Well what can I say...I've had a good teacher with good leasons! I just got the balsa planking glued on and I'm hoping to have the bottom fiberglassed by Thursday.
Achtung! Studenten who are preparink to zelebrate ze ollidayz vill be thrilled to learn zhat zere iss anuzzer lezzon comink! Propz, ja?! Zey makez der booten go ZOOM!! To make your own props for your CPOE cruiser, you will need: a ruler, a compass, tin snips, one sheet of 0.040" brass, one 1/8" I.D. brass collar, a short scrap piece of 1/8" stainless steel rod (like the propshaft, only a scrap piece), a blowtorch, and solder. A vice is best for holding the work, although one could prop up a pair of vice grips or something. WARNING: You DO NOT want the pieces falling apart while they are hot! Burns and other evilness could ensue... First step: On your brass sheet, draw a square 1.25" in diameter. Then, draw a pair of lines dividing this square into 4 pieces. You can do it corner to corner, or into 4 squares, it doesn't matter. Then, using your compass, draw a circle 1.25" in diameter, centered on the center point. Next, you need to use a centerpunch (or a spare nail) to make a little dimple at the exact center, where you will drill a 1/8" diameter hole! No picture here, sorry. You should be able to drill a hole by yourself by this point Use your tin snips or dremel to cut out the circle of brass with the hole in it. Below, you can see an early one of my props, not circular (the wierd shape is part of an experiement, ja?!), being constructed. The scrap 1/8" stainless rod is held vertically in the vice. Below, the disk is slipped over the rod, and I file the chrome plating off the bottom and a little of the edges of the collar to encourage a good solder bond. B...aaand the collar gets slipped onto the stainless rod, and it's time to think about soldering. If you've never soldered before, read the instructions on the blowtorch package VERY carefully; it is a tool that is fully capable of buring off body parts, causing VERY painfuly wounds, and burning your house/shop down. Burns are my very least favorite type of injury to endure, so PLEASE be very careful with the torch! WEAR SAFETY GOGGLES to protect from spatters!!! Get a short flame going, the bright blue part of the flame should be around 1/2" to 3/4" long. Eyeball it, don't melt your ruler. You want to heat up both the brass disk (easy) and the collar (takes longer because it's thicker). Hold the bright blue part of the flame (not the outer, cooler area of the flame) to the collar, moving it around to make sure the whole collar gets heated, and periodically 'spray' the disk. after 30 seconds or so, tough the solder to where the collar touches the disk and see if it melts. If it's too hot, there may be spattering, give it a few seconds and it'll cool. Once you get a little melty blob to adhere to the collar and disk, keep adding solder to the areas of the collar that don't have any solder yet. Don't go crazy with too much, but you want a little puddle of solder all the way around the collar-disk-junction. Need a pic of me torching here! Below you can see my experimental prop after soldering... you can see some discoloration on the collar, and some spattering. I got a little too much solder on the disk, but well within tolerances. You can always grind some away, right? I picked off the larger globs of solder spray with a screwdriver after the prop cooled. Give it at least 5 minutes to cool before even THINKING about touching it. Your fingers will thank you. A back view of the prop! This is what it looks like after cutting with the tin snips. To get the little twist on each blade, you make one cut straight along one of your 4 lines (the ones you drew way back in step 2), being careful not to cut too far. I leave 1/8" from the collar uncut on each line, to give a thicker area at the base of each prop blade. After the first cut, rotate the prop clockwise, make another identical cut. Repeat until there are 4 cuts, and you will see that the natural bend in the metal from the tin snips has put a slight twist on each blade. Take a pair of pliers and a piece of 1/8" scrap. Put the prop on the scrap, and tighten the locknut, this will give us something to exert a torque against. Using the pliers, twist each blade a little in turn. Don't go too far, we will be adjusting these during speed testing. Another view, on the front of the prop... Why is this the front? Because if the solder joint fails, the collar (behind the disk on the propshaft) will hold the prop on the shaft. This is nice because then you can resolder the prop back together and not have to make a new one from scratch! Note: I will be adding a few pics of trimming the sharp corners, but it's not rocket science. So if you wish to trim the corners, go for it! Until ze next time, schudenten!!!! Heil Fluegel!!
