I apologize for not having been able to get to your question earlier; we're still settling in, in Fredericksburg and the internet just became available this afternoon. As designed, the ribs are 1/4" while the decks and keels are all 1/8" plywood. In the past week, it occurred to me that it might be preferable to make the forward deck and subdeck using lite ply while keeping with conventional baltic plywood for the keels and the two thin end ribs that are on that sheet so as to make it easier to ensure that the deck bends to its proper shape without distorting other components. Hopefully the material you ordered works for the thicknesses as designed; if not, the design is buildable with the keels made from thicker material although it would require modification of some of the parts outside of the intended scope of the design.
Welcome back Webwookie!!! We missed you! Hope the move went well!!! OK that's a big DDOOOHHH on my part on the thickness of the keels... If I were a smarter man I might have measured one of the slots in the ribs that accomatate the keels to figure out how thick they should be.[V] Oh well, all's good.. it still fits on the material I ordered[] As for the lite ply??? Ok, I'm a dufus... I don't really know what that is?? I'm assuming that it's a little thinner than 1/8"? Of course we all see what happened the last time I ASSumed something[V] Since everything still fits on the 1/8", I can go ahead and cut the fore decks from it unless you think it's a waste of time. If I can get ahold of some of this lite ply before I cut, I can make fore decks from that also, so it can be evaluated either way, but I do have a bit of a busy schedule this week[]
Lite ply uses (I'm not sure if this is true for all thicknesses) three layers of poplar as opposed to the birch used for conventional plywood. the strength of lite ply is inferior compared to birch/baltic plywood but it's slightly tougher (although no necessarily stronger) than a equivalent-weight quantity of balsa. A lot of ARF RC aircraft use it for ribs as a cost/weight savings measure over using birch plywood (less costly) and balsa (less ribs needed for a given wingspan). Go ahead and go for cutting the parts from the 1/8"; since I may be building a hull in the near future using the printed plans and a bandsaw I hope to acquire in the not too far off future, I'll see how it works using lite ply for the forward deck and subdeck.
That must be the stuff on the National Balsa website. Now that you've explained it I remember seeing it there. I will carry on as planned. The fore decks would be easy enough to do by hand if it is apparent that the baltic birch is too stiff.
OK, since I finally got back to the forum for the first time in quite a while, I figured I should leave an update.... We made an "attempt" to cut the parts a couple of weeks ago. I say attempt, because, as in real life, things rarely go as planned. Basically, due to a large number of issues, the cutting of all of the 1/8 inch parts went... well in a word.... bad. Here is the short list: 1) The plywood I ordered was not as flat as one might hope, and had to be cut to ship. Although not terrible, it wasn't great either. I would say that an experienced builder could probably come up with a game plan and get it to glue together straight, but it would not be easy. 2) Compounded by the warpage and the small sheet sizes, and the fact that our machine its typically used to cut fairly large pieces (so the supports on the bed are pretty "course") the material kept vibrating as the high pressure air went over the thinner areas. This caused a real rough saw tooth looking cut on some of the smaller pieces. Then, when one finished cutting, it would fall under the sheet, due to the wide spaced bed supports, and get cut by a subsequent pass. 3) We don't cut wood, so we are still fumbling around with some of the settings to get a nice clean cut. 4) The final blow was the fact that through rushing around taking care of all of this on a time constraint, a bad offset change was made which caused all of the 1/8" ply to get cut .015" to the inside of the desired profile per side. This may not seem like a big deal, but that means all of the notches are .030" too wide, and the ribs don't fit in them worth a darn. So we burned through about $80 worth of wood, and have little to show for it. [xx(][!][V][?][:0][B)] On the semi bright side, if I remember right, all of the ribs are good!!??? [] I guess I'll have to try to find a sheet large enough to clamp well on the machine locally, which will alleviate most of the problems. I can't really mail order a 60 x 60 sheet... well I can, but it would have to be shipped by truck, and then the shipping is far more than the cost of the wood. [V] If I can get another sheet, we can try again, but we also started working OT, and I also have some personal real life interference going on right now. So it would be a while before this could happen. I think I'll try to glue one together to see how it works out. [?] Just thought everyone would like an update!! Here's a few pics. of where it's at now:
Oh my, sounds like you had quite a bit of... fun... when you went to cut the parts. It's probably still salvageable, if you get clever about how you put stuff together. None of the wooden boats I've ever built had snap-together tolerances. You may find it helpful to get a big rectangular block of aluminum, brass, or other cheap metal, with one dimension being equal to the rib spacing. You can then use that rectangular block to square up the ribs to the keel and subdeck before gluing it all together. Or you could just square it up by eye. Either way works. If you don't want 'em, send 'em over to me. I'll put them together
Well, they were intended go out to a couple guys (yourself included)as test builds, so you are welcome to them if I can gather up complete sets. I am honestly embarrased of the non compliance to plans.[:I] I'll see if any complete sets look useable. I think all of the 1/4" is good (the ribs). It's the 1/8" thick parts that are an issue. It was getting late in the day when we caught the problem, and that took what little wind that was still left in our sails out. We still had some to cut, but had to give up for the day due to prior engagements. I'll go through the pile and see what's there. [] Great suggestion on the block, I'll see what I can drum up.[]
Don't give up hope on the hulls... you may well be able to shim them into place. Once the joint is covered with CA or epoxy... You may never know the difference Mike
From the photo it looks like all the really important stuff (subdecks, keels, ribs) are intact. That's enough for me to make a hull out of. I am gearing up to begin construction on a pair of Viribus Unitis class dreadnoughts with all twelve 7/32" guns, a thousand rounds of ammo, and a 20-oz CO2 bottle, so I probably won't go much beyond assembling a useable hull from the parts. I would then gather as many components as I could and give it to a real rookie to complete. If someone else is interested and intends to build it all the way to completion, then give them priority over me.
