RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Update: I will be posting a number of lessons tonite, including skinning the ship (the hard area), fiberglassing the skinned area, starting your water channelling, and building your rudder. I will be making up for lost time (lost during the build-testing phase). The gun-building lesson, pump lesson, and drive lesson will be in the next week or so, so get ready to make a lot of progress!
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Yeah, I was playing with my ball-bearing interrupter geek-breech cannon on Sunday. It works like mad, I am so stoked Using the ball bearing interrupter saves individual builders the hassle of finding the springs and interrupter pins.
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" I hope you'll also be finishing the seminar on waterproofing servos. I can't wait to find out what comes next
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Honestly, the only thing I plan on doing at this point for the servos is drilling a small drain hole. If the test servo was still doing fine after 30 minutes at 3' depth, I'm happy with it. If someone wants to put lithium grease in the top, do it before the epoxy step. Really, all it does after a short period is start to break down and cause increased resistance to movement in the gear end. A drain hole near the bottom (but above the epoxy) will allow the water to drain out of the housing after a sink.
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Zo, schtudentz!! You haff had enuff break time, ja?? JA??? Ser gut! I've had to slow down a bit until I get the other blockage taken care of (Nov 3 if you're curious) but I have gotten some work done. Today, we are skinning the hard area of the ship; the part that is 1" below the waterline. Your school supplies for this endeavor will be several sheets of 4" wide 1/32" balsa (or 1/64" plywood, although forbrevity's sake, I'll be referring to balsa in the lesson) and CA glue (aka superglue) First thing to do is to mark the '1" below the waterline' point on all the ribs, preferably with a black Sharpie marker so it stands out nicely. It'll be covered by the hull skin and sheeting later. [pic to be added] Take a piece of 1/32" balsa and line it up carefully along the centerline of the keel, as shown below, and then superglue it along the keel (but not the ribs (yet). Next , pick the widest rib on the boat (usually near the middle of the hull front-to-back), and run a line of CA from near the keel to the 1" below line, and press the balsa down until it is good and stuck to the rib. If you can repeat this on the two ribs next to that first one without cutting to relieve stress, do so. Further from the middle rib that we started with, the curve of the hull will prevent the balsa from following the curve without snapping the balsa or warping badly. In these cases, you must use your snap knife to cut a thin triangle in the balsa over one of the ribs. This missing section (apex of triangle clsest to the keel, wide part out at the edge) will allow the balsa to bend in an orderly fashion. I will be making more pics of this process but my infirmity is keeping me from getting in much shop time at the moment. Below, you can see quite a bit of one side sheeted with this method. The piece of balsa closest to the camera is a small separate sheet, which brings me to another important point. The end of each sheet of balsa should end up taking 1/8" of a rib, i.e. hald of the width of the rib, so that the next sheet to be attached will have something to grab on to. Below you see the hull more thoroughly skinned, and I put little light blue dots on the relief cuts that I had to make, or at least on the ones you can see in this pic. This task takes time and attention to detail, but it's not particularly demanding mentally apart from that. Note that the sheets of balsa on each side do not necessarily match up to each other. This is fine, but if you are a strong Type A, feel free to make each side symmetrical And then...In this pic, you can see where I have a flap sticking up on the end, about to be trimmed and worked on, and more importantly, you can see (about halfway down the length of the hull) where a piece of balsa broke, and was glued back into place, leaving a noticeable edge. This is okay, and will happen. Just glue the piece back into place, and then when the hull is fully skinned (prior to adding the layers of fiberglass), you are going to be sanding it smooth anyway, which will address the edge and make it invisible. We want the hull smooth before the fiberglass goes on!! Finally, take a ruler, and go back to measure the top edge of your balsa; make sure nothing is higher than 1" below the waterline!!! If something crosses that line, trim it to fit. If you're close, but not sure, trim a bit. Better to give away a little hard area than to be told to fix it after it's sheeted, lakeside! In the next lesson, I will show a couple of pics of the front and back, where the balsa is sanded to be fair with the hardwood sections at the ends. And we will begin covering the balsa with fiberglass for strength!! Until ze next time, schudentz!!! Heil Fluegel!!
