A number of other people have recently started construction on extremely small transport ships. Windrider, in particular, was interested in how my own extremely small transport works, and today I finally got the opportunity to take some photos. I also found a few photos from early on in the construction, showing individual components before installation. For those of you building your own microscopic transports, I hope you find this photo tour helpful. Here is an overview of the ship. You can see radio in the bow, battery and rudder servo amidships, and pump and drive motor aft. Not visible is the speed controller, down in the bilges on the port side. Please note the chunks of foam used to temporarily hold battery and radio in place. These are not the final battery and radio, and I will build proper mounts once I do find the final battery and radio. Stern closeup. Hindmost is the rudder. Note the double-arm tiller I use, this is an R/C airplane wheel-pant mount for 1/8" axles. Next up is the prop shaft and stuffing tube. The stuffing tube is approximately 1" of 1/8"ID brass tube, superglued in place, and it works quite well. The prop shaft, which was included with the prop itself, is unfortunately less successful. It's a #2-56 servo ball mount thingie, with threads on one end and an approximately 1/8"OD pipe on the other. This roughly fits a 1/16" rod, that extends to the motor coupling. Unfortunately the entire propshaft is loose, crooked, and sloppy. It leaks and vibrates and causes all sorts of problems, and I intend to replace it as soon as possible. Next is the motor and coupling. The coupling is 1/16"id gas line, with a collar on one end to clamp it onto the propshaft. It press-fits snugly onto the motor's 2mm shaft, so no issues there. I do not know what motor I am using, I bought it at a surplus store and it had no labels. It's about the size of a 280 motor, but is shorter in length and much lower power draw. Last in this photo is the bilge pump. I'll go into detail about it later, but for right now, all you need to know is it's there. Midships closeup. Here you can see the rudder servo and the current battery. The rudder servo is a very short ultra-micro servo, and it is raised at least 1/4" off the bottom, for protection from water. I have drilled holes in the side for drainage and rapid flushing with rubbing alcohol in case of a sink. You can also see that the linkages to the tiller aren't quite straight. This is because they actually bend underneath the cross-brace. I've considered cutting slots in the brace for the linkages, but it hasn't affected performance at all. Don't fix it if it ain't broke, eh? In the port side (top) bilge, you can see a small tangle of wires. This is my secret weapon: an ESC so tiny it's smaller than a servo board. In fact, it is a VEX motor circuit board, ripped straight from a VEX servomotor. It is compact, lightweight, and capable of handling high voltages. It can't handle a lot of current draw, though, so I need to add a heat sink. Right now, its overheat protection shuts propulsion down to cool every five minutes or so. Last in this photo is the battery. It's a fairly standard 6v NiMH receiver battery, at 1400mah. I'm not quite getting up to speed, though, so I'll be trying an 8.4v RC car pack next. Bow closeup. That's the receiver. Yeah, it's an old, standard-size 8-channel receiver. I know that's wasted weight, but for right now, it's ballast. I'll switch out for a lighter receiver when I install the 8.4v battery, but until then this bulky receiver keeps my bow at waterline. This photo also best shows off my two attempts at deck sealing. The first attempt consisted of epoxy with microballoons, and the deck sandwiched down from above. It failed spectacularly, as the epoxy was still too runny, and formed bubbles, ran off the subdeck, and otherwise failed to seal. The second attempt was made with blue automotive RTV silicone. I used the same technique, applied it to the subdeck, then squished the deck down on top. This works much better, so now the ship can survive for at least 10 seconds completely (over the smokestack) submerged. Exterior stern closeup. Here you can see my shiny brass rudder and propeller. I'm very proud of these. The rudder is sheet brass soldered to a 1/8" brass rod, and the prop is a very high-quality cast brass with shaped blades, approximately 5/8" diameter. Alas, I don't know where to get more of them, because I got it from a friend. Alas, the prop isn't quite as low on the hull as it could be, but it does line up better with the motor like this.
