*My* Renown Build

An excellent choice of ships. Are you planning on selling hulls? Iron Duke in particular I think has a lot of potential in the fast gun clubs. I also hope that you're able to eventually save the Furutaka. Those would make for some fun cruisers.

 

With luck I can make the mold next week and a hull the week after that. If not then, it'll have to wait until mid-july since I will be out of town.

 

Sell? These hulls aren't up to the quality of Bob's or Ralph's hulls, but they would be just as expensive to produce. Probably not a good idea.

With some spare time I think the Furataka could be saved -- if not it is pretty small and could be restarted without too much trouble.
One possibility is build the Aoba instead. The bulge was actually bigger, and came higher, so that the crease on the hull is covered.

But realistically, I have enough plugs (assuming that they all make successful moulds) for now.

 

Hi,
I have officially ending sanding the Renown and Iron Duke plugs.
They both full of minor imperfections but each time I work on them I am damaging them more than fixing them so it is time to stop. There is nothing there that should be visible once the hull is sheeted.

They are drying off after being hosed down in order to remove any dust. I will start sealing them after lunch (if they are dry). 2 coats of shellac, then attach the flanges, then 2 more coats of shellac, 2 coats of latex knot sealer, and a final coat of shellac.

The two pre-dreadnoughts are almost ready for waxing.

I am running out of time so I don't know if I will get the molds done before I leave at the end of the month. (School's out next week and then my days are no longer free) If not, I am back in the middle of July and I should be able to do it then.

 

Hi,
No mold yet - and I did some rework on the Renown plug. The flanges are on all the plugs and all but the Renown are sealed and waxed. The waxing really highlights any mistakes and the front of the bulges on the Renown were uneven from side-to-aide. I couldn't let it go like that so I resurfaced it. Some more sanding now required.

I tested my gel-coat yesterday and made a gooey mess. Took me most of the day to realize I simply didn't use enough hardener. Luckily I didn't test it on a plug.

It's raining, and school's out tomorrow. I am also low on resin. So nothing for this week or next. Should have a mold of one of the pre-dreads mid-July when I have a week alone at home and I can FG in the house if it's raining.

 

Hi Rob,
Looks like we'll finish our battlecruiser molds around the same time.

The flanges are on the Furious plug and it's been waxed. The gelcoat for the first half of the mold goes on this week and the glass on July 1. The second half of the mold will be done a few days later. After a few hours to sand out any remaining surface defects and apply wax the mold will be ready for use.

Like you I'll be away for a while in July so won't finish the first HMS Furious hull until early August. Kim will be in Latvia for all of August so I can glass with no complaints about the smell. I'll correct the errors on the Profintern hull plug and do a better mold while she's in Europe. May also start the R Class battleships and HMS Argus (small carrier) hull plugs.

It'll be nice to see some British battlecruisers in action again. We'll have 1-2 Renowns, Hood, Indefatigable and Furious by 2009. Last time we had 3 was in the nineties: Courageous and 2 Invincibles.

Bob

Bob

 

Well.....progress...and potential disaster.

The Redetskty (pre-dreadnought)mold is finished, pending removal of the plug, I'll let it cook in the sun tomorrow morning before prying it apart.

The Evstafi plug has been abandoned because I made some big mistakes when I put it together.

The Iron Duke... well it encountered a problem. I put too thick a coat of gel-coat, It sloughed, split, and curled up. It is a disaster. Tomorrow I will try to peel off the pieces but I am not holding out much hope. I think this will have to be abandoned too.

I am almost out of gel-coat - the 1(!) small(!) mold I have (successfully) made has taken almost all my FG cloth. I don't know if I will be able to do the Renown hull before the fall. I am ready to abandon the attempt - I don't know if there is still interest in the hull.

 

Hi Rob,
Too bad about the problems after all the work you've put into the hull plugs. What type of gelcoat are you using?

The Ashland products were great when we could buy them in relatively small (noncommercial) quantities, but Ralph and I have had some problems getting used to the OP gelcoat. It is quite runny and for brush on use requires addition of silica granules.