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" You want to see the GUNS?!?! Ah... the guns. I have been very happy with the guns. That will be a good part of the class, too. It is what is called a 'geek breech' cannon, so called because 'any geek can use it'; which for me is a good thing. No tweaking means less for me to do lakeside when other stuff is probably already needing to be fixed because it's broken that morning for no reason It is also a 'modified ball bearing interrupter' cannon, which will be more fully explained in the lesson on building these wee beasties. This is good because we get a good rate of fire, but don't have to buy little fiddly springs nor interrupter pins. One bag of stainless steel ball bearings and some copper tubing is good Note that It has a large Clippard fitting (suitable for the 1/8" ID hose) going straight into the bottom of the gun. Go ugly early and get max pressure to the gun. There will be some blowtorch soldering involved in the assembly, but A 'bigger picture' view of the whole gun, still connected to the test rig. .
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Ball bearing interupters will have a hard time giving = - 10% on shots fired. I know easy to make and all that until you are Nats and some Prick asks for you to demo. Double shots happen more with BB tees.
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Perhaps. The 1/8" line though flows enough air to possibly make a ball bearing interrupter more positive acting. It'll be interesting to see how it works out.
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Dang, Joker, that's inspiring Brings a tear to me eye! But only an A- because you haven't got the cranes Damn fine work, man. Please take a bigger pic so I can put it up as my computer wallpaper!!! Also, we will be hanging great huge French flags on the fantail flagpole! Since our guns are not in the main turrets, we can actually fly a flag there! Now, how many Edgar Quniets can we get to the Brouhaha on the Bayou next year? I'm going for the 'Most Smokestacks In A Photo' award!!! Also, since there are only two, make sure to get a silly but French-ish name! Someone suggested I call mine MN Jacques Cousteau, and I thought about plagiarizing 'Pillar of Autumn' from Halo (although in my case, she'd be the 'Pillar of Awesome')... I wound up sticking with MN Jean Fromage. Bonus points if you get the reference... As far as the guns go, I tortured the heck out of them, high (144#) pressure, low pressure (110#), slow rate of fire, high rate of fire, and they single-shotted every time. No stutters. I'm using the method outlined in the HowTo on the MWC site by Bob Sloan, although I substituted a 7/32" ball bearing vice a 1/4". The tubing is pink silicon RC aircraft fuel tubing that sells in packs of like 2 feet for $2.99 which will do an Edgar Quinet 12 times over. I'm pretty sure that the 1/8" gas line firing straight up under the ball bearing helps with getting things going and preventing spurts, also aided by the slightly lighter 7/32" bearing. Pew! Pew! Pew! The cannon-making lesson will be after we fiberglass the solid area and add water channeling, the drive, pump, and rudder. Never fear, my ship is already fully 'glassed and channeled and pics have been taken and uploaded to my pc, so that lesson is very soon (probably tomorrow morning over coffee). The pump is not too hard to do and pretty inexpensive. While I will be giving due credit in the individual lessons, Bob from Port Polar Bear had a significant role in improving the guns (Although he doesn't know it yet) and the Great One, aka Grossadmiral Fluegel had siginificant input on the pump (by way of an old hullbusters article that pointed out some things in a different way than I was thinking).