Achtung schtudenten!! Mein dumbkopf assistant vill be postingk der lezzon mit der cannonfabricking on Zunday after ze camping mit der Boy Shkouten.
I added part 1 of the gun-building lesson to the Weapons&Pneumatics forum. This is in keeping with my future plans for the Model Warship U, where the ship classes will reference classes in other areas (pumps, guns, etc). The gun class can be found at: www.rcnavalcombat.com/tabid/58/afv/...fault.aspx Part 2 will be posted tomorrow. Anyone who can build a ship to the point that we're at, can build their own guns. Stand by for a couple of lessons on the hull itself, as well. I got the CO2 bottle mounted, pump and drive lessons are coming...
Okay clark so back on the topic of the hull. I'm done with the initial glassing of the bottom hull and I've rough sanded it. Now as this was my first time using fiberglass there were several of the white areas where the glass didn't fully adhere to the hull and a couple of places where there were bubbles I think. Anyway, should I sand those areas out and fill with resin or just leave it as is? I'll post a few pics when I get them offloaded from my camera. okay so here is a view of one area where the glass didn't adhere to the hull: and here are the bubbles I was talking about:
Dry patches like that tend to happen when the resin is either too thick and/or the resin did not saturate through the cloth. You have a few options to repair it. Sometimes, just adding thinned resin to the soak into the spots may work. Thin superglue will do the same thing. You could also sand out the spots and put a small glass patch on with either resin or thin superglue. Remember, the resin must saturate the cloth for best results. Good resins such as West Marine is made thin enough to soak into the fabric's fibers. Other resins may need thinned to the consistency of warm pancake syrup. Still, it looks good Clark. Nice job.
okay thanks Mike. I'm Ralph Dollar,and that is my boat. Clark did a much better job on his than I did.
Ralph, while the holes can be repaired, I wouldn't sweat it too much. They won't hurt the final product in combat @Mike, I am rediculously happy that you mistook Ralph's work for mine, because he's never done it before and that shows he's doing great
I think one could inject either with a 20 gauge needle. Could do CA glue with a 23 gauge needle, easily.
Yup. On the second post of this thread there is a link to the ribs plans. Further down, there is a link to the plans themselves.
Yeah, I've been doing pump building to get the design just right before I post the lesson (made 3 so far). Early prototypes are very promising, at least as much output as a cast 1/2 unit pump. The refinements relate to ease of production, not function. @Cal - all the plans are on links in this thread, but if you have trouble finding them please ask
ok! i have survived Halloween Thanksgiving, Christmas and new years as well as a week in the hospital. i am back. i have glassed my hull removed the interior framing as i saw fit. pre-cut and glued back together with sugar glue it dissolved in under 30 minutes in hot water. Opened all the ‘windows’ i have built two rudders; one according to plan size and one i think that is 50% larger I have a rudder servo mount and linkage found to make it work. i have three props on hand. two 4 blades that I build and one 5 blade my son built when he was home from school. His is real pretty. He must have put 20 hrs on the computer doing research. i also have experimented with a couple of pumps. Giant 12v 2 7/8 dia. large 1 5/8 dia. small 1 5/16 dia. What is the id. of the pump out let? i have one gun firing. Still waiting on more parts. now i need help. Recommended springs for piston loader? o'ring? what is a good penetration test for the gun system? how wide and how deep does the water channel need to be? my pump is 1-5/8 dia. i am thinking 17/8 at the pump, tapering to about 1/2 at both ends. i want to make my channeling of 3/8 tubing, glassed in. want to side fill with hard wax and lead as needed for ballast. i have some pictures but after reading Jeff's admonition and not being all that computer savvy I'll pass on that for now. making head way mate
I had an awesome response to this typed on my computer here at work, but my boss from corporate office wandered in on a random visit and I had to kill it quickly. More later.
Rudder can be one of two sizes: Scale rudder size and shape, as shown in the builder's plans, or 1.75 square inches (for MWC and IRC rulesets). Either of these options is fine, but nothing else is legal for battling use. I would love to see the prop your son made, it sounds intriguing! The pump outlet is 1/8" diameter for the IRCWCC, and 3/32" for the MWCI. Don't go too nuts with the pump size, things are about to get tight inside the hull!
