I'll post pics here when I get a chance. I had Missouri out at a pond at In laws cabin this weekend for extreme rough water sailing. I say that because the pond is situated where no matter the direction of the wind there are whitecaps most of the time. Last 5 years I been trying to sail on that pond but the conditions have always been bad. Well I took the Mighty MO out . Wife filmed it smashing through the large waves for about an hour. The pump was on most of the time and the forward hatch was nearly dislodged by several huge waves. The model sailed through it though and all deck fittings were still aboard. However the pond was not done with me yet... I heard a high pitch than scrunching sound from MO. Speed dropped off but I still could maneuver . I sailed her in one one motor powering the shihp in. The port gear shaft had stripped it's gears. I guess the stress of the props rising out of the water so often caused the brass insert inside the motor mount that the secondary drive shaft runs through to weaken the adhesive that held it in place, causing the sleeve to slide backward and forward enough for the large pinion wheel to misalign. The smaller pinion ended up grinding to an hour glass shape and the teeth of the larger pinion was filed down to nothing. What I will do is use a heat resistant or stronger adhesive like Goop to secure the inner stuffing tube insde the motor mount. The other drive shaft is in perfect shape and the motor did not overheat pushing MO in . I am not surprised though as the model has been running in a lot of rough water lately. I hope to get the video posted soon but I my computer is laput and I have to rely on the wife's laptop which is very slow to use.
Well I removed the motor mount and drive shaft and universal and dogbones. I will solder a new stuffing box for the motor mount and use goop to secure it inside the motor mount of course being careful not to get the goop over the entrance holes on either end of the stuffing tube. Once I get that secured I am going to realign the motor mount to the prop stuffing tube and get it straight but this time I will make sure that during the curing process of the goop the motor mount is not going to slide or move in anyway while it is drying . What happened the last time the motor mount shifted a little off center with the stuffing tube . I think this added friction or stress to the motor mount stuffing tube and caused it to heat up breaking it's seal with the motor mount. I hope to have it fixed so that it's as reliable as the starboard motor mount drive shaft assembly. That side of the Mo has been working perfectly. I didnt' see any wear on the gear teeth of both gears there and the assembly has no movement. The motor mount is also perfectly lined up with the prop stuffing tube. I should have Mo back to sea by the end of the week. It's at the house and not in the shipyard and I have 2 large fans in the room to keep the air cool there so I am not having issues breathing.
Repair work nearly completed. So far waiting for the motor mount to dry. I used Goop this time and so far it has not shifted while it's curing. Gears mesh nicely and I have it necely lined up. Should be ready to go for the weekend if I get out.
Reassembled the drive system again and dry tested it. It purrs nicely. I hope to get it on the water this weekend.
Dude - thats awesome! Some serious "Atlantic" rollers there Cool pics. Love the paint on your vessel - the water color is amazingly dark blue. Nice. Why was it shipping so much water though? You dont seal your deck watertight? Thanks for sharing your experience with the stuffing tubes. As you see in my pictures, I mounted a steel tube for a sleeve to hold my "future" stuffing tubes hat I will make myself out of steel and sintered brass bearings - steel shaft naturally. I'm even debating about modeling my own propellers and have them "printed" with Brass, so they look and act like the real props. I noticed that all the props from "Battlers Connection" are all flat, with no cupping in any of the props. Thats a huge loss in thrust. I'm also seriously debating about having my brother in Germany do some research and pull some prints from the German Archives for the Z Plan ships. But back to your ship - how did your props do? What scale speed do you run at? Fast or Big Gun? That may have something to do with your boat struggling in the heavy seas? How did those waves affect your steering? What size rudders are you using? Awesome shots - cant wait to see the video. Thomas
It was shipping a lot of water because the hatches particularly the forward hatch is not tight and I had no deck tabs to tighten it down. The waves knocked it loose but the superstructure kept it on. I had a very bad cut of the hatch up there of the hatch so it's not as tight as Yamato. However when a third of the model is submerged and moving it's going to get water in anyway . Combat models generally don't have water tight hatches what would be the point, once the water reaches the weather deck your pretty much sunk at that point. The prop I have are from Battler's and they are the same I use on Yamato, 25 pitch, 4 blade 1.5 dia. They work very well. The model had no problem going through the rough water. Turning in the rough water and high wind was no issue but you have to time it right when turning into high wind and high swells as you don't want the hull to drop to the bottom of a swell in a turn have the wave lift it up and roll you over. Some ships though if ballasted correctly handle this well. The model is running at 24 seconds with the drag props attached. The model is running FG speed. The model is my best one for this kind of rough water. I had it running in rough water at 47 lbs and now I run it at 43 lbs. Ships will pitch up and down in heavy seas and will behave differently depending on the height and direction of the waves, the speed of the waves and the distance between waves. For example I ran BIsmarck and Yamato just the other day in what looked like good water. Winds were blowing south east and I was runing a West to east course on the lake. The swells were spaced about 8 ft apart but they had a deep trough. When Yamato and Bismarck sailed through it both ships were plunging deep into the lower part of the swell and getting buried. Turning was difficult near the shoreline as the waves were much higher but the troughs seem to want to suck the models under.Yamato had difficulty turning, Bismarck was able to turn but was rolling quite a bit. It was deceiving as the water looked almost calm but the swells were very high. Strange water indeed. A lake effect was occuring here. The rudders are the ones from BC the "Pate Style" which are very fat at the front with a sharp taper towards the rear. They work extremely well for steering.I have them on MO and Bismarck. These rudders help me manuever tightly with Sodaks and NC's very well. Mo maneuvers very well and tightly for a very long ship in any condition with these rudders. I don't have geared and they work fantastic. If I used geared I can only imagine how much tighter they will turn. I believe they are 3 in sq rudders. I mount them inside the prop hub straight generally with a slight angle outward and they are mounted very close to the props.
