Hey folks! Update! The planking is done. 12 planks per ship, plus a keel. Man, using a disk sander is SO much easier than whittling the planks down by hand. The first two ships I planked completely by hand, using an Xacto to get planks to fit the curves and ends. The second two I did on the disk sander, and it was so much quicker and nicer I was blown away. so for anyone who wants to plank the bottom of a boat in the future, be sure you've got a powered sander of some sort. You will wither and die without it. Anyway, I have some repairs to make after this. Hull #3 didn't take the stress of planking very well, and is warping so badly that some of the ribs have come undone. I plan to reinforce the ribs with metal inserts, then clamp it down to a solid aluminum or steel plate while I epoxy the snot out of hit. Hopefully the combo of reinforcements and epoxy applied over the course of one week, plus one more week for good measure, will straighten everything out. Oddly enough, all the other hulls are fine, and I have no idea why hull #3 in particular went warpy. Here is one hull partway through the planking. I started by laying a plank on each side to define the absolute bottom of the penetrable, and worked my way in. Once I got past most of the rib curves, I moved to the middle and worked my way out. The planks were a little stiffer than expected. I used clamps to hold the planks in place while the CA cured (kicker only hardens the outside, and it wouldn't hold well until fully cured) There! Port side done on the last ship in line. I finished up the starboard side shortly after that.
We don't always have photos to show off because reporters aren't always allowed into the shipyards...
And construction continues! Actually, the repairs continue... To straighten out the severely warped hull #3, I bought two 1/2"x4"x24" aluminum bars. One for the bottom, one for the top. I then got all my clamps that fit around the ship and the aluminum bar, and liberally squished the hull flat. The epoxy is hardening as I type. Once that's done I'll apply a little more in the back, then unclamp it and see whether it worked. I *did* make one embarrassing little mistake. I never quite figured out how I could clamp the bottom of the hull to the bottom plate, and the top of the hull to the top plate at the same time. Turns out I didn't need the top plate, but it's still embarrassing to get a bunch of material that I really didn't need.
***UPDATE*** MORE PROGRESS!!! Actually, this is stuff I did last week, but only just now took pictures of it. Anyway, I built and installed the motor mounts, and began to install water channeling. The motor mounts were made from simple 90 degree angle aluminum. I drilled a hole for the front bushing on the motor to stick through, then milled a slot to either side for the screws. Alignment and positioning of the motor mounts are very good, and they are firmly held in place by a puddle of epoxy. The drive motor is a RS-365SH surplus motor. It's got very low power requirements (less than 2 amps STALL), low RPMs (about 8000-9000 free-spinning), and plenty of torque (I could not stop it with my fingers), so I'm going for a simple direct drive. The water channeling is a little bit more challenging. For these ships, the plan was to lay down two parallel barriers in the bottom of the boat, clear out the area between them, then fill the areas to either side with lead shot and epoxy. The lead shot would serve as ballast, and the thick layer of epoxy would raise the floor of the sides to higher than the floor of the water channel. So far I have installed all of the barriers except the amidships ones, which I can't put in until I buy some pumps. I will hold off on the lead and epoxy until I've done an initial ballast-test and I know how much lead I need to add to the epoxy mixture. Anyway, enough with the verbage. Let's see some pictures! The motor and its mount: Another view of the motor and its mount: This one shows off the puddle of epoxy that I poured to hold the mount in place: Here's an overview of the water channeling that I have currently intalled. Note that the amidships section is currently clear, but it will get its barriers installed as soon as I buy bilge pumps for the ships. An interesting perspective on the water channeling in the bow: Yes folks, there IS water channeling in the furthest forward section of the ship. I just used short planks instead of plywood because of the extensive curvature of the hull that far forward. And what would a major update like this be without showing the progress of all four boats?
***quick update*** I am working on mounting the rudder servo right now. I've come up with a new method of mounting a servo without screws, that will speed up recovery after a sink. I got about halfway through the installation before the building day ended. I don't have any photos to show you, but hopefully it will be sufficiently far along for photos next time.
The servo mount is done! and I have pictures! The basic idea behind my new servo mount is to lock the servo in place while running, but make access and replacement as easy as possible. To do that, I eliminated screws from the picture. I embedded the servo into the subdeck, perfectly lined up with the rudder post. Then I set the back part of the caprail down on top of the parts that (ordinarily) get screwed down. To top it off, the deck comes in from the front and solidly locks the servo in place. I intend to use a push-pull tiller setup, and once the two linkages are run from the (not built yet) rudder to the servo, they will hold the servo in place even if the deck is removed. All I'd need to do to remove the servo is pop off the servo horn, and it'll come right out. Flush with alcohol, drain and dry for a few minutes, and put it back in. In other news, there was a raffle and silent auction at today's Awards Meeting. My brother and I entered both, and between the two of us we made off like bandits [] overall, we got two cool books, a pound and a half of cerrobend, a battery-operated soldering iron, an american cruiser hull, and two pairs of beautiful 1" 25 degree pitch three-bladed props. I am not guaranteeing that these props will go on the transports (they were originally designed for 1.25" 4-blade props) but I test them alongside several other props to get the right ones for the job. If they don't work out, I have other projects that they'll work for.
