Ralph dropped off his Seydlitz hull yesterday for marking the penetrable areas. That's done except for the last 3 windows aft where the armor belt 1/8" stringer is right against the 3/8" weatherdeck stringer. Haven't decided what to do about that. Auto lining tape will be applied tomorrow night and I'll do some cutting out before Ralph takes over on the weekend. I've installed the aft rudder, made from an unmodified Robbe rudder kit and installed the post for the forward rudder. The forward rudder will be made and installed by the weekend. Photos to follow.
I had to cut out the windows next to the aft rudder post and dremel the inside of the deck stringers to get enough clearance for the shortened rudder arm to rotate. It's a tight fit due to the rudder being very far aft in the hull. The arm had to be shortened to 2 holes from 5 but the arm ahead of it on the small rudder is full length and the connecting rod will give the aft rudder at least 60 degrees rotation. Some of the narrow penetrable areas between weather deck and casemate stringers were drilled out and will need filing to final shape. I hope to make and install the forward rudder before Ralph picks up the hull Saturday to finish cutting out the penetrable areas.
Photos of the rudder installation on SMS Seydlitz. The rear rudder is a modified Robbe kit, the 40mm tall by 45mm long stock rudder being lengthened 3mm to give 3.0 square inches of area and the forward rudder having 0.75 square inches (any smaller and it would have looked silly imo). I used my usual Robbe rudder enlarging technique of wrapping 0.5mm thick stryene over the nylon rudder, gluing it on with slow setting ca, then gluing the rear edges together with styrene cement, with a small fillet of 0.5 mm styrene between them, and trimming to correct length. The forward rudder was made from two pieces of 1/8" thick styrene. The location of the rudder shaft was marked on the inner side of each half and a narrow slot was cut to guide a drill. A small recess (1/8" x 1/4" x 1/64" thick) was cut at the bottom of each narrow slot to accomodate a piece of brass plate (see below). The halves of the rudder were glued together and clamped in a vice. A few hours later the guide slot was drilled out to 1/8" for the shaft, using a succession of bit sizes and low drilling speed to avoid melting the styrene. The bottom end of the brass rudder shaft had a 1/8" deep slot cut in it with a razor saw and a small piece of brass (1/8" x 1/4") was ca glued into the slot. The piece of brass was the same size as the recess cut in the bottoms of the rudder halves and was a tight push fit. The piece of brass will prevent rotation of the rudder shaft within the rudder. The rudder shaft was glued into the rudder, which was then shaped from a small block of styrene to a smoothly tapering shape. This is a good view of the 3/8" deck stringer meeting the 1/8" armor stringer, for a total stringer width of 1/2".
Interior view of the rudder installation. Ralph made this hull quite thick - it's the first hull from the mold he made for the Tuttles in 2007. The bottom was 1/4" thick so the rudder posts need no other support. The aft rudder stuffing tube is enclosed in a thick brass armour sleeve (identical to those on the rudder shafts in Indefatigable). The forward rudder post will be within the side armour panels so isn't as thick.
Seydlitz hull marked for cutting out penetrable areas. Note the combined 3/8" weather deck stringer and 1/8" armour stringer aft. Cutting out the bow area. This was a a test cut before the hull was turned over to Ralph Coles to complete the work. The 'windows' were cut out with a Dremel tool, staying within the edges of the black auto tape, then a square rasp was used to carefully file right to the edges of the windows. An amidships view showing where a drill was used in areas too tight for a Dremel tool. By tilting the drill and being careful not to apply too much pressure the holes were linked, as you can see between the weather deck and casemate stringer. These areas will be filed to the edges of the tape.
Hi Bob, A Dremel 9931 bit will make short work of those thin areas between the subdeck and stringer (among many other uses). Much easier than drilling multiple holes.
Thanks, I'll pass that info on to Ralph. After he finishes cutting out the penetrable area we're going to install the prop shafts and their brackets.
The dremel 9901 tungsten carbide cutter also works well. That is what I used on my ww1 scharnhorst class hull
