Well, now that my interest in reprogramming the TX has been satisfied, I am back onto the hull. there are now two external layers of aramid cloth and 30% of the excess balsa removal is done. I plan to add the aramid to that 30% first as a test before continuing to the rest of the balsa.
This thing is super impressive Greg! If you put too much more kevlar on it the bottom of the hull will be RPG proof! Got any updates?
Been delayed by no/trunkated weekends for much of the last 6 weeks. I've got stuffing tube holes bored and I am working on finishing up the interior kevlar layup. after that, set up the rudders, shafts, motors, belts, etc. so that she has propulsion... then plan for armaments
Finally some pictures. While I would seriously rethink kevlar in some areas, it does have some distinct advantages, most relating to resiliancy and stiffness vs glass. The shafts are molded in such that they are removable. a keeper (not installed) will keep each shaft in place within the hull and grease/caulk in the hole will seal while leaving them readily removable. Now I need to move onto the rudders and then I can get the rest of the below deck waterproofed and hardware installed.
Little more work getting done but first my wife found this awesome portable workbench for me at costco for 40 bucks.... The yellow is kevlar yarn being turned into a cylinder around the stuffing tube for the rudders. the rudder tube will be removable easily for maintenance this way.
Did you kevlar the inside of the hull as well or am i seeing things. If so what was your thought process behind this? I would think (rookie builder with littler actual experience here) it would be a little over kill? Either way the ship still looks beautiful!
Yes I did. the reason for the kevlar is that A. I had it handy and B it is far stiffer than glass but not as fragile as carbon.
I think Greg mentioned a few posts back that he planned to Kevlar the inside of the hull as well as the outside. Sure, probably overkill to do the inside, but everything he does is overkill. That's why his builds have always been so interesting and always on the razors edge. If necessity is the mother of invention, overkill is the father of really cool bad to the bone boats!
Alright, be looking here near the end of the month. I just ordered rapid prototyped (1x each) tertiary, secondary, breda AA guns, small searchlight, large searchlight. we will see how they look when they come in and if they are detailed enough for mold making...
Depends on the resolution of the machine. The one we have at work has a fairly coarse stepover. It certainly would not make an ideal part to make a mold from as it comes out of the unit. It is however an older machine. On the plus side, it would be plenty easy to use a very thin coat of body filler to smooth out the part and get a super nice mold. The accuracy is typically decent. I'm sure there are settings to set for a balance of speed vs accuracy. I wish they would let me play with it.
spec was about .005-0.008 for the finest detail, but we will see. I plan on filling and adding detail if it works. if that is all that is needed it will save a ton of time
That should work great for you. It will probably be pretty "grainy" for lack of a better word, but once you do some filling it will look awesome. Depending on the cost, that is a great way to get details in parts that would otherwise be very difficult. Especially since you have a 3d cad file, you will at least get something that matches your drawing exactly.
Long. I use three bushings in the longer ones rather than two so I can stay with 1/8" rod....17.0 inches on the inners and 11.5 inches on the outers. as drawn they are 3/8" stainless tube. making ones own tubes is easy if you have a decent tubing cutter, and even easier if you have a decent tubing cutter with a dull blade.
(insert impressed whistle here) what is the thought process behind making them so long? or dose the ship just really require them to be that long?
My concern would be inertia in a shaft that size imposing greater loads on the gears, but at big gun speeds, the forces invovled in the drivetrain are much lower (espcially peak loads) than in fast gun.
I am not too worried about the setup (the buckling analysis in torsion looked good wiht the third bearing on the long shafts) and I run belts for several reasons, not hte least of which is some compliance for impulse loads
