this view because it shows some of the tape a little better. It basically runs along the bottom of the subdeck, and partially on the hull side beneath it, to seal against epoxy leakage.

This week, I have to work tomorrow, but will be in the shop Thursday and Friday, putting in a couple of stringer sections that I blew off, replacing the rudder servo mount, and starting work on the water channeling! Maybe some deck work, too.

 

Got lots done today, added more epoxy to the subdeck-hull joints where it needed it, cut some foam for water channeling, fitted the front and rear decks (and waterproofed the tops of them), and made a clever little combination bottle holder/battery rack. I'm sleepy but I will transfer the pics to the picasa account in the AM, and post them here.

 

As promised, more pics! I think this is the best job of fitting decks to the hull that've done yet. Not easy with the wierd deck shape, either!

View from the stern. You can see that I did NOT try to follow the bulges of the casements, which I did try to do (not very well) last time. I will be filling those in with an epoxy/sawdust slurry this time.

Test-fitting the combination bottle-holder/battery bracket. The battery slides forward in the rectangular hole below the bottle. Through the magic of LiPO power density, it fits above the water channel! The piece of verrry thin plywood on the bottom of the hull was cut to be the same length as the battery for easy of fitting, making sure that with the setups I was trying, that there was room between the bottle and the pump.

Here, you can see that I cut 1/4" from the legs to get the top of the regulator below the deck level. The scrap wood on top is to locate where the bottom of the deck would be. At this point, the actual deck was covered in West System epoxy to waterproof the top side. Looking at the mount, you may notice that I also cut a notch in the stbd top of the mount; this was done to provide clearance for the 1/4" hose coming from the regulator. I still need to drill two holes for the velcro strap that will hold the bottle in place should Scharnie take a roll.

The bracket as seen above was cut from 1/4" ply. For extra strength, I cut matching leg pieces and laminated it to 3/4" thickness on the legs.

Right before the wife called and let me know that she was pulling in the driveway with Chinese food for dinner, I had chucked up a 1&1/8" dowel in one of my Christmas presents So this morning, I will take a shot at making a pretty smokestack for Scharnie

That's all for now! More to follow as I see how much I can get done with my time off until the 2nd of January

 

WHEW! Long day today. Brian Koehler and Pete Dimitri came over to work on boats and shoot the breeze. I was kept busy on my lathe working diligently to get an acceptable looking 2nd smokestack. Smokestacks 2 through 4, you see, are different from smokestack #1, which was previously pictured, nice and round. For some reason known only to Gott und der Kaiser, the German shipbuilders chose to make the 3 aft stacks oval shaped. Well, round on front and back, with two parallel sides. Kind of oval. Joyous me, as I work out how to make 3 identical stacks. BUT, Brian and Pete were so enthused about how the stacks looked, that we cut a deal, and they are going to make molds from my plugs and then produce sets of smokestacks for future Scharnhorst builders to enjoy.
Below is the pair of smokestack plugs sitting on Scharnie's deck. They look like they're leaning, but Pete was moving the hull when I was taking the pic. Rest assured that they are in fact fine, upstanding citizens of Scharnieland.

I also got the rudder servo holder and the bottle/battery bracket epoxied into the hull. Still got some stringers to put in, and water channeling, and then I'll think about sheeting

 

Gotta make a set for Edie Q, too 3 different shapes, but at least they're all round

 

The lathe makes it so easy The hard part for me was holding one of the pretty new ones up next to one of the tired old ones that isn't nearly as pretty. The difference is fairly astounding and it's funny how proud I was of the old ones (labor-intensive, those). Ah, well, they served their purpose and held up under enemy fire.

 

Weelllll... Didn't get nearly as much done over the holidays as I'd hoped, but I had to keep the family happy. So last night I stayed up transferring measurements of superstructure pieces to ABS plastic (which has taken hits well in the past; Scharnie's cranes were made from it). Finally got out to the shop this afternoon and played with the saw and came up with this:

No, that's not a smokestack; that's the lower 6cm of the mast; the real one had a spiral staircase inside! I have not gotten the armored bridge built yet, but that's coming The cutouts in the shield at the corners on top have secondary guns there; the cut-down section of shield is to allow the gun to pivot from side to front. I didn't get the curved front section of the shield wall (whatever the technical term for it is) done, but that'll come next weekend.
Below, a stern view. Still a lot to do here, but I'm happy with the day's work. The ladder isn't glued in, yet, but there's one on each side. The little building that supports the aft end of the catwalk is just a pair of side walls right now, but that'll get fixed. It also gets 3 doors per side and some port holes. The ends of the two wings on the catwalk get supports with little sindows in them, and I haven't drilled the hole forward of the mast where the large-ish vent comes up from below. But it's going to look SWEET when it's in.

Still got a bunch of work left to do on the back parts of the SS; those long sticky-back pieces are actually the outer walls of two long, skinny buildings. Berthing, I think, might be wrong. But those will be very cool once done, with the little pedestal-mounted binoculars about midway down the sloped part.
That's all for now! Looking for some 30mm brass tubing for the pump body. The 40mm stuff I used on the POW-pump was great fun and easy to work with, totally solid. I want to replicate that in a smaller size pump.

 

It's 1/16", not too heavy. I'd say it compares favorably to wood. Takes hits well, and the previous use on the cranes, it did fine in the Georgia heat. Took many impacts in battle and had no problems. The polystyrene detailing I'd had on the cranes is another story though It cracked and chipped and generally blew apart. Admittedly, it was really thin (.010 or .005, I forget)

 

Herr Karl, in zees alternate timeline, the Teutonic Kinghts conquered zee England in zee year 1400 or zo. Herr Grossadmiral Nelson vas vonce Fregattenkapitan Nelson, ja!

 

Didn't get as much done as I had hoped, had to take Tuxcat to the vet for shots and antibiotics (he's not bad sick, don't worry). I _did_ get the Tug-pump MkIII mostly done. 28mmdia x 12.7mm high swept volume, 2100kV motor. Some pics after dinner, and testing and more pics tomorrow. Did I mention that there's two of them? One for Scharnie, one for Edgar Quinet. Took pics of the pump building process to add to the class. Also (for Scharnie) started installing the gas system, and the drive motor is on the gearbox, and fitted properly for low-noise operation. Sorted motors and ESCs for the convoys, got enough to run my 3 convoys on NOS brushed motors and ESCs, with a few spares.

Also, put my new 3S LiPO batteries into the Turnigy 9X, and... my Polk Tracker III!! Yes, the Tracker III can handle a 3S LiPO safely. Joyous news, as the old battery was not as strong as one might wish, and now the Polk is ready for years of battling service

 

Here is a shot I took while cleaning up last night; it shows the basic layout minus the battery and pump. The black and yellow thing on the stbd side is my push-fit manifold. Makes life easier. It has two mounting holes that are helpful because it slides onto a pair of 1/8" brass rods sticking out of the wood outboard of it. In and out easily if needed. I test-fitted an ESC in the space under the motor. We will see if it stays there. The blue foam is some of the water channelling, much better laid out than in previous iterations (Scharnie 1.c, if you're keeping track; this is Scharnie 2). I have much more work to do on water channeling. Nothing is more fun than frustrating the Allies because your damage control ROCKS.