Breaking it down, I have invested: 2-3 saturdays (at 4-5 hours each) picking plans and re-drawing cross-sections nearly 20 saturdays (at 4-5 hours each) in woodwork and assembly 3-4 weekdays (at 4-5 hours each) applying epoxy at home AND at least 24 hours worth of taking photos and writing up online forum posts like this one. Also, keep in mind that I usually spend half of my workshop time helping out other people in the shop, talking strategy and tactics, or otherwise distracted from my original purpose. At the rate I am going, it will probably take me 8-14 more weekends to finish the build.
So the real question is, now that you've got developed plans to work off of, how fast could you knock one out if you really applied yourself to the task at hand, and how much downtime is mixed in while waiting for epoxy/resin to harden, etc?
The answer to that, I do not know. Building wooden ships is an art. Nobody ever asked Da Vinci "how fast could you paint the Mona Lisa?" so I don't think your question is entirely fair to ask me. If I were to do it again, I would probably spend the same amount of time, because there are a number of improvements that I would make in the assembly of the hull and the planking process. To answer your question, though, you could probably cut construction time in half if you didn't make any improvements and spent more of each workday on the transports.
Keep in mind that Kotori and I only work on weekends (with some exceptions for epoxy). This allows us to spend the entire week planning how best to do the next step, or the step after that if the current step can't be improved on. While it's impressive to be able to build a ship really fast (the 21-year-old Alabama was built in less than 2 weeks) I think the down time we spend between building results in a better final product. The old adage "measure twice, cut once" SHOULD have been "plan five times, measure three times, cut once," and we've still had to go back and make minor fixes.
Well folks, I've got more progress to report! Over the past two weekends, Gascan and I carved the bow and stern impenetrable areas, and began work on the superstructure. I also ordered props and ESCs. The bow and stern impenetrable areas are built up from thick plywood, then carved and sanded to shape with various tools. For the bow, I started off with the band saw to trim off large chunks of excess material, then moved on to the shop's giant disk sander for the rest. It's not *quite* finished yet. I still have to apply wood filler to the bottom, then I will go over the whole thing with a hand-held power sander to finish the bottom and sharpen up the bow. The stern impenetrable proved a little more challenging. I was still able to use the bandsaw for removing large chunks of material, but the skeg in the back for the propshaft prevented me from using the big disk sander. Instead I busted out the Makita rotary tool (basically a big super-powered dremel) and fitted it with a woodcutting bit. This was quite effective, and easily removed the bulk of material that needed to come off. After that, I polished it off with a hand-held power sander. We also started construction on the Center Island. The PUMAs are "three island" steamers. The raised forecastle is the first island, the raised poop is the third island, but up until now the ships have been missing their all-important Center Island. For this, I opted for an unusual construction method. One of my design requirements calls for the pump outlet to be above the main deck. The best location for that is the lowest level of the center island. Since the pump (and therefore the pump outlet) will be securely mounted to the hull, anything that the pump outlet is mounted to must also be firmly mounted to the hull. I also need to be able to remove the deck, so anything over the deck must be stuck to the deck instead of the hull. What I decided upon was to mount the pump outlet in the port side of the center island's bottom level, and fix both sides to the caprail. This way I could have the side (holding the pump outlet) mounted to the hull, and not interfere with the installation and removal of the deck. I then mounted the front and back of the center island to the main deck. The rest of the island will be built on top of the front and back parts, and will stay with the deck.
Earlier this day, Sunday, April 13, four small and unarmed transports were christened and launched to join the WWCC for the maneuvering event that day. The ships were difficult to name, and a long list of possible serious and silly names, including famous people like SS Jack Daniels and Willie Maykett, fish like SS Scuttlefish and Flounder, famous swords from history and games like Excalibur, Balmung, and Frozen Tuna, British-battleship-like names like HMS Inedible and HMS Indigestible, and Japanese names like Fugu Maru and Baka Maru. The SS Henry Kaiser, which will be sold to Bob Moitoso, is named after the famous industrialist who worked on the Hoover Dam, operated a major shipyard in Richmond, CA, building Liberty ships (they made one in four days!) and later helped found the Kaiser Permanente HMO. He also said he can call it the Kaiser for short. The Shugu Maru, which will be sold to Dan Rygasewics, is named both for the glue commonly used in cannon construction (Shoe Goo) and for an earlier famous Japanese transport in the WWCC called the Hoodoo Maru (see the article about the NASWCA event at Gig Harbor in the Naval War College at www.rcwarships.org for details on the Hoodoo Maru). The SS Silverfish, which will be kept and owned by Carl Bitondo, was named because it sounds like a really cool US submarine. He was somewhat distressed to learn that a silverfish is actually an insect and not a sub, but decided to keep the name, claiming that it was "somehow more fitting that way..." The Ou Maru, which will be kept and owned by me, is named for the Japanese word for King. Unfortunately, this is also very close to the Japanese word for a kiddie training toilet (omaru vs ou maru), and the WWCC isn't known for correct spelling and pronunciation. The ships lacked pumps, some superstructure, and final ballast, but performed excellently. When launched, they were too fast, with an estimated speed in excess of 35 knots. Even after being slowed down to approximately the legal speed of 25 knots, they turned very sharp and very quickly. This, combined with their low free board, should make them very difficult targets. The Ou Maru placed third in the maneuvering event, I think, though I was more focused on the discussion afterwards about the Maker Faire. Overall, I had fun today and was satisfied with the initial sea trials of the four transports.
