Not quite sure what you meant by this. If the hull doesn't possess a knuckle or step, then there's no stringer there anyway, right? I mean, I wish my Baden had a waterline stringer from bow to stern. But the hull (both the original "full scale" and the model) are flat at the waterline. Therefore, I can't put a stringer there. OTOH, If you look at these pics: When you blow them up, you can clearly see an armor belt running forward from the casement deck toward the bow (below the portholes). So a stringer at that location would be legit. NOTE: My 20-year old Baden hull has NO stringers at all. If I was still battling that ship, I'd probably modify it to have the bow & stern stringers. As far as making them 'visible', I'm modifying my opinion to state that they need not be stepped in the balsa, so long as they can be felt thru the balsa. I'll concede the "ease of sheeting" argument there. Keep in mind that McSpuds is going to be CD, not me. This is just my take on it. I do know that he will object to a stringer where there's no hull feature justifying it. As far as the "stacking stringers" close enough to not permit a bb through, .177" scales to 25" IRL. So if there were two hull features requiring a step or knuckle within 2 feet of one another on the real ship, I'd say you're golden. Other than that, I'd say you're pushing the intent of the rules for a slight advantage, and where's the fun in that?
Prototype ship has a visible step at the armor belt, but the glass hull does not. Builder wishes a stringer at the belt location and cuts the hull accordingly. There is no step in the fiberglass, you COULD sheet smooth over it, but doing so would hide the installed stringer. Seems to me that if the builder wishes the stringer to be there, it must be visible in the balsa in that scenario since it is not in the underlying hull, despite the prototype.
Example would be where the AB fairs into the hull at the ends. On the VV it is very gradual (Italians like it soothe), and in that boat it does not form a ledge but is allowed a stringer on the ends to meet with the next rib.
Easy to do the belt in balsa as you said and would make everyone happy, but lets be REAL, after one battle the patches cover and soothe over the knuckle and it becomes flat very quickly.
The rules specifically say that the stringers go where the shape of the hull dictates, and do not call out having enough room between for a BB to pass. In the case of Malaya, that meant that my stringers were close together. Because there are people who read 'only where the shape of the hull dictates' and then say that this means I should place the QE's stringers further apart than the shape of the hull dictates... I leave Malaya on the shelf because I'd rather shelf it than argue.
The rules also clearly state the it has to pass a 1/8" rod drop test. So if you say it is penetrable and is not, then it will fail this test. That is just my opinion. No worries if most others do not see it this way. We missed you at Wade's BANZAI!!!!!!!!!!!
Here is a picture with the armor belt visible from fore to aft. Its not super thick but it does exist. http://www.sms-navy.com/bb/SMS_Baden-stbdmid.jpg For the record.. this ship came to me as is when I bought it in 2009. I was by the author of the Casement rule that I could move the stringer up closer to the casement deck because that it where it was located on the ship... and in doing so would have the casement deck.. 1/8 of open space.. and the stringer... giving me in essence 3/8 of impenetrable area. Is it all 'hard area' .. no.. but it would not pass a drop test. I didn't want to do that as I felt it wouldn't be fair. Based on the picture.. the armor belt I have seems to be in the right place.
I think we all missed a point here... the casement rule includes a diagram which as it reads.. The following are examples of classes and their maximum deck and stringer hard area. In cases where there are questions, the drawing shall be final. According to appendix A.. both the Baden AND the QE are FORCED to have a 1/4 inch forecastle deck, per the rules leaving only 1/4 inch of hard area vertically to work with. That leaves the 'stringer' which is actually the casement deck.. and a stringer for an armor belt. If you have 3 stringers... then how thick is your forecastle deck? It seems that either you have 5/8 of hard area vertically which is a rule violation.. OR a forecastle deck that is 1/8.. which is in violation of Appendix A. I realize the one rule said we can add stringers as the hull shape dictates.. but Appendix A is very clear.. we are REQUIRED to have a 1/4 inch forecastle deck above the casements. Point is we cant just add stringers just because the hull dictates it, but the rule does allow for 2 stringers for the Baden and QE (one is really a deck). I know of several folks that said they were going to use two stringers at the waterline to make the hull shape.. perhaps they didn't read the rule closely. As far as putting two stringers together...if it were legal for the QE, I doubt that moving the stringers from .125 to .180 would grossly alter the appearance of the ship.. but moving them farther apart WOULD ensure that the ship would pass the 1/8 drop test. That sounds very fair to me. And yes we missed you and the lil' Scharney at the event. I needed help with the Greeks... Josh kept chasing cruisers!!
