Update: Decks have been lightly sealed using wood varnish Hold down system in place. Paint acquired, awaiting a skin to apply to New LiFePo batteries arrived today!! Yay!! Silkspan in mail from Spudwerks shipyard (he had spare) Ordered Manifold & hose from Clippard. Ouch. $50 in parts, $25 for 3-day shipping Still ToDo: Skin Paint Assemble battery packs Pump control ckt (gotta dig through my stuff to try and find a RC220)
The Good: I thought I'd have to skin & paint Baden in the hotel Friday night. I was happy to discover the local hobby shop had ONE can of dope left. The Bad: The dope was tinted "Cub Yellow" For some odd reason, Terry Lee (McSpuds) started singing a certain Beatles song when he saw it. No worries. Once the filler has hardened and been sanded smooth, it's all going to be painted grey or red.
I like it. Its like the flying circus during the great war, daring the other side to come play with you cute little cannons.
In the town where I was born Lived a man who sailed to sea And he told us of his life In the land of submarines So we sailed up to the sun Till we found the sea of green And we lived beneath the waves In our yellow submarine We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine And our friends are all on board Many more of them live next door And the band begins to play We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine [Full speed ahead, Mr. Parker, full speed ahead! Full speed over here, sir! Action station! Action station! Aye, aye, sir, fire! Heaven! Heaven!] As we live a life of ease (A life of ease) Everyone of us (Everyone of us) has all we need (Has all we need) Sky of blue (Sky of blue) and sea of green (Sea of green) In our yellow (In our yellow) submarine (Submarine, ha, ha) We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
After Action Report for engagement of May 3 & 4, 2014 Arrived at hotel Friday night, knowing some last-minute work was needed on Baden to prep her for battle. All the air lines needed to be run, batteries topped off, forward barbettes & turrets mounted, and deck hold-downs adjusted. Accomplished all the above, then helped Terry Lee prepping his Mutsu plus two Espana's until after 4AM. Crashed until 6. Breakfasted & loaded up and arrived at the battle site by 7:30. What a great pond! Nice size, secluded area. 1st Battle, 1st Sortie: My non-flag Baden engaged with the evil yellow flags flown by two rookie Espanas, then traded shots with Don's Iron Duke & a few others. My quad stern layout meant I was turning out from attacking enemy boats and drilling them. At the end of the sortie, I found I had emptied all but a couple of bb's from all four guns, and frosted my bottle & regulator (due to the large volume of gas flow). I took a total of one hit! I also discovered that my pump was running backward! A quick swap of two leads on the busbar solved that, but reverse-biased my Servo-City pump switch, result of which was that instead of on-off, it now acted as a low speed-high speed switch! I also made the mistake of mentioning the one-hit fact in earshot of Don, who made it his mission to ensure I didn't feel neglected the rest of the day! 2nd Sortie, 3rd Sortie: Something had shifted on board, resulting in a significant list. Further, my pump seemed to not be priming or something. I was repeatedly bracketted by Don & Mike, and quickly sank. During the lunch break, I decided to remove the two extra brass regulators I had sitting in the boat (for extra ballast), as I suspected they were the cause of the list. 2nd Battle: Riding higher in the water, I took a bit more abuse before sinking, but my pump continued to exhibit "issues", and went down pretty quick. Evaluation: The Good: The quad stern setup does work effectively for 1v1 fighting. My manueverability can keep my guns on target very well. The Bad: The bottle freeze issue. I will address by replacing my 1 big bottle with two smaller ones. This will also help with the weight. The Ugly: Testing Saturday night in the hotel, I discovered that Terry hadn't put a screen on the bottom of my pump, resulting in it swallowing an O-ring. Once it coughed that out, pump ran great. After the group dinner Saturday, Terry & I were so exhausted, we both crashed, resulting in no work being done on the 4 boats. So Sunday we were able to relax and watch the battle, despite Terry's medical issues. I will post pics of the post-battle refit soon!
MO is a long haul for me. (Charlotte NC) I believe Terry is planning on his next battle being IRC Nats. His boys will probably not attend, as they need some more experience before they are ready for that level of.... mayhem. I'm looking at either the same Nats, or possibly the Statesboro weekend match that same weekend.
So my Post-battle mini-refit / modification plan is as follows: A: Build screen & filter box for pump B: Reconfigure CO2 system for twin tanks / twin regulators to cut down on freezing issue during rapid-fire C: Build new, smaller watertight box (current box is holdover from servo-switch days. Freaking huge for today's no-moving-parts layouts D: Take advantage of space freed up by (C) to redo and simplify wiring, to cut down on "rats nest" appearance and make it easier to access batteries, etc. E: In conjunction with (B) (C) and (D), re-plan layout of ships systems. Radio box may be positioned in bow, CO2 bottles in midships, with batteries remaining in current (under Anton / Bruno turrets) position. One interesting fact I discovered: IRC rules differ from MWC in that under the former, I can utilize my 1/2- unit as a pump, thus giving me 5 guns in my 5.5 unit Baden!! I don't think I'll be taking advantage of that, though, as reducing damage control going into NATS doesn't sound like a good idea Pics to come soon.....
A few years back, one of the IRC Axis captains tried a half unit pump in a 4.5 unit ship. By the end of the first battle, he switched back to a full unit pump. Heh.
Badens make for hard targets but a half unit pump on a ship that cant run away seems like asking to be sunk. Maybe on a 24 second or faster ship, but not on a 28 seconds ship. Its a bummer you cant mount a 1/2 unit sidemount though. I have enjoyed watching this build progress.
I know this is an old thread but can the builder or someone in the know tell me what it looks like under the deck of the dual stern barrel holder found on page 3? I’m trying to replicate this screw elevation system. Thanks!
Hey Litch, I can do better than that I can take pics of it cuz its in my garage, being built to go to Nats. Sorry the gremlins are pretty active at nite and wanted to know what I was up to, Be careful if you expand those pics they have been known to jump ship before. Underside of the plate that holds the barrals there is a nut soldered in place to lock it in and the screw than just does elevation adjustments. the wood underneath the deck helps support the screw and keeps it from bending as easily as it wood otherwise. Big shout out to Spudzy for the excellent construction on his part.