Great shots! Have you considered mounting the go-pro looking forward for some of these cruises? You're far braver than me - I won't run in that sort of slop, and my decks seal up tight. Of course, a straight bow, low freeboard ww1 battlecruiser is a different beast than the Mo. Thomas - thrust is not generally an issue for our warships, we generate plenty as-is. Most of us run shallow pitch flat blades so that we can move a lot of water without generating too much thrust, and for us fast-gunners - so that we get performance in reverse. Moving water over the rudders is key to turning performance. Remember - speed is regulated but acceleration and turning are not.
Nice pics Curt! Looks like a full size ship in the north atlantic. Trips like that were one of the reasons I chose to go subs, not so rough. Thomas, I had the type of prop you are talking about on Scharnhorst when i got it, it took 4 boat lengths to stop from full ahead, made i hard to not ram other ships. Now i stop in less than one. Just a bit of info from my own experience. J
I had the GO pro with me but forgot the sticky mountings to secure it to the top of the bridge. I had no duct tape with me that day . I will mount it for rough water now that I figured out the best forward view overlooking the entire bow and forward turrets.
Unfortunalty I had that kind of ride from Norfolk VA to Halifax when he hit 60 ft waves head on with our 343 ft destroyer. Our officer on the bridge tossed his cookies mulitple times . We had lost an anchor door, anchor, breakwater was damaged and the gunhousing was torn in places. Frame 23 had buckled. Everything inside that was not batton down was thrown about. I ended up in the ops room with my chair following me down the stairwell to ops door.
Aha - did not think about that, stopping a ship. Amazing what you don't know. I will certainly think over all that's been mentioned many times as I build my ship. I find it helps pass the time - concentrating on your building and keeping new ideas and thoughts or discussions in line with particular building challenges; they most certainly help me make difficult decisions. Working through the conceptual design phases and reflecting on the practical and theoretical applications of each portion of the build, keeps it moving along at a good pace and only stalls the construction when I dont know how to implement new ideas. I very much appreciate the comments and experiences I receive. And awesome pictures - naturally. Thanks for the detailed posts. I'll be reading through them several times Thomas PS: Anyone have some thoughts about how best to deal with the angled rudders for the tpyical German Hulls...? Specifically how the linkage works, so that I can start thinking about how best to incorporate "lessons learned" into my design - if I may be so bold as to benefit from others trials
For my H-39 - the Bismarck should be close to the same configuration. Got some pictures of what you did ? TH
I posted pictures of different rudder setups under lovelz thread for building his Bismarck. As far as the angles when using linkages best to keep the rudder postst straight and rudders straight. On Bismarck I always used straight and it has worked very well with little maintenance issues. North Carolina I am keeping them straight and on Missouri I have them straight as well. The better the alignment the less mechanical issues and better throw. Gear rudders work better if the gears are straight up but you can angle them a lttle.
I posted pictures of different rudder setups under lovelz thread for building his Bismarck. As far as the angles when using linkages best to keep the rudder postst straight and rudders straight. On Bismarck I always used straight and it has worked very well with little maintenance issues. North Carolina I am keeping them straight and on Missouri I have them straight as well. The better the alignment the less mechanical issues and better throw. Gear rudders work better if the gears are straight up but you can angle them a lttle.
