why wouldn't you want your pump to start pumping as soon as water gets in your hull instead of wait till you have 1/4" of water in there? Im not understanding your thinking on this one. Doesn't that kinda defeat the point of water channeling?
Perhaps. How close to the bottom of the hull should the pump be before the hull starts restricting the flow into the pump? I really don't know, so am winging it. Heh.
I'd say 1/4" high is fine. Low enough that water it can't reach isn't going to affect trim, high enough that when you have 2" of water inside the ship, it'll be pumping at close to max rate.
With the BC pump, it sits on the head of the 4 screws, and gives you plenty of clearance, My PE pumps with like a 1/16 of a inch of water in the hull. True you are really not adding alot of water weight, due to the size of the water channeling, but you are giving alot of room for larger pump clogging material to get under the pump. Just about every time my Roma has sunk, it was not due to alot of damage, but the pump getting clogged, and not being able to pump out. I got the idea from Mikey D, but he got it from the fellow that was making a Bismark out of wood. He just put it between the frames to level everything off, maybe since its self leveling why he decided to try it. Yes I like the method also, its all I plan on using in the future. I could see the added stability I got by having the weight down low in the hull when I was making tight turns, she hardly leaned over at all, and did not sway back and forth when she came back to a even keel. When I took her out of the water, all I would have is a thin film of water in the water channel, with little to none on the sealant.
djranier It looks like the center channel is wide enough to allow the pump to sit in the channel. The area around the channel should go from the front to just in front of the gearboxes. It also looks like you also have sealer in the rear after the motors and gearboxes again. Does this drain to the channel? What type of smell does this give off? Will my wife be asking me to move out? How long to dry? Will it dry in a cold garage? Is this a solid or do you have to put supports in for holding the batteries or anything else? Where would I want to install the batteries?
Mikes is wide enough, I made mine only 1 inch wide. After I got all the stuffing tubes in, I put in the temp wall and tilted the bow up just a bit, that way the stern sealer will run down towards the pump. Your wife will kill you in your sleep if you did this in the house, I think it cures when exposed to the air, so it will take a week or so to cure completely. The outside surface cures in a day, but the interior is still liquid, so you can do the stern pour, wait a couple of days, then level out the ship and do the sides and bow area. Then wait a week at least before you do anything else to it. You can start working on the Superstructure while you wait. Also I found my Roma water channeling picture, using foam, and glass. It pretty nice looking also. But you can tell it has alot of room in the stern for water to pool in. Most boats tend to sink by the stern, may be the reason they do, lots of extra water.
djranier I like the looks of the pink foam, not that I like pink, would look good in blue I think. Home depot sells that pink and blue foam in a big bundle I couldn't get just a piece. Have to find a builder or rip a side of my wall down to get a piece. Better sleep with my eyes open until we get passed this water channeling thing.
Not to be an a$$ but dosn't the foam part break the rule about not having anything that will hamper sinking? Since foam floats.
Only if you put enough in that it prevents your boat from sinking. Building out of stuff that floats is fine, we DO use a lot of wood afterall, balsa at that, its not much denser than foam. If you use foam for water channel like thats its not going to be enough to stop your boat from sinking. If you were to just put big blocks of it in your boat to take up space and keep you from sinking you would get called out on it and it would be pretty obivious, and take up a bunch of room. and dave is right that having weight low in your hull can help performance, so if you have the weight ive seen people fill areas with bbs and epoxy over that. It depends on your boat and how much weight you want to add/have to play with what you should use. On a cruiser that sealant may be too heavy, but in battleships you can pretty much use anything.
It looks like you all bring the water channeling up to the bottom of the windows. The Maryland has about 1 1/2 inches from the bottom to the bottom of the windows. Would I need this much foam or sealer? That would be a lot of foam, my boat would never sink. That's wrong right? I know the center channel is 1/4 inch or so in depth. I also noticed that the pump base housing from BC is two inches wide, does this mean the center channel should allow the pump to sit inside the channel so mine would be 2 inches wide?
You don't want to put too much water channeling in. I did that for refit 2 of the Warspite. I had it up to the bottom of the windows every place in the ship. It made the batteries sit higher in the ship, when damaged the water would be high in the ship. This raised the center of gravity and I would tip over and sink pretty easy. All of the foam or wood on the bottom wants to roll up to the top of the water when there is a lot of water weight in the ship. Keep it to 1/4" in the main part of the ship. Go to the bottom of the windows in the bow 4"-6" and in the stern. Most guys take a step up right past the gear boxes. Of course you need to plan the rudder servo box placement and guns. I had to cut a dip in the channel to get the stern guns to fit. Same thing for one of the solenoids. One of my CVLs had a pretty flight deck that would not allow it to completly sink. It did not have that much weight in it and the wood of the deck was enough to make it float. Like a little surf board with planes on it. I put a new deck on it, so now it sinks just fine. I've seen several cruisers (Including mine)that will get air trapped in the bow when they sink and float with 2" of bow out of the water. Always good for a laugh.
Bob Did you do a water channel section on your DVD don't remember seeing it. I see your pics you posted but can't decide if I want to use foam or sealer or wood which looks nice.
Here are some pics of a water channel and pump. The channel is 2 inches at the pump and 1 1/4 inch at the front. Does this look like the right placement?
My Richelieu's water channel was wide enough for the pump to sit inside the channel. It worked ok, though the replacement pump motor didn't. heh. For the concrete sealant water channel method, use enough to bring the level of the sealant to the top of your water channel wood pieces. You do not have to take it all the way up to the windows. If it was me, I would slide the sticks back to the gearboxes.
Yep all the way to the gearboxes, and then across also, so that the stern area can also be filled in. But figure out where the rudder servo is going to mount, so that you can have a mounting block in place, and look at where you are going to mount the guns, just to ensure they do not come down and hit the pump. Its about right from what I can see up front, but it really does not need to be so wide up front, my Roma is 1/2 inch and works well. Have you decide on your water channel method yet. With the sealer I would just make a 2.5 to 3 inch square open area where the pump sits, and then make the channel 3/4 at the front, and 1 in at the rear where it meets the pump opening. My boat is about 1/2 the size of your, the water channel is 3/4 from front to back. Somthing like this. But the run from front to back a bit closer together. Of course I would wait till you had the outer shafts installed, and sealed in.
