SB-101 'Building MN Edgar Quinet'

RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" I'll post the 'putting ribs on the keel' lesson tonight, then tomorrow, the 'how to make a subdeck' lesson. Once you get a subdeck fitted, it starts to look like a boat THEN it gets interesting!

 

RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry"
Okay... by now, everyone (more or less) should have a 1/4" square stick at least 33" long for a keel, and a few ribs (or many ribs!) cut out.
Take the keel and lay it on a flat surface. You will be using you ruler for this part. Make one mark 1/2" from one end. measuring from that mark, now use the ruler to make one mark every 2 1/8" along the keel. The mark 1" from the end is the BOW end of the keel, and is for Frame 17. I like to number my markings, but it's up to you The keels will go either just forward, or just aft of those marks. Either is fine in our scale, just be consistent with which one you use on a particular ship. The frames forward of 17 and aft of 4 will be on separate, shaped keels. I will be posting the jpeg (prints on an 8.5x11 piece of paper) with both the forward and aft keels on it, this morning. It is at the end of this post.
Below, you see a solitary frame being lined up on the keel. It has been placed just aft of the marking on the keel (numbering the marks helps when you are using one of the middle frames first!), and lined up perpendicular to the keel using two square blocks of plywood, which will be joined by 2 more. These hold the frame vertical, and true to the keel as well, while our temporary dollop of super glue (CA glue for the purists) cures. *It occurs to me that someone might ask, 'gee, perfessor, why start in the middle?'... and it would be a good question. The reason is that the middle frames are much wider and can hold the whole mess upright by themselves, whereas the frames towards the bow and stern are skinnier along the keel, and the whole mess would fall over. To the bottom right, you see another frame waiting to be glued on, and to the top right, you can see a very unhealthy assemblage of caffeine and high-fructose corn syrup, which I waste a lot of time at work encouraging my patients to stay away from.

Anyhow, after the first frame is securely glued to the keel, move along and do another, and another! Below, you can see that I used a random piece of 1/4" ply to make sure that the second frame to be glued on is level with the first frame. This is continued as we add more frames. On WW2 ships, which tend to have a lot of upward curve to the bow, you can still do this to make sure that they're square (i.e. the deck won't be twisting from left to right). Note the stack of plywood blocks on the forward frame being glued on.

POP QUIZ, CLASS! PUT AWAY YOUR TEXTBOOKS! Bonus points to whoever counts the correct number of ships/ship projects visible in the picture above! Super bonus points to the person who correctly names the most ships from the picture! I will be posting a second pic tomorrow with ships circled and named.
Here is the drawing with the fore and aft keels. Lesson coming!
www.rcnavalcombat.com/Portals/0/Use...%20aft.jpg

 

RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" You guys are doing well, though I'm surprised that no one got the name of the battleship over the cargo door.

As for no beer cans... a few reasons. 1)I'm not a tea-totaller, but I get enough bruises and cuts without alcohol in the shop! 2) I prefer hard cider to beer. 3) Brian K and I have got 3 of our Boy Scouts into model warship combat, can't really have them wandering in for a build session and seeing beer cans laying around.* 4)I just need the caffeine sometimes!

I will grade your answers after a few more take the quiz, but you guys aren't far off.


*I am far too lazy to clean up my shop regularly, which would keep said cans out of their sight. So don't suggest it!

 

RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry"
IMPORTANT NOTICE!!! WHEN YOU NUMBER THE KEEL, THE FIRST MARK 1" FROM THE END IS FOR FRAME 17!!! I WILL CHANGE THIS IN THE LESSON, BUT DON'T PUT FRAME 20 THERE!!!

EDIT: I changed the lesson from last night to explain why Frame 20 doesn't go on the keel. It's one of those things that I wouldn't have missed if we were in the shop doing it, and I'm sorry if anyone has already glued frames 18-20 to a keel

 

RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" lol. It IS a KGV, which Pete Dmitri was going to throw away!! I got it and someday it will make a fine target vessel, or perhaps the victorious axis can anchor it near a small island and then test nuclear weapons to see how it does

 

RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry"
Got some serious cutting, sanding, and gluing done today! Below is the cut paper form of the stern keel. Love those lines!! The little crosshatched area is to be cut out so that fitting the stuffing tube (the tube that the prop shaft goes through) won't be a pain The prop in the drawing is a hair over 1.25" diameter, which is great, since we will be going with a 1.25" prop to push the fully scale rudder. MWCI guys, technically speaking we must use the standard 1.75 sq.in. rudder until (if!) the BOD grants permission to use the scale rudder. I will be emailing my documentation to my BOD members for Region 3 to (per the rules) substantiate that Edgar Quinet's rudder is >1.75 sq.in. in scale. Since my documentation is the original French shipyard plans, I'm reasonably hopeful of getting permission. I will post here when I know which rudder we can use. In the meantime, I'm building with a scale rudder because it looks cool.