For all who read this and may be tempted to think that Johnny and I are arguing We are not Just discussing technical stuff can sometimes sound like an argument because we're swapping data and making rule references The deck/subdeck combo are 1/4" where there are 2 stringers. In those areas, I even made the subdeck from 1/8" ply vice 1/4" in those areas to ensure that I was no thicker than 1/4" total. But Malaya is built letter of the law, no squirrelly stuff I took a lot of pics while building, since it'd be covered when sheeted and armored. The only area of disagreement (as far as I know) on Malaya is the stringer proximity. The subdecks are totally legit and no casements at all. The QE in the diagram is the early version with all the casements, not the late version with none. I asked during construction and Bob (IIRC) told me that it didn't apply to the late version with the different hull. The 2 stringers for the double-bulged QE's are both for edges of the bulge at the waterline, no decks involved (since no casements) The main reason that the stringers are put there has nothing to do with gunfire protection, it's for anti-ram protection. I remember seeing many QEs taking bad ram damage because the bent balsa on the edges of the bulges was unsupported inside the bend. A ship could just give it a hard tap and it'd burst open due to the strain. On Malaya, there are many areas where a BB could split the difference, but even on a ship with two stringers .180" apart, that little area would likely not pass a drop test because the balsa would be well-supported above and below where the rod hits. My Baden was already built when the rule passed, and I dremeled a bevel in the subdeck to make it thin enough as I had seen other guys do. Then it got sold, so totally not my issue now I like the little German ships, very hard to put down. Greeks? Here? The nerve! I will make it next year. By then, Lil Scharny will have a sister... Lil Gneisie, with a bunch of improvements that I wanted to make but that required a new hull.
I went and checked; it was Bob who told me in the build thread. I also grabbed a pic of the deck and subdeck being put in: It's 1/8" ply all around, except for the area at the extreme stern where there is no double stringer, and I added a piece of 1/8" ply there to make the deck and subdeck 3/8" thick. Now that I'm thinking back, I had decided that it'd be easier to add 1/8" in the back than to sand a 1/8" bevel the length of the danged thing. While the pic doesn't have the stringers cut out, you can see how far apart the solid area tape lines are over most of the length.
Just to clarify, also. Not arguing either. This hobby doesn't employ hordes of lawyers to write ironclad be-all, end-all, cover every eventuality rules. We don't employ hordes of lawyers to debate said rules, either. So whenever something crops up that could be interpreted several ways, the 1st step in solving the debate is hashing out the various aspects. Usually a consensus is reached and we go merrily on our way to shooting each other. Very rarely, disputes have to go before the rules committee so they can figure out where they need to tighten up the verbiage to eliminate the fuzzy area. Tuggy, Johnny, and myself have all faced each other across the pond-of-battle, and have great respect and affection for one another. Even if Johnny is Axis scum.
We may not employ the Sea Lawyers but they do plenty of Pro Bono work at the Nationals Rules meeting.
I totally missed that you built the non-casement version.. but I think the info is important for those that do build the casement. According to the rule we can't just choose to make the deck 1/8 inch to create the extra stringer.. the diagram is the last word. Personally... I think the rule stinks... converting a deck into a stringer was not a good idea. I dont think making a forcastle deck the thickest deck makes any sense. Anyone want to work on a rule change? Later J
I would but the only successful rule change I ever pushed was the quarter-unit cannon rule, rendered moot by MWCI folding I really dearly wanted to see the rule proposal pass that would've allowed ships 'in commission between 1905 and 1945' replace 'ships commissioned between 1905 and 1945', but them's the breaks. Nothing I wanted to fall on my sword over.
While I am new here, and not in any way saying that there should be no rules, I think we could really use a new "in the spirit of having fun and promoting the hobby" rule. Where some small stuff could be slightly bent/overlooked in the spirit of fun/getting more people on the water. I just feel like if your hobby is making rules and then enforcing them much more than r/c boat modeling, maybe you should be in the rotary or lions club instead of doing r/c combat. In the r/c airplane world we have what's known as "field Nazi's" a lot of us call them cj's, stands for circle jerks, as they only fly in circles if/when they do fly. I've seen many potential new club members decide that r/c airplanes isn't worth it after meeting these guys. Now we have the while FAA registration debacle due to displaced potential members going to quad copters in non r/c flight areas and causing issues with the general public. Just saying, we should all consider the possibility of worst case scenarios actually happening.
What is in this thread is a rules clarification problem, not one of overzealous nitpicking by a few rules zealots. Fortunately the IRCWCC, like many groups, has a formal process of adapting and updating its rules to address issues, of which the informal discussion here is a useful aspect.
