The bis is a very good stable platform. You probably won't even notice the camera there. Man, she looks sweet on the water. What are the yellow things on deck? Now I need yellow thingys, Thanks! Can you get a closer shoot of the deck details?
Thanks Iceman. The yellow things are actually birch pine pieces of wood I carved to make it look like those hatch entrance awnings sometimes used to shelter the hatch from the elements. I rushed them on and didn't get a chance to paint them. The book I am using for reference is WARSHIP PICTORIALS. Beautiful 3d renders of Bismarck's details in full color. I would have made them out of sintra block but I have more than enough sticks of wood to replace these if they get shot off. First time I used them on deck. Just need crew exiting and entering them. That's for later. Suffering from Sinus congestion and sore throat and fever. Occured shortly after I got back from the pond. Taking a few days to recover before I get back at Bis again. Question for you. What's your drive setup again? Are you using a resistor? I think my motor is 6 to 12 v so with the resistor and the low voltage I think that's why it was running BG speed. Could be where the stuffing box is packed tight and things need to break in too. Or just low SLA battery power.
I am running a Johnson 970hc 970 with a 1 3/4 5 blade. Speed controller is a Mtroniks viper 40 with a delta board relay backup with a mag switch backup... Speed is made with drag disc on the two outside props but at regionals I ran with none cause it was slow. It ran real close with nothing so I should only need small discs to make speed.
I got a couple of options here. I already have a 12v 24amp sla they may work and fit in the same location. It's heavy though so I may need to remove one of the 6v 12amp sla to compensate and keep it ballast. Then I would dedicate the 12 for the drive and dedicate the 6v for the pump. Keep the resistor and adjust it to get the correct speed. Option 2 would be to use a 12v7ampr SLA which is not as blocky and is what I had used originally for Bismarck's first 6 years. That gave me 2.5 to 3 hrs of use but more than enough battle time power. The ballast should even out even better. I may still have to remove one of the 6v SLAs or may keep it depending on how it ballasts. If that works the resistor will stay and used to adjust the speed. Other than that I need to add more slack to one of the main feed hoses, adjust the end point adjustment on the TX so that the servos don't require as much stick throw to fire the poppets. One of the deck tabs is in the way of the stern cannon where BBS sometimes are hitting it and deflecting. So I need to reposition the deck tab. Still need to flood the model and test the pump , tweak the cannons to fire harder and thread lock the barrels at those settings it's tweaked. Almost there. Currently almost through this sore throat sinus congestion virus and will be back at it tomorrow evening. Hope to do more tests this SAT weather permitting.
I'm running mine on 2 6 volt 12 amh's wired in parallel. If you have to go to the 12 volt setup, you could wire them in series and tap into one for 6 volt, or you could always run the pump off a 7.2 nicad pack, lots of people do that. Loose the resistor and drag it down with discs, it will start, stop and turn better. If not, at least you can start as fast as it goes and work your way down... I hope you feel better, sinus infections blow,
Thanks Iceman those are good options too. I am back here in the yard for an hour so first is to get rid of the resistor and 2nd remove the ruptured section of hose and put more slack where it meets the poppet valve fittings. Then I got to charge my RX batteries. 2 were dead, the other large one was very low. Only the little one gave me power for the test run.
Update: Well it didn't take long to make the repairs. The ruptured hose has been repaired. I just snipped off the ruptured section. I had extra length installed just in case something like that did happen. The resistor is removed and I tested and it has more power now. Just how much I don't know till I get it back on the water this Saturday. Currently charging up 3 RX batteries right now. Setup the FS and checked all radio settings. So far so good. Next run will have the Go pro filiming this time and by then I hope to have the cannons tweaked to perfection( crosses fingers )
When tweaking the guns, I like to hit the threads with blue locktite and then break it loose. It makes the threads gummy and holds the setting. I always tweak the guns right before a battle as things are always subject to change. Coming from Canada to the US would be enough of a temperature and atmosphere change to require cheacking them again... looking forward to seeing footage going out to work on dock today, slowly getting a nice battle pond here.
That''s how I did it for Yamato too Iceman. Worked like a charm. The only thing I had to change was the barrel O-RINGS. I had them worn out after several years of yard use. Will do the same for Bismarck too. Good thing I have lots of practice with dual sidemounts, no different in operating Bismarck like this except for better maneuverbility and much much quiter than gears. I figure I might as well set up a mount for Yamato too and get some footage of it firing and sailing from an elevated perspective. Boy oh Boy I am glad I got the ole Bis back. Going to have to change the title of OB to New and improved. Hope the battle pond works out well for you. Sounds like it's going to be really nice.
UPDATE: Tweaked all the cannons. Only one had a major issue. One of the sidemounts in B turret was missing the T interupter pin and a spring. It's one of my old straight mags. I must have removed it for someone or used it myself somewhere. I replaced the missing one with another T and spring. Test fired all the cannons and secured the barrels on their threads with Threadlock. They all fired well and hard no misfires. So far so good. Can't wait to try them out. Other minor work was sealing the small leads at the ends of the momentary push on push off switches with HotGlue to keep it rigid. Still fighting this dang sinus infection but getting through it. Have to refill one of the Co2 bottles again. Hope to take it out tomorrow .
Well Mother's day Won out and I spent it with my Mom yesterday. I had to work today. All went well. I am off Tuesday so IF the weather is good Bis will go out for a 2nd run to test the speeds, guns and pump. Yamato will be my test target and a coworker will operate Yamato as I practive shooting at it. I need a really good reason to resheet Yamato for the winter so plugging it full of holes sounds about right. Going to film from Yamato's perpescitve as Bismarck pulls up alongside and attacks. Then switch out and have it film Bismarck attacking. SHould give a good overall view how the camera will capture the action and I can see how the BBS are landing from Bismarck into Yamato. Yamato will be unarmed of course. So far just minor cosmetic work left. This thread will be nearly completed.
Small lifeboats and thier davits are aboard. Repaired the missing optics on the aft Gunnery station. Small anchor chain covers in front of the Capstans are attached. I removed one of the airplanes that had a float shot off so I polished the old paint off and dremeled the float supports off the underside. Going to replace with new struts and floats and repaint the plane and add a spinng prop- static form using a clear plastic circlular shield. Reparied one of the stbd side 01 rails. Just a few more rails to repair, repair the catupult. Hope to take Bis out again tomorrow.
Drat! Working tomorrow and my days off this Tues and Wed show rain in the forecast. Arrghh!! Well I will finish this project completely Wed.
Update. Well I tried to take the Bismarck out for a 2nd trial. Didn't make it to the water. Both Rx batteries were too low in juice causing the throttel to go to Reverse intermittently. You could regain contril then it would go to reverse after a few minutes. Thought it might be the TX itself with the programming but after clearing the memory several times and switching over to the spare RX battery It was happening again. The Rudders were slow in slow motion and so were the other servos. Back at my buddies place and put the Volt meter to the 2 RX batteries.Both packs were showing 4 volts. I think both batteries are bad. After I got home I tried my other 3 packs and I had no issues and the rudders responded rapidly and moved much faster as did the other servos. Looks like the RX battery packs are the culprit. All packs were fully charged but those 2 packs are not responding. I will have to get a couple new packs to bring with me to Nats. On the plus side I test fired the stern guns from C and D turret against Yamatos port side. Empty both mags into it and well lets just say I will need to resheet the port side. The single guns had no problem ripping holes into the old skin of Yamato. Oh well I was looking for an excuse to resheet it anyway and give it a new paint job.