Below is the stern keel in vivo for your viewing pleasure. The prop is a 1.25" prop just for scale. We will be making props in a later lesson, as a pair of nice pre-made ones costs like $20. Ignore the big fatty notch just aft of frame 3. It was for an idea that I discarded. DO note the 1/4" high, 1" long notch on the front bottom of the keel where it mates up to the main keel. All in all, I like how the stern keel came out. The French drew some nice lines when they designed Edie

 

RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry"
A few pics looking through the ribcage... since the top one was taken, the rest of the ribs were added. I'd have done a new pic, but the camera was in the house and it was raining.

View por detrás... Forza! (Ships way off from left to right: Elorn Maru, Kongo)

and from the bow...

And a gratuitous pic of Inspector Tuxcat, cause he's awesome. Working tirelessly to ensure that your lessons meet BuShips exacting standards... Lord only knows the debt owed to this paragon of shipbuilding excellence by battling noobs everywhere (including myself)
Currently, he is chewing my finger to check for adequate resilience in battle.

Tomorrow, subdeck adventures!!

 

RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" The Moose is BIG. I didn't fully appreciate how big until I had the frames on the keelboard and keels. Good thing I have some monstrous motors to drive it!! I may break down and buy cannons for the Moose. We'll see. The Clippard solenoids will be pricey enough, although being able to run large bore tubing all the way to the guns is cool (the valves have big ports vice the smaller ones on MAVs).
But for Edie, it will be two (2) MAV-2's, one for each gun fwd and aft.
Radio for Edie and two big servos for Moose's rudder (one plus a spare) gets here on Monday, if UPS's tracking dingus can be trusted.

 

RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Edie is going to have a bow gun in the forward stbd casement, and a stern gun in the aft port casement. For a first time battler, I am going with cruiser-type gun angles, with an option for more experienced battlers to go up to 15 degrees out and some down if desired. Of course it's not too hard to change such things, but a first time battler has no business using a cruiser to try to score belows while learning the ship [to the new battlers reading this: it is a great way to get a lot of damage and sink before you get to enjoy the battle. What I am saying is not a reflection on your future skills!]

 

RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry"
Now, class... the answers to the quiz: In the picture below are (centered) Edgar Quinet (Edie) and the Moose. KGV on the shelf over the cargo door, and Pommern and Othar Tryggvassen (Gentleman Adventurer!) above a 2/3 completed Hyuga class BBCV. NOT circled, just beneath Hyuga is a wooden-framed USS Nautilus SSN-571. On the left workbench are HMS Indomitable and a plug that I'm fixing for Mark, which is a 1/96 I-400. Also not circled, to the left of the Mt Dew can, just visible as a grey blotch in the distance between some of the the Moose's ribs, is a DKM Scharnhorst that I picked up at the last battle and is getting a refit. So when I joke about having 'a disease' (as regards model boats), I'm only half joking

I will be cutting back on my number of hulls in the future, if only to make room in the shop. It's getting a little tight and I'll never be able to battle all of these. Keeping: the Moose, Edie, Othar, Lil scharnie and Big Scharnie, and Pommern. Contrary to what I said before, I could sell the KGV, and maybe a few others. (Kind of funny how counting the hulls in one's shop makes you realize HOLY CRAP I have too much stuff!) I will also have an Evstafi class PDN for sale after it gets brought up to legal construction standards (deck too thick)

But none of this has anything to do with class!!! BAD class for getting professor Tug off topic!!! You must each take out a piece of paper and write the following sentence 200 times:
'I will keep working towards putting holes in balsa!'

Another lesson tonite - Subdeck layout! Get your ribs (frames) glued to the keels! And the keels glued to the keels!

 

RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" I was thinking of you, J. And yes, I thought of a way to make her legal during discussions about how we can make Baden and Bayern legal if the casement rule passes. It's actually pretty easy. So after I finish the class, I'll get that finished for you at the price already discussed If I sell a couple of hulls, I can afford guns and solenoids for the Moose

 

RE: "The Cheapest Point of Entry" Whew!! It was a productive day today, got the subdeck laid out and cut out. Looks nice. I think I almost have enough wood left from the 2'x4' ply to make a second Edgar Quinet!!!
Had Brian K, Stefan and Christopher over for a build session and had a good time. Christopher's boat needed patching and minor work, so he used some of his free time to wander the shop counting boats. He counted 33, which really illustrated that I need to finish ones that I have and/or sell some completed ones! I will post the next lesson tomorrow when I'm not so tired!