This project is now in the ways. Thanks to the incredible talent and good nature of Mark Jenks @rcengr, we were able to secure permission to use his laser cut kit of the Omaha Class Scout Cruiser and a 3D Printed superstructure of his design to build a mold set for one of my personal dream ships the USS Detroit. I simply must digress here to tell you that this kit was absolutely awesome. It fit together so snuggly without any forced parts. If you like building wood ships, I’ve seen none better than this Omaha Kit. But I’m a fiberglass guy, (From Detroit... you gotta be tough livin’ in the D) so we started out wrapping the lower hull surfaces with wax paper as a barrier to prevent the chemical reaction from melting the plastic wrap that will form our one shot pressure mold. Next my 14 year old learned some David Bowie tunes to help educate him about pressure. Followed by the quick mix and dump of a quart of urethane foam. Turned out to be a bit more than we needed and it smoked out the stretch wrap at the deck vents causing superheated steam to force volcanic eruption of materials through the vent holes and another Bowie Song. Turns out Orion is a Bowie fan! Tomorrow we will be finding the lump of gold inside this mountain... and making 17 swords for his school musical, The Pirates of Penzance.
He’s just your everyday scalawag pirate... he was the Beast last year in Beauty and the Beast, so he’s ok with being in the background with no lines to practice. Lol
Soon. Been back burnered for a while now because some excellent project opportunities popped up that had better, quicker returns on investment. Will be posting progress when it goes back to active status.
With the panic now ongoing in Detroit, the kids mandated out of school, and I with the day off, seemed stress releasing to work on the Detroit. Thing #6 rasped off the foam to find the ribs. She was twisted up good from the foam explosion, so we had to surgically cut the deck lip between her ribs, then clamp and wrap her to a back board in sections to get her keel straight. Filling in the relief cuts with Bondo to lock in the new straight shape. Thing #3 is ready for the big flu... working in the shop is the best quarantine.
A lot of surface finishing today... a bit concerned about the lack of skeg. Will figure it out. Thinking I’ll mold the chine keels right into the hull. Thoughts?
Keels, skegs, etc generally aren't of much use to us. Battlers, of course speaking for myself here, would greatly prefer if those items were omitted from the hull for us to add at our discretion or leave omitted. Rudder skegs especially, they can really hinder prop/rudder placement especially on a small boat with a tight rear end.
I considered that. I’m thinking I’ll skin the inside of the hull across the keels and skeg to make them cut-offable. I have way more scale customers than Combat.
