I think he'll be going for the aftermarket add-on in-ship pool. I heard it comes with free gifts and spare portholes
Historically my effort towards superstructure has been minimal, but I think those could make it on board. Finished rough cut of subdeck. Inverted hull, then shifted in 1/8" and traced again Bow section whole thing. Many hours of dremeling will be required to get the subdeck in there with the curvature of the bow. Once subdeck is down to size I will use it as a reference for the deck
in preparation for installing swimming pools, I got a little bit of work done sunday (Seydlitz is priority) Drag shafts installed. 6-32 bolt soldered into brass tubes. Rudder posts in as well, came out about as good as they normally do for me, which is always slightly worse than I would have hoped. Oh well, step complete. Also started on balsa frame for aft water channel. Plan is to fill the area around the shafts with polyester resin/microfibers so the shafts are secure/dont get bent, then put a partial balsa cap on, and fill the rest with foam. It will make a platform for the triples solenoids and expansion tanks Underside with drag shafts taked in with CA and taped off Epoxy drying. Rudder post is a piece of 1x2 pine, kinda soft but not balsa, sitting in a pool of epoxy/microfiber mix. Side I'm doing electrical core in parallel with seydlitz to reduce overall production time. Plan is to chip away at waterchannel over the week, and make a rudder servo mount/possibly rudder box
Time to shift focus back to this build. Working on water channeling. Just doing 1/4" balsa in the middle, raised section in boat and stern. Will fiberglass over balsa. Can't get the whole boat in one shot. I will fill the gaps with milled fibers and polyester resin in the stern, then cloth over the top. It will be the mounting base for triples solenoids and exp tanks. Middle, keeping it simple. I want then boat to be low in the water when pumping efficiently. Pumps will go port and starboard side aft of the balsa, forward of motors. Bow section I started a while ago. I will add an end piece and glass over the edge. Looking back at stern I also made turrets when I made them for Seydlitz. They came out pretty good. Most of the electronics have been prepped as well, and I bought the foam superstructure kit from Strike to serve as a float/reduce build time. Hoping to get this boat together quickly, maybe subdeck in by Friday if I am efficient.
Thanks Curt, she will never be as pretty as your masterpiece! Today was probably the first time ever that I met my daily build goal. Water channel is done I put a layer of mat under the mid section for better adhesion. This was prep work I used cloth for corners, and mat for top/side transition California made a good staging surface. Lots of fiberglass I put the balsa pieces in with the first batch of polyester resin. I was out of mixing practice so the first few rounds kicked pretty fast, but overall it worked out Stern with balsa and filler After this was dry-ish I put the top coat of glass over everything. Here is the bow step done Mid. Much quicker than the last boat that had a lot more water channeling. I will have to make separate battery 'mounts' for this boat And stern. I inclined the boat while it dried so the aft step slants down towards the pump. It ended up more level than I planned, but it should be alright hopefully. Overall I'm pleased with how it came out, should be very solid for a long time. Next step is the sub deck that I cut out a few months ago. Not looking forward to getting the fit and gluing it in, but I will be very pleased once the deck is attached. Maybe get the aft portion of the subdeck in tomorrow if I'm super-efficient after work. I will be making the rudder servo mount soon as well.
