Okay... the ribs are cut, and most of them are glued to the deck. The forwardmost gets put on tomorrow (got half the day off! Not sure what I'll do about the drive... a 550 seems a little much, but I can always slap in a 400, the RC car throttle can handle a smaller one.
It's crazy, I know. If I can get the frame glued together, I want to start planking the bottom with 1/64" ply and a thin layer of 'glass. The developmental work on the torps is being done with the only 1/4" tubing I have on hand, which is copper McMaster assures me that the plastic and stainless tubing and springs for the torps and launchers will be shipped today. I'm hoping that the low mass of the plastic torps will translate to adequate penetration at the short range they're designed for. My concern is the low inertia that is the flip side of the low mass torps; will they still penetrate 1/8" or will they bounce off? What will be the outcome? Only time... will tell. (bonus points to the Wolfenstein:Enemy Territory players who recognize the quote
Was making breakfast and had an idea... for really lightweight superstructure, print the color pdf out, and scan it in as a jpg, then enlarge to size. Print it again, and then build the SS out of cardstock, and glass it. If I had the weight allowance, I'd fill it with ketchup for when it takes a hit!
I do use acrobat a good bit at work, so I have access to the full version and not just the reader. I did not know the reader could not do that. My bad.
You can zoom in while viewing, but the printing will be original size. If you wanted to cut&paste the SS parts, and zoom them to 1/96 you'd be t3h b0mbzor...
The original files are locked and can't be edited. Other than that it would have been a wonderful plan. Your way is the way.
I have the ribs attached to the very thin subdeck, with some thin balsa strips holding the keel. The master plan is to get some more balsa strips (1/32" thick) along the length of her and glass them. Finding the right spring is difficult, I have 2 different sizes of 1/4"dia stainless steel springs coming. I may wind up using ball bearings for the spring-launched torps, as the scale launcher size looks small to have a 2.5" spring plus a 3" rod-torp, even factoring in compression. We'll see. I dearly want to have a working open-source spring torpedo launcher for Battlestations so we can lower the price of entry. Also on the plus side, these can be rotated by hand between sorties if desired. On a larger vessel, they could be turned by servo, but the V-106 weight is too precious for frivolous things like AIMING. hehe Brian K was over today and we played with mold stuff and made new molds of some of Ralph's turret plugs. We'll see how well the KGV turret molds look in the morning (those were the biggest that I did today) along with Kent and Canarias turret molds. Also spent a good bit of time on repairing the Alaska molds. Almost ready to get my courage up again.
Most of us are friendly folk. I will be in the market for some of those springloaded torpedoes when you get them working. Decided on the Orfey class and its German Cousin the V-99's for my torpedo boats. Have not decided which Orfey. I favour the Crom right now. (yes I know it is really the Grom, but Crom sounds better)
Oh and by the way the Cheapstoff usually gives you a nasty hangover. May your boat do that to its opponents.
1) I may make some launchers for interested parties, but I will also be publishing the design specs, drawings, etc here on the forums. My love of open source software & hardware is infecting my battling After the spring-torps are done, I may work on other torp stuff (multi-tube, firing delay compliant setups for DDs and cruisers; probably use a servo-pushed ratchet to fire one tube at a time) 2) Crom sounds much better... 'Conan! What is good in life?' - unnamed Khan-type ruler
I definitely would also be in the market for spring-powered torpedoes (unless I make them myself). If these small small vessels prove reasonable (in a relative sense of the word), I may try my hand at one of the four-pipers to add an American ship to the mix (after I get around to finishing the design on the Gearing class though, I hope). Are you goint to be implementing anything for damage control?
Hmmm... may want to reconsider the name, then. Sure, you want your opponents to get totally smashed, but you also want them to recover quickly after the party so you can get them totally smashed again
