I have been working on my first Big Gun warship for about 3 weeks or so. I have been keeping a running journal of my trials and tribulations throught the current project. I know that everything is not perfect or done in the right order, but keep in mind that this is my first build and there is certainly a learning curve. I also bought a previously owned hull that had some underside work done that did not meet the MABG Big gun ruleset and I needed to correct.
RE: Wisconsin Diary . . . The day at the MABG Virginia Beach Shipyards began with the goal of having Wisconsin's windows cut and her hull ready for skinning. I began by drilling the pilot holes for the window removal. I used my Dremel with a 5/16 drill bit. The process took about 30 minutes. After the pilot holes were drilled, it was time to start cutting the horizontal lines. All in total there are 23 frames per side. I used my Dremel with a flexible shaft and a 426 cutting wheel. John had the shop vac nozzle pointed at my cutting areas. This effectively sucked all of the fiberglass dust off of the hull before it had a chance to get airborne; hint, hint. The entire process of cutting the horizontal lines took around 45 minutes. Next it was time to make the vertical cuts. All was going well until I was cutting one of the final few vertical lines in the forward part of the hull. At this point the cutting wheel bound, I jerked and cut through a rib. To make things worse the flex shaft on my Dremel snapped. This made the rest of the difficult because I had to maneuver the Dremel in some tight and weird angles. Making all of the vertical cuts was roughly 1 1/2 hours . After almost 3 hours of work, Wisconsin's hull was finally cut. So needless to say John and I took a proud Kodak moment holding Wisconsin's hull in victory. Next step, some minor fiberglass repair and prep work for skinning the hull.
RE: Wisconsin Diary . . . It was a relatively uneventful day working on Wisconsin. Today was the day to begin edge skinning Wisconsin. I wanted to ensure that I did have a leaky hull after silkspanning the balsa. I decided to run a 1/8” X ¼” basswood strip around the edge of the windows. Taking my time, it took a little over 2 hours to complete both sides. Here are additional pictures from various stages of the skinning; More to follow . . .
RE: Wisconsin Diary . . . My first idiot attempt at building skegs . . . If you are not a licensed skeg builder, do not try this at home . . . My first attempt at building skegs for Wisconsin was a miserable failure that cost me $40+ 2 days' time. In my first run at skegs, I used 5/8 pieces of oak. The length of the skeg in 1:144 scale is roughly 14 inches long with a height of 1 3/4 inches at the tallest part skeg and 5/8 inches wide. I created a paper template from the blueprints making it completely accurate for size and shape. The template was superimposed on the oak. I then proceeded to cut both skegs out of the oak with my scroll saw. There were a few minor deviations from my cutting so there was definitely some sanding that was required. When I was done sanding, both skegs fit like a glove. I was quite pleased with myself so I quit for the day vowing that the skegs would be installed tomorrow ! ! ! For day two's my schedule of events included: - Drill the skeg so that the stuffing tube for the shaft could be installed - Epoxy the stuffing tube into the skeg - Drill out the hull so that the shaft could be run - Epoxy the skeg to the hull - Putty the contour between the skeg and hull The first stuffing tube going into the skeg is a 9/32" brass tube. So for me to get the stuffing tube into the hull I was going to need to drill a 5/16" hole approximately 10 inches through the skeg. It seems simple enough, but boy was I wrong . . . I was running my wood boring bit a slow speed. 30 minutes in the process, I hear cracking. Sure as heck, my wood had cracked roughly 8 inches into the skeg. I tried to save the skeg by cutting channel into the shipboard side of it. That seemed to work and I was able to get the stuffing tube through the skeg. Anticipating that I was going to have a similar problem with the second skeg, I pre-bored a channel for pressure relief. The second skeg drilling effort was going well for about 30 minutes. At this point my wood bore split my second skeg and penetrated the top side of the skeg. As most engineers do, I did a failure analysis of my skeg project and determined that I did not have the tools that were precise enough to drill the required 5/16" x 10" hole. So it is back to the drawing board . . .
RE: Wisconsin Diary . . . After the first failure, I knew that I had no desire to attempt another long distance drill. With that being said, it was time to do some engineering research, design and development. Based off of recommendations from froggyfrenchman (Mikey), I determined the best way for me to build the skeg was to make a sandwich for the stuffing tube. Based off of recommendations from Charles I intend to epoxy a 9/32" brass stuffing tube into the skeg and then install another 1/4" brass tub into the 9/32" tube. This will allow me to be able to remove the shaft without destroying the skeg (ease of maintenance for future refit). I decided to use Finnish birch plywood. It is a marine exterior grade wood which is waterproof and is ideal for the skegs. The 2 exterior pieces are 1/8" wide and the interior piece is 3/8". I used a saw to cut a 9/32" channel in the interior 3/8" plywood. Then I epoxied all the pieces together and drilled screws and used clamps to hold the pieces together. I decided the best way to install the skeg was to cut a 5/8" channel on the underside of the in the place that matched the plans layout for the actual skegs. The previous owner damaged the underside of the hull so it was a bit difficult to cult the hull. The above picture shows what the hull looked like after I cut the skeg slots. After the skegs were built, I wanted to do a fit test to ensure that I had cut the hull to the proper dimensions. The fit test went perfectly no adjustments were required. The aft view shows that the skegs are in alignment. All in all, attempt number two was a success. I will glue the skegs into hull later this evening. Tomorrow I will continue to work on the skegs and prepare for a float test to ensure that there are not any leaks !!!