Here's a few photos of the outside. You can see battle damage from Maker Faire 2009, along with her basic superstructure, 3/4 deck screws, and the bilge pump outlet. Alas, the fourth deck screw is at home, while I am at school. I will retrieve it in a few weeks and restore it to its place of glory. As you can see, the superstructure is quite minimal right now, only a basic bridge. I still have a lifeboat to install, and I want to use a mini whip antenna as both mainmast and antenna. When I install the antenna, the superstructure will be moved back to its correct scale location. Right now it's too far forward, to compensate, appearance-wise, for the missing mast. The bridge is constructed of 3/32" basswood, hand-cut with an exacto, and a very thin plastic tube for the smokestack. In the WWCC, convoy ships are allowed to ram. Willie has a specially-sharpened bow specifically for that purpose. Not that 12oz of unarmed ship moving at 25 knots is going to do much, but I'm allowed to try! The bow cuts through water very nicely, and handles waves just fine. Combined with her excellent deck seal, the Willie Maykett will be ready for the high seas. My, what fine lines you have! Can you spot the bottom edge of my balsa? Of course not! I skinned this boat with a single piece of 1/32" balsa, wrapped all the way around from bottom to top. Even though I'm allowed 1/16" balsa, I used the thinner material to better match the hull curves. This also added 1/32" to the hull depth, giving me that extra little bit of displacement. It's far from the full inch I'm allowed, but I didn't want to deviate too far from scale on a ship this small. Here you can see the bilge pump outlet. This little pump is not very big, but it is very capable. It can shoot a 1/8" beam of water a foot straight into the air. It's a good thing I've got this pump, because Willie Maykett's propshaft is pretty leaky right now. Without it, she would have sunk several times over on sea trials. One thing you'll notice about the Willie Maykett is that, compared to other micro transports, she is unusually skinny for her length and depth. This uncommon hull shape translates to a very low center of gravity which, combined with her sealed wooden superstructure, means Willie Maykett is actually capable of self-righting from ANY possible position. My earlier tramp steamers, the Puma class, were lost several times due to accidental collisions pushing them beyond their ability to self-right, and the 17-inch British Light Transport (aka BLT, aka Bite-Size Snack) was sunk due to collisions. But not Willie Maykett. You can run her over with an Iowa and drive back and forth a few times just to make sure, but she'll pop right back up again, right as rain. Not that I care to test that particular scenario, but I have pool-tested and confirmed her self-righting capability.
This is a nice-looking little boat, Kotori. Now that you've mentioned how the Willie Maykett can right itself from being run over, I actually want to see an Iowa (or a Yamato) run over this little boat, back over it a few times, and then drive away feeling smug only to be flabbergasted when it pops back up with a smile. The sheer hilarity of that video would have us all laughing for years.
Since you asked, bb26, yes that is a bilge pump in there. And just for you, I have a photo taken before the build, showing the bilge pump along with a few other components I used. The bilge pump is a custom build by the WWCC's resident pump builder, Dave. To give you an idea of size, that's an 18mm diameter maxon motor to the right. Dave took the guts from a stripped HS-81 micro-servo, and used the motor and electronics to make this. It's powered directly off the receiver, and it seems to work just as well in reverse as it does in forwards. And if you thought putting a bilge pump in a ship this tiny was impressive, think again. Willie Maykett has a functional water channel, too! Take another look at the interior views. See that white stuff in the bottom of the ship? Notice how it's different from the grey fiberglass? Alas, the one downside to a pump this small is that is a very picky eater. It likes water, and only water, and really doesn't care for debris. It doesn't mind individual balsa splinters, but it'll choke if you feed it two splinters at a time. To the right, you can see the 18mm maxon motor I originally used in the Willie Maykett. This is an impressive little motor, but it prefers higher voltages than the 6v I could provide. Its torque was particularly lacking, and the vibrating propshaft would sometimes require more torque than that maxon could provide. It certainly wasn't getting me up to speed, so I have since installed the motor you see in more recent photos. This motor works better, but I won't know for certain how much better until I get her under the radar gun. I couldn't do a timed 100-foot speed run if I wanted to, because there isn't that much stationary water in all of CSU Chico! We've got creeks and rivers and hot tubs and inflate-a-pools, but no respectable bodies of open water. At the bottom you can see the speed controller I'm currently using. This is a VEX motor controller. It's basically a circuitboard ripped out of a continuous-rotation standard servo. It is designed for use in robots, so it can actually handle 9v and has built-in thermal protection for when you draw too much current. The thermal protection works quite well, I can assure you. Since I skotchkoted mine, it has a little more difficulty dissipating heat, and shuts down every 3 to 5 minutes to cool for a bit. I need to install a heat sink, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
