The Empire State--USS New York

I'm certain I've mentioned it before, but you cannot post images the way you are attempting to do so. All you accomplish is creating a 1.5MB blob of text.

 

The $$ for a newbie is far from excessive. Look at the entry costs to most other hobbies. I have kids come into my clinic in basketball shoes that cost enough to keep me in shoes for years. A good cruiser that far outguns your proposed 'dreadnought' costs about $400.

 

Here you go, I found you a scrollsaw, not terribly far from Astaluta

http://ocala.craigslist.org/tls/4733441372.html - 50$ - and since you only have to buy it once, you can spread the cost across all the ships you build for your internal accounting.

All you have is a dremel? Oh.. and access to a shop at the school you work at maybe? I've never seen a shop teacher turn away a fellow teacher they got along with.
If the strongest part of your ship is in the SS, you need to seriously re-evaluate wtf you are doing. Impact resistant plastic? Yeah sure, in his superstructure, his sides are still balsa sheeting.
How much gas did you suck down in that 650 mile drive? 20 gallons, 30 gallons? Could have paid for that scroll saw I just linked. And a quick stop for some quality plywood. If you're going to be going on about the cost of everything and how you can't afford tools, or to listen to us and build with proper materials, why are you wasting money driving 7 hours and justify it by saying it was 'worth it to see' ?
Clark's cited cruiser wouldn't be a class 5. Cruisers stop at class 3, bow and stern quadrants only. His multiple guns would be 2, maybe 3 if he went for a half unit pump or just ditched it entirely on the theory he could lay waste to your balsanaught before he sank from the annoying small leaks so common to boats.
My battlecruiser Derfflinger was largely built in my living room, on my coffee table. I had a Proxxon (dremel), a drill, a clamp-on vise, and some hand saws, and a short period of time on a scrollsaw in my brothers garage. I didn't need a fancy sander, I had a block of wood and some sandpaper. Clark has a thread here where he demos building a PROPER wood hull with jsut a handheld saw and I think he used a drill. My battlecruiser is now one of the most fearsome opponents on our local pond. She is like a bird of prey, and they are but sheep before me. And I built it on my coffee table, with very little tools. Do you understand?
You have been here how long? You have consistently not listened to us, we have given you advice, we have tried to correct, to teach, to share. Tugboat has invited you into his home, and yet you have continued to push us away, to assert that you know better, to throw up reason after reason why the way we do things is not feasible. It seems to me as if you would rather be mediocre and bullheaded, and have an excuse when you come up short of what things could be, than to listen to what people are trying to tell you.
I cannot imagine the manner in which you teach, but I am now quite sure that you're a teacher only because you so enjoy the sound of your own voice and the self-assurance that your way is the right way. You have allowed the limitations of your situation and station to define you, rather than to define them yourself.
I would love for you to suceed in building a warship, a viable ship, one that you could bring to an event and command effectively without derision, but having watched you here, and seen the way you push against everyone, I wonder if that shall ever come to pass. Despite all that, I suspect most of us will continue trying to help you, but it would be nice if you stopped making excuses and tried to help yourself.

 

Good god man, quit making up excuses and dodging things.

And for the sake of everyone's sanity, quit trying to explain what you are as an excuse, the heaps get taller every time. You are a grown adult, you are a human, and therefore capable of great things. Stand upon the shoulders of those who came before and see further rather than curse the boulders of life strewn about you. Cast off your self imposed limitations and be willing to _learn_ something without fighting the whole time about it.

 

For my first ship, an HMS Lion hull from BC, I started with Brian Koehler's Dremel in his shed (one power outlet for both of us). I borrowed a Craftsman scrollsaw from my father that originally cut wood in 1975 so that I could cut the deck out. I had some screwdrivers of my own and got put in the doghouse for using my wife's card table for working on the boat at home too soon after painting the bottom red for the red paint to be dried. The scrollsaw eventually became mine, as did the card table (recently got a new plywood top!). Tools were slowly added as money allowed. I have been blessed with a sister who became a doctor who didn't forget that big bro sent her money while he was on the submarine, and she bought me the drill press and the bandsander from Harbor Freight that have helped many people build ships to get started or continue their journey in the hobby. I have many hulls and ships in the shop. I give away far more than I sell, and I recall offering you a very nice Suffren hull that already had decks and gearbox installed, and the windows cut to appropriate rules. I'm glad you didn't take me up on it because now it's being fitted out by Brian and I as a loaner boat and many people will be able to enjoy it.

I encourage you to build your ship to a high standard, even if you can only afford one gun at a time; eventually it'd be fully armed. I encourage you to listen to the advice given by people who've done this a while. Being experienced is not a bad thing. New ideas aren't bad either, but most of the 'new ideas' that are proposed have been tried unsuccessfully in the past. When someone tells you that something is a Really Bad Idea, like saying 'The main drive motor REALLY shouldn't be mounted above the main deck in a 3" x 12" ship, driving the prop thru a pair of uni joints', it's based on knowledge of the physics of ships and a desire to HELP, not on a desire to kill new ideas or oppress anyone. I once built a convoy in a tipsy state using CA glue, the cardboard carton that my hard cider had come in, and a zip-zap car that was on sale at Radio Shack. I used a coffee stirrer as the stuffing tube. It worked, as long as the ship didn't get more than 15 feet from the remote. Once you have some experience you can do crazy stuff that's not really recommended and it can come out well (well for tipsy sailors anyhow). But for all the sillyness and unusually-sourced materials, it was built with physics in mind. Weight down low and centralized. It was built knowing that it would be fired on (even if it ultimately wasn't), so it was strong where it needed to be. When one is learning, blowing off the teacher isn't a great idea if one really wants to get ahead, learn things, and maybe avoid the mistakes that they made.

And lest anyone think that I don't understand teaching, I earned my classroom instructor NEC back in May or June of 2000, and have taught a lot since then, both formally and informally.

 

With the benefit of a few hours away, I would like to apologize for this section. It was a rock that need not be flung, and I do apologize.

 

Tug is no Superman. He just wants everyone to have fun with friends and toy boats. ??

But thanks!

I also look forward to seeing a pretty USS NY on the water. More boats is good.

If I sound like a first grader here, its because I'm on my cell phone ??