RE: Wisconsin Diary . . . Well it was a good attempt and you learned from it. My skegs didn't come out perfect and I made mistakes but it all worked out after. The balsa strip running around the open windows are you gluing the panels inside the strip or are you gluing the panels on the strip. I never seen it done this way. If you glue the panels correctly and silkspan over the panels it should seal the lower edges from water. If the panels are doped correctly along with the silkspan it should repel the water.Even without paint as the dope will keep seal the grains of the balsa. After you install the panels are you going to sand the balsa strips or just leave as is? I was wondering because if left as is you could run the risk of having them torn off which will break the edge seal of the balsa panel I'm thinking. Interesting approach though. I am looking forward to seeing how this works. I may try that method on one of my ship projects.
RE: Wisconsin Diary . . . I did something similar trying to drill for stuffing tubes in the past. Think everyone tries it once. I'm curious about one thing though - why sheet the hull before setting up internals? Iowa is a big hull with lots of room to work, but I've always found it simpler to not have to worry about damaging the sides when I'm working - and is useful for access now and then.
RE: Wisconsin Diary . . . Nick, it is my first build and I was sorta tired of just looking at a hull setting on my workbench. Plus coodinating with the clubs technical officers for verification that I marked the windows properly for my clubs ruleset. The timeframe coincided with a club meeting so I wanted the hull marked up for the meeting. Then I wanted someone to show me how to properly silkspan, so I was working around club meeting time constraints. I am the only active ship builder in my area and have to travel at a minimum of 3 hours to a meeting site and average over 5 hours of driving time. I did a dry fit of all the internals and it seems that I have plenty of room to work with in the equipment. The layout is marked in the hull and ready for installation. I have several hulls in line for construction: Arizona, Graf Spee and a Fuso . . . I am gonna try a different sequence of events with the next hull and figure out what process works best for me.
RE: Wisconsin Diary . . . Stokamoto, I used basswood as an edge boarder. I sealed the exterior portion of the basswood with PC11 Epoxy putty to keep water from getting behind it. I wanted a solid surface to butt the balsa next to. As a first time ship builder, I have heard and seen ships that tend to leak. I used some advice from fellow club members and put my engineering degree to work. I have never silkspanned before and felt that I would make a rookie mistake and end up with a leaky ship. I will keep you appraised of how it goes for me.
RE: Wisconsin Diary . . . After the work was completed with the skegs, it is time to move to the next phase of Wisconsin's construction, skinning her hull. The process is pretty straight forward. Here are some pictures from the various stages during my skinning process. Starting on the bow was the logical place. The only difficulty that I had, was the high curve on the forward upper section of the bow. I had to use micro wood clamps to hold the balsa in place until the CA glue bonded the balsa to the fiberglass hull. It is important to constantly check to ensure that the CA glue is bonding the balsa to the rib as tight as possible. This will help to prevent leaks when the ship is completed. The time that it took me to finish skinning Wisconsin was under 2 hours. The painful part for me was sealing the edge skinning that I did. I know that adding this additional step will help me to keep Wisconsin watertight ! ! ! For me, I have always been sloppy when I putty. I guess that I shouldn't have expected any different when I was working on Wisconsin. I will end up paying the price when it comes time to sand the edges down for a smooth transition between the basswood strips and the hull. After Fleet Admiral Elisabeth (Da Wife) inspected my work, she did not like the transitions on the bow and stern. She thought that they had harsh edges and probably need some sort of transitions. So I went back and continued working on the bow and stern. I ended up using scraps of balsa to fill in the open spots before and after the basswood. Then of course it is time to use my friend, PC11 Epoxy Putty !!! The stern needed a lot of putty work, however I was fortunate that I was able to sand and get a solid seal in the bow. So only some minor putty work was required.
RE: Wisconsin Diary . . . It was sorta fun to build some of the external components of Wisconsin. John and I put together the rudders, exterior and interior shafts. The first part of the evolution started with drilling the exterior shaft holes into the fiberglass hull. Next we followed by drilling the shaft posts holes. After the shaft post holes were drilled, we used CA glue to set them in place. When the glue dried we re-enforced the rudder posts with epoxy putter both inside and outside the hull. Next it was time to construct the shafts. I had to pull from the memory banks how best to solder the bushing into the 1/4" brass tube. It went very quickly and presented no major issues. It would have been easier if I had solder wick, but I made due (bought some at Radio Shack the next morning). Afterword's, it was time to use the CA glue to mount the shaft struts to the shaft. This was the only screw-up of this event. Go figure, I glued the struts on backward. I had to send John out on an emergency run to buy some fingernail polish remover (Fleet Admiral was asleep and I could find hers) from Wal-Mart. After twenty minutes of soaking, I was able to break them free, clean them up and re-glue them. We then glued the struts to the hull and the shafts inside the hull. As before, when the glue dried we re-enforced the shafts and struts with more epoxy putty inside and outside the hull. I then attached the propellers' to the shafts and inserted them into shaft tubes. Finally I attached the drag props to the exterior shafts ! ! !We checked the alignment and verified them off of our plans. Everything was good to go . . . Now it was photo op time and plus time for a bit of satisfaction seeing Wisconsin one step closer to being on the lakes of Virginia. Next step, finish sanding the edges.
Stokamoto, I appreciate all the feedback. I do have several ships in my build que and am trying to refine my process. I am sure that everyone's first build involves a steep learning curve.
Thanks Nikki, I have been doing the best that I can. I just hope that when she is launched for sea trials, I don't see the float and mast sticking out of the water :blush:. . .
I had two major fears with my first warship. Number One was that it would go slower than molasses on an Alaskan Winter day, Number Two was that it would sail along