hi guys im new in this hobby and very interested. Im 12 and quite experienced model builder, ive built them since i was 4. im thinking of a crusier type ship with a two level deck any ideas would be appreciated.
Welcome and glad to have you here. In fact, glad to have both UK folks here. IMO, when it comes to building the first ship, I generally suggest one that you want to build for personal reasons. Have a favorite ship that you have always thought was neat or admired? Perhaps a ship that a ancestor served aboard in the service? Mayhap there is a ship that has caught one's fancy for whatever reason. Build it! I got a lot of satisfaction building a Richelieu for my first ship even if it isn't the most competitive ship in the fast gun formats. The UK builders have some pretty significant challenges arming ships for combat ... but that does not prevent building an unarmed ship for "combat" sorties out on the water with friends.
Welcome to the hobby, and this site. Your timing couldn't have been better. You are the second person from England to join in the last few days. Any particular nationality of ships that you are interested in? Mikey
hi thanks for the warm welcome. any type of country possibly the ww2 germans because i quite like theyre heavy cruezers/battleships .iv taken a liking for the shclactkreuzer [sorry i cant really spell it ]. an any one tell me what class or ship its sister to.
i was looking at the strikemodels plans for hood or or rodney. would the be able to get over to were i live and which one is best in combat
Hood is the better general, all around ship...... Rodney, while I do have a particular fondness for my old warhorse, is slow, too vulnerable to being attacked from astern, slow, handles poorly, is slow, isn't very pretty and is slow. It all comes down to who's sailing her of course, and any ship can be effective if sailed to it's strengths, and the enemy's weaknesses. I've been badly chewed up by a Queen Elisabeth class, and sunk an Iowa on the same day.
thanks for the reply i will probably build a destroyer from the plans ive got maybe te mighty hood some other time
I would have to agree that destroyers are kinda small, and therefore harder to build. Aircraft-carriers are lightly armed in fast-gun, and generally only used in campaign battles. In big-gun and Treaty, they are heavily armed. In 96th scale (battlestations) they would be huge. Most of the 144th scale hulls can probably be shipped to you, but some would need to be cut in half for shipping. That is a pretty common thing when we here in the states purchase a hull from Europe, or Australia. Do you have any laws there that prohibit you from firing BBs? As that might prohibit you from building boats to fast-gun and treaty rules. On another note.. I see that we just had another person sign onto this site from England yesterday. That is three in one week. Very interesting. Looks like the hobby is growing there already. You all don't mess about. Mikey
Perhaps not what. But where. After giving it some thought. It would seem that while giving some consideration to what boats you like, and might want to build for the combat, the best place to start might be to look into the local laws about shooting BBs, and/or ball bearings. If there are no problems there, then your next step might be to contact the other folks in your area that have an interest in the hobby, and try to hook up with them, and only then decide which format, or club you will build to. And after deciding on a rules set to build, and battle to, only then could you really make a well balanced choice of what ships to build. You could also spend some time looking into the availability of fiberglass/wood hulls in different scales in your country. As shipping the hulls from here will possibly be rather expensive. If you can obtain the hulls over there, then having the internal components shipped from over here will probably not be a huge expense, as the shipping container will be much smaller, if there is no hull in it. If obtaining hulls over there is a problem, then they can be shipped from over here, even if they have to be cut in half, to keep the costs down. At that point, you really could decide what ship you want to build, and be ready to kick off the hobby there. Deciding on a particular boat at this stage of the game could very well be counter-productive, and lead to lots of frustration. That is my take on it. For what it's worth. Mikey
there is no law on bbs around were i live but there isnt any club i now of. there is a model sailing club nearby but now warship combat i know of. i would be scratch building as my dad can help .he built rc power boats and currently has a sailing boat which we to for a test a couple of weeks ago.
There is, UK gun laws actually prohibit the firing of any weapon where the muzzle energy is greater than 1 Joule (I remember this as 338 feet per second with a 0.2 g bb) so i would need to know the weight and muzzle velocity of the bb's to determine their legality. if its any greater than 1 Joule, its classed as an air rifle, and would be illegal to use in most public places (a back yard included, its closer than 100 metres to a public pathway) I somewhat doubt anything other than fast gun with a low fps, and as a result, hull thickness would be legal here in the uk. Just as a note: the fact that they do noot look like firearms does not matter, it firesa projectile from a barrel - this is what matters. thinking about it, its a bit of a shame, really. :/ (Im one of the other UK guys, btw )
I think the majority of the guns we use run 230 to 250 fps. I dont think any gun fires over 300fps at all. If a standard .177 bb is less than or equal to .2g then fast gun might be good. I am not the expert but those are the numbers I was given.
The fastest recorded FPS from one of the BB cannons is around 298 fps. That was at max tweak with one of the ultra high flow cannon setups at the maximum allowed 150 psi air pressure . Very few people run cannons tweaked that tight due to reliability. The average cannon with a reliable tweak normally runs around 210 - 250 fps.
from what I can see, .177 BB's tend to be 5.1 grains, or 0.33 grams... at 250fps, this gives a muzzle energy of 0.96 Joules The result: Fast-Gun cannons are UK Legal!
Treaty uses the same cannons as fast-gun. But with a lower muzzle-velocity. Hopefully some of the big-gun folks can answer the question concerning big-gun, and battlestations. Mikey