Last month I had a different salesman and learned for the first time that OP sells thick 'brush on' gelcoat. I bought the silica too but didn't need it. I applied a thick gelcoat to the Furious plug (so I could sand out a few ripples), but did it in two applications 24 hours apart to prevent too much of an exothermic reaction. Sounds like that may have happened with the Iron Duke. Was it giving off noticeable heat as it cured?

In the current high temperatures and humidity the catalyst/gelcoat mix has to be measured carefully. I've been using a 1.25% mix (1% is minimum). Too much catalyst plus a high ambient temperature and you'll get the sort of gelcoat failure you described.

I hope you'll carry on and finish the Renown mold. Total time to gelcoat, glass and fine sand the Furious mold (which is about the same size) was approximately 12 hours, spread over several days. I have lots of thick gelcoat left and can help you lay up the mold when I get back from vacation.

Bob

 

I am still interested in the Renown Rob.

 

Ok Chuck, I'll give it try.
I am getting some new gel-coat soon and I hope this will work better.
I am leaving next week for my summer holidays, so I won't get a chance to do any molding until September.

 

It's going to be a winter project anyway Rob.

 

Rob,
Have you had a chance to mold a Radetsky hull yet? I can help with the Renown plug and mold if needed. It'll be good to have that hull available.

The first HMS Furious hull was finished on the weekend and turned out great. Even though I widened the ram bow slightly to aid molding it remained a very difficult area to lay up. Renown's ram bow is almost identical.

I mixed the overly thick OP brush-on gelcoat (used for the mold) with their regular runny stuff and got the approx. consistency of Ashland gelcoat. It covered the mold surface well but two coats were applied a day apart to make sure it was thick enough and wouldn't be eroded by the resin. This seems to be the way to do it - for the first time since I started using OP gelcoat the hull had not a single blemish.

Call me if you need help.

Bob

 

am back from sailing for a few weeks going to focus on hood for now. renown suffered from a few wounds(ie. fork), going to need some repairing before i get her looking nice again

 

Welcome back Ian.

 

Welcome back Ian any chance you could make it up to Fredericton NB for the weekend of the 13-14 of Sept as we are holding Canadian nationals that weekend and have 9 Captains and 10 boats that are going to be up for a good fight, maybe you could bring Hood if she is combat ready.

 

Hi,
Kids are back in school.
I started to prepare the Renown plug for molding. Right now I am still waxing the plug, but I intend to fit the flanges soon. I hope to have the mold started on Monday. I don't think I made the bow wide enough -- it's wider than scale, but will still be really hard to layup.

I filled the voids in the Radetsky mold, but really just traded dips for bumps since I now have a bunch of gel-coat hardened inside the mold.

I also pulled down the Arethusa mold I made a couple of years ago and I will pop a hull out of it since I will be doing FG work anyway.

 

Good luck with the Renown plug Rob. I made the ram bow on Furious 1/4" wider than scale and it was still difficult to lay up. I filled the ram cavity with a slurry of chopped matt and resin after laying up the fiberglass in the rest of the hull. Make sure you put a thick layer of gelcoat in the ram area.

What happened to your first Arethusa hull? That's a hull you should be selling.

Bob

 

Hi Bob,
That hull went to a member who is no longer active. It wasn't all that great with voids and uneven thickness. I have learned to lay in the FG much better now.

I seem to have much more success with 1 piece molds. It's actually much better than I remember it. I hope that the hull turns out okay -- I have a paper model to use as a reference for the superstructure. It think it will prove more viable under treaty rules.

 

Hi,
I pulled the mold from the plug today. Whoo-eee did that thing take a lot of resin and cloth.

The plug came out after about 40mins of dancing and singing, but it is intact and could be reused. This is a first for me. The plugs are usually destroyed.
Unfortunatly, I had the same problem as with the Radetsky. The plaster from the plug adhered to the mold. This is after about 2 coats of sealer, 2 coats of shellac, and 12+ coats of wax. Not as bad as before, and one side is better than the other. I am definitely doing something wrong here.
Other than that the mold looks good. No obvious voids (but some may be under the plaster)

Anyway I am going to get some coarse drywall screen to see if I can sand it out. If not I may have to use the paint stripper wheel again.

Hopefully I can start a hull next week.

 

Hi Rob,
Congratulations on getting the plug out of the mold with only minor problems. I'm looking forward to seeing a Renown hull in the near future.

Bob