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" it will have the cranes. i do have the pump drive motor and shaft in
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Hokay!! After more uff zee delays, ve persevere unt drive ONWARDS!! A lezzon on fiberglassing, ja?! JA?! SER GOOT! Okay, for this lesson, you will need: a bag of auto repair fiberglass (I got it at a local auto repair store, don't get the 'Heavy' type, anything between 2 and 5 ounces is fine) which is a large piece of 'cloth' which is, yes, glass! You will also need waterproof (not water resistant) epoxy of your choice, cups to mix it in, stir sticks, and some cheap paintbrushes. A pair of scissors is also needed to trim the cloth. Most of the pics are going to have to wait, as I was alone when I glassed my hull and this process is not one that lends itself to do-a-little, pick up expensive digital camera, do-a-bit-more, camera agin. I will be doing a demo ON VIDEO after I get done having my coronary arteries cleared out. I've tried to convey the sense of the process in this lesson. If you're actually on this step and building right now, please email me with any questions, I'll do my best to help * Be prepared to mix more epoxy as you go, one cup may not do it. DO NOT use a quick-curing epoxy, either! Some disposable latex gloves may be helpful in keeping your hands clean Also, remember to call your mother, how long has it been since she heard from you? 1) Sit the hull upside-down so you can look upon your beautifully-sanded keel. 2) Cut a piece of the cloth roughly 2 feet long, and wide enough to hang down and cover completely the hard area in the middle of the hull on both sides. (pic coming, but you can visualize). 3) Using the scissors, make 4 or 5 evenly-spaced cuts from the hanging edge of the cloth up to withing 2" of the centerline. This needs to be done on both sides! These will help us comform the glass cloth to the shape of the hull. 4) Mix a moderate amount of epoxy in a cup, and pour a good puddle in the center of the hull. Spread it out along the centerline with the brush, you will know when you've got the cloth soaked because you can see the wood through it pretty clearly. Cloth that is inadequately soaked thru will be kind of hazy white. Next, you will start to gently spread more epoxy down towards the loose bottom edge (beginning this part in the middle of the hull, not at one of the ends!!). You start this in the middle so that you have the largest part down pretty well before getting the curvy parts closer to the ends of the ship, which will require a little tugging on the cloth. Work your way forward from the middle of the hull, painting on the epoxy as you go. As you paint it on, pull down gently on the cloth, but not outwards. You want to to stick to the hull When you get to the first cut that you made, take that section by the center of that bottom edge, and pullit down and slightly backso that it follows the curve of the hull, and paint it with epoxy. It will overlap the section you already did by a little, but that's fine. Repeat this on the whole side that you started on, doing the stern half of each side in the same manner as the forward half. Below, you can see the first layer after it's been soaked in epoxy. Note that the wood can be easily seen! Below, we have more glass cloth on and more epoxy. If you look at the funky spot on the centerlin close to the camera where the glass is kind of whitish, I managed to get a pic showing a spot that wasn't well-soaked in epoxy. This can easily happen in areas where you are asking the glass to make a sharper turn than it wants to. This is frequently at the bow and stern at the keel. umBelow you can see the stern end of the keel, where the angles REALLY change!! In this situation, it's easiest to cut a couple of lines parallel to the keel and soak it with epoxy! Also note that this is NOT the first coat of glass cloth, and you can still see the wood grain easily through the glass! All that extra cloth will be trimmed away after the glassing is done, using a dremel with a cutoff wheel. Until ze next time, schtudents!!! Heil Fluegel!!!
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Quick newb question here, where do I find the paper guide for the keel? I'm still about half way through the ribs but can't find the keel cut out. Er, the rear keel cut out.
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Was somewhere back near page 15-16ish www.rcnavalcombat.com/Portals/0/Users/R-Z/TugBoat/Ed%20keels%20fore%20and%20aft.jpg
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Dude, I just got released from the ICU like 3 hours ago. Give me a sec! I have the rudder done, I'll post the pattern piece and stuff in the AM. Still kind of wasted from the procedure. Not that I don't feel bad that I've slowed down the class but damn, this is my freaking heart, y'know? It's gonna take a few days to get back up to speed.
RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Okay, I'll get the pics off the camera after I got out to the shop. The file I made for the rudder outlines is here: www.rcnavalcombat.com/Portals/0/Use...rawing.jpg It has 6 rudder outlines, you only need 3 really, but I had room for the extras and some people are building more than one ship When you print the pic, turn OFF size correction (i.e. no 'Fit to Page') so that the rudders are the right size. If you are building your cruiser to a ruleset that does not allow scale size and shape ruders, build whatever fits. For MWC, I was told to go with scale size and shape. For IRCWCC, I am given to understand that you can do scale size and shape but if someone challenges it, you have to prove it. In such a case, refer the person in question to the French Navy page where the plans come from. Can't get more authentic than the French Navy's scans of their own shipyard plans, on a French Navy maintained site Lesson on rudder construction to follow shortly! You will need 1/8" plywood, 1/8" diameter brass or stainless steel rod, a saw of some type, and a hammer Oh, epoxy and superglue would be helpful. CA glue not strictly necessary tho.