Aft portion of the subdeck today. I used tape and some balsa blocks to pull the sides in to 9 inches for fitting the subdeck while keeping the deck rim / sides flat I cut the subdeck and angled the aft portion to fit with the shape of the hull. After prepping the hull I made a tape flange to catch epoxy while installing the deck Then show time. Definitely one of the more stressful epoxy jobs of the build, but I think I got it at the right height, the right beam, and relatively bump-free sides. Here is the cursory clamp shot Different angle Bow portion will be tomorrow. I added two pieces on 1/8 ply at the joint where the bow piece will attach on the underside of the deck to provide a clamping surface. I also used the subdeck to trace the real deck so it fits first(ish) time I will probably cut out the main deck tomorrow as well
Bow part of subdeck in. More cutting this time, worked the Dremel pretty hard. Here is aft portion dry. Came out alright Tape for bow Bow part ready, sanded down a bit to let the epoxy set into the wood Clamped. Much easier than themaft portion The only clamping was to get it at the right height. I used 1/8 ply scraps in wax paper as a spacer, then clamped with jaws on top and bottom of deck rim. The extreme bow was tough since I cut the deck rim closer to 3/8 on the hull vice 3/8 vertical, so I had to adjust the position by hand to get it right. I just pulled off the clamps and it looks like it set well, with a good shear line. I also made gun pistons and milled out gun elbows tonight at Hayes shipyard to support gun construction next week. Out of town next two days so build will resume Monday
Resumed work today. Drew up and cut out deck, 1/8" ply. Aft portion of aft piece Fwd portion Bow deck Cut out the aft piece. I did one cut in a giant U so I could use the same piece of wood for the deck hatch pieces Deck placed on hull Tossed superstructure on to see how it would look. Didn't get the pieces in the right places but it was close enough Marked gun locations and starting cutting out barbette holes, aft gun Fwd guns Then I prepped the subdeck by dremeling off epoxy on the top and sanding down the fiberglass lip And stern Got the deck rim epoxied down. I think it will come out alright, I will probably need to trim down the other deck pieces to fit inside once everything sets Tomorrow I will clean up the underside, then do a sealing coat on the underside and over both the deck and subdeck. I might put magnets in the subdeck to use as deck hold downs, with magnets in the deck pieces as well. I will fill in the edge between deck and fiberglass with milled fibers. Here is the aft portion Good progress overall, will maybe make up guns and/or work on gun mounts/ Barbettes for the deck pieces tomorrow. Wednesday Thursday will probably be prep for Seydlitz for carlo's this weekend, driving up Friday after work
Cleaned up the excess epoxy from underside of deck today, then coated whole deck with west systems. Also cut gun holes Aft with tail pipes. Magazines will be backwards and head aft from the gun. I'm thinking of making a hatch where the end of the magazines are to allow refilling guns without removing that portion of deck since the guns will probably have 1/8" feed tubing Fwd. planning to snake the mags into the opposing turret to fill from above, will still have to get CO2 bottle in and out from there Post epoxy, tape on the rim to hold filler used for the gaps along the end of the deck. Bow, I will grind away excess filler tomorrow leaving a clean edge Aft portion Tomorrow will be light since I have preunderways for Seydlitz and making a DE hull. Maybe cut and glue in Barbettes
Thanks guys, I still have 2 hulls in the que, and rivadavia, and two hulls on the way from down under, so you might be able to slip one in line and I probably wouldn't notice haha. I cut Barbettes today and installed them. Back around New Years I took rough measurements of the real ship to make sure I got the barb heights correct. The forward turret is only 5/32" scale in the front, but the aft turret was about 7/16" I think which should help get the stern guns over the 1/8" rise in the deck from the gun to the back. I also spent a while dremeling the filler. I did a rough, 'close enough' cut today that I might come back to in the future. Here is the bow. The lines on the ship are pretty nice Above, it's smooth-ish I decided to add a second layer of 1/8" ply to help hold the Barbettes in place since there will be a lot of gun to support. Here are the bow pieces, symmetry is over rated And aft turret Epoxied them together, epoxy kicked fast with the 90 degree weather outside today And bow. I made a series on pencil marks to set the height, I think they came out as desired Work will be on hold as the fleet sorties to Mings this weekend, then minimal time next week with classes starting again and Charley's for Memorial Day. darn battling taking all my time. Fortunately I've made it to the stage where I can do a bunch of small tasks when I have a bit of free time. Next things will be gun construction, gun mounts, pump mounts, and rudder servo mounts.
Unfortunately I had to battle all weekend so progress resumed today. Worked on rudder servo mount and deck magnets. Used a brad point bit to drill the holes, ended up having the perfect size bit that made very clean holes. Here is a shot of the layout, going with 4 magnet sets on aft piece and 6 on the others. This is my first time using this deck hold down method, but I like the magnetic tape on my Seydlitz deck so I decided to use the little rare earth magnets for this boat. Close up of holes Also made the rudder servo mount. Very simple, just 1/8" ply that anchors to the two rudder posts and holds the servo. Using BC gears, I mounted the big one to a servo wheel. No shots of the alignment today. Used fiberglass mat to reinforce Side view, minimalistic I also press fit in all the magnets using a channel lock, worked out very nicely. I used electrical tape under each one to catch epoxy, but I will fill everything in from the underside with the boat flipped, maybe tomorrow. Nice flush finish I will do the deck pieces later, since I will have to make sure I get the polarity right for every magnet since getting them in was slightly frantic. I laid out the magnets throughout the ship so I could pick them up one at a time which worked well. I might get some minor work done Thursday, then I will be off to Tennessee for Lagan at lancing.
Is that what that is? I thought it was rubber strips. That's kind of cool, will have to keep that in mind. Build is looking good!
