That one in the swampy video was probably his. It was pretty close to museum quality. Way better detail work than I am capable of. I couldn't beleive he let people shoot at it. Your Missouri looks like it is coming along nicely.
So far so good. I am very pleased with it so far. This model has no ESC. Just MAG throttle switches and drag props. I thought the batteries standing up may give stability issues but on this hull it works out very well so long as the superstructure stays light. I think the model is sitting at 44 or 45 lbs.
Update. My order from Strike regarding the Termite Armor and the SK2 Radar and 2 Termite 5 inchers to replace the pair I have on board the model at this time. Captain Sparrow is also sending his new ship kit from Strike on my order and we hope to get it within a couple of weeks at least. We have a looming National Postal Strike here which will be voted on tonight so I am more than anxious to get my order.
Looks like my order is going through FedEx. Great. Looking forward to finishing the Missouri's Superstructure.
2nd sea trials were conducted yestersay. Winds was brisk from time to time. Did a rough 50ft speed test. Not sure how accurate this is but were figuring both Roma and Mo were hitting 13 to 13.5 sec over 50 ft which would equate to 26 seconds over 100ft. Both would be underspeed by 2 seconds. No problem to correct. I can switch out the props on the Roma and reduce the size of the drap props. Also the port gear shaft was having issues and there was likely a power loss there on the port shaft eventually lost connection with the motor. The couplings were still attached but both gears their teeth were filed down to nothing. I noted tht the pinioin was not revolving straight in fact had a bit of a wobble which certainlty would have chewed up the gear teeth on the lower gear wheel and the pinioin itself. I replaced the gear pinion with a different style for both shafts these were 12 tooth and filed the motor shaft down to eliminate the wobble when the pinion was attached. Seemed that did the trick but today's trial will tell if that helped. I need a better venue to mark a speed course and use a stopwatch to time the model. Need a speed radar gun really. Other than that the model performed pretty good. Hopefully this will will bea better run.
The Mo is ready for her 3rd set of sea trials. The pinions are rotating straight. The drag discs have been shaved down substantially. Batteries are all fully charged. I got a good feeling on this upcoming run. Postal strike is in effect in Montreal. This is where International orders go through customs. I fear my Termite stuff will be quited delayed there.
Dont worry Curt. The strike is rotational. meaning it will last one day. Tomorrow's target will be somewhere else
I just came back from running the Missouri on her 3rd set of sea trials. The model ran well for about 10 minutes then I lost control of the port shaft again. This time though I was able to figure out what is going on. This time the pinion small gear and large gear were still attached to their shafts. However I noticed that the universal connection was on a not so straight line but a very bad off angle from center. I noticed that there was a build up of molded residue at the entrance of the outlet tube of the Gear box where the smaller connection shaft connects to the large pinion wheel and on exiting the molded gear box shaft tube it connects to the universal collar. I also felt the tube and noticed it was very hot. So looks like the small shaft was rubbing against the inside of the brass tube insert which created a lot of heat melting the interior diameter of the molded gear box and causing the tube to move and position at a very bad angle. It was so bad that both gears locked up. I saw that the connection angle was not quite straight as the right shaft and I am not surprised that heat built up there. I wasn't expecting so much heat to build up to cause a melt down of the box. So I removed the motor mount and will install another one but making sure that it stays lined up exactly with the prop shaft. I think when the mount was curing it moved a little. Good news the gears themselves are not destroyed. I stopped and coasted in just as I heard the shaft let go or stop. Has an unmistakenable sound to it when it's not running correctly. Other than that the speed was much better and the handling and turning circles were superb. So I feel good about that.
That looks like a poor design, the shaft should go all the way into the gear box. Having a dog bone after the gear box is just asking for this problem.
I like the way Paul came out of his gear box into a dogbone setup. It takes any alignment issues away. Good find either way.
The design is sound. Used it on Yamato , Nagato and Roma with no issues. The idea was to protect the gears in case the props struck a rock . On some occasions when this occured only the universal slipped which meant the gear wheels still had rotation. If I had a straight shaft to the pinion if the prop struck a rock the gears would be damaged immediatley. Also there is a little more flexibility when aligning it. However I normall use the Graupner style and not the Dumas type universals in this connection. I didn't have the height clearance anyway to go direct to the prop shaft to get a perfect alignement so I went this route. The starboard shaft has been working just fine and smooth. So reinstalling to get the motor mount lined up should correct it and make it work just fine.
Going straight in with the stuffing tube is the normal way but the alignment has to be PERFECT!!! I ended up shimming the motors on my Arizona when I used it because it was slightly off.
That's what I did on my motors too iceman. I reshimmed the port motor shaft which has corrected the issue there. I think when the motor mount was curing in the silcone caulking it moved out of aligment. The weight of the motor still attached may have caused it to shift during the curing process. This time I will make sure it can't move while it cures and leave the motor off the mount after the alignment has been checked. If this continues to be an issue then I will try running the shaft all the way through with a longer shaft or I may have to attempt to remount the motor mounts much closer to the stuffing tubes. After 3 runs the right shaft is working just fine so I think I can correct this problem.
Here are the pics of the motor mount with the bearing redone and with new large gear wheel. This time I took my time and Sean cleaned up the mini shaft that runs through the bearing and he soldered the bearing sleeves. Also I made sure that the alignment between the stuffing tube and the bearing in the motor mount were perfect. I used a high pressure bearing grease and coated the small bearing shaft and the gears. I checked on it this morning and the motor mount stayed put while it cured in position and gave the drive system a check. Much much better than what I had earlier. There is absolutly no play of the shaft within the bearing. Not only that both gears are revolving evenly with no wobble. I hada nub left on the end of the small drive shaft in the bearing which when it was in the dogbone collar it made it sit awkwardly. I had very little vibration and very little noise compared to what I had on the last 3 tries testing on the table. Here is some of the pics of the corrected version.