Carl, I went through the pile of parts and gathered up enough for a complete hull, which you are of course welcome to. PM me an address to send it to. It will take me a bit to get it sent out, I'm buried in work and family right now. [] Mike3 & webwookie, you were the other intended recipients. I may be able to scrounge enough parts to send them out if you guys are interested in them as they are. Holler and I'll send them out. If I have to I'll saw cut a couple pieces for myself to finish mine, so I can send You guys yours. I do intend to try to do some better ones as time permits, so if either or both of you would rather try to hold out for one of those, let me know. I have begun assembling the one for myself, and as Carl said, the notch widths aren't turning out to be a big deal, and the warpage dosen't seem too bad either. Although the long double keels are pretty warped, they are so thin and delicate, they seem to form right to the ribs without any issue.
Please prioritize sending out parts to mike over me; between jumping onto the CAD work for the superstructure and the Gearing class hull on top of real life, I currently don't believe I'll have time to physically assemble an Emilé Bertin hull anytime reasonably soon. Once a real rookie build of the ship gets underway, all I should need are photos of the hull-in-progress to evaluate what does and doesn't work/where changes are necessary to to digital data. If there do turn out to be enough parts for us all, I'll have to see what I can do to find the space (even if only temporarily) for a hull.
Well, let's find out if Mike is interested before sending anything out. If he's got the time to do a complete build, then he should get the first.
You know what, i might be very interested in one of these ships. Will they be IRCWCC compatable or only big gun? Also, how long do you think it will be before they are available? and finally, how much do you think that they will cost? , thanks.
I'm still game... I may be delayed here and there by "didy dutie", But I can assemble and take pics. Cetainly willing to give it a try! Mike
This project was to design a rib layout for a ship that is legal in both fast gun clubs and big gun clubs. If you build it for IRCWCC, you need to use the thinner balsa they use. Big Gunners will simply use the thicker balsa wood they are allowed. The basic armament of bb guns should be similar, though some big gunners may want to convert it to use torpedoes at some point.
Looks like I have enough parts for 2 complete ships + most of the parts for the one I started. I'll send Mike3 one and Kotori/ Gascan one. I'll come up with the rest of the parts to finish mine sometime - I think I'm only one or two parts short. Boomer, I'll post a pic. of the one I started tomorrow if I get time. I want to get a couple more parts glued on first, again , if I have time. I'm nearing the point now that I really need to figure out the remainder of the assembly order so I don't glue myself into a corner!? Kotori/ Gascan if you want to PM me an address, I'll send one out as soon as I can.
Here are a few pics. of my current progess: At this point I must say that I am quite impressed with the ridgidity of the hull. Many of the pieces seem quite delicate, but once assembled together, they really become quite strong. The sub deck that everything is built on was the worst of the bunch that I had. It was warped to the tune of around 3/8 -1/2" Now, after some careful thought on how to hold it while the ribs and keels were glued on, it is probably straight to within .020" Of course, one humid day could change that... I better go get it clamped back down, it's raining here now!!
Mike3 and Kotori, I have the addresses, and will *try* to get the kits out this weekend.... Boomer, at this point I would say we are still a bit away from having everything nailed down on this. So it will be a while before things are finalized. As far as cost.... not sure either. I think Webwookie got some baseline quotes on the Gearing destroyer he is working on, but I'm not sure what was included in that. Although, of course, I have thought of trying to offer precut kits once everything is done, it's not really for me to say right now if that is a possibility or not. There would be a number of things to work thru before that could happen. Mainly, I don't own equipment to cut them on, I only have limited access to it, as well as the fact that this is Webwookies design, with lots of suggestions from others, so they have all the say in what can happen on that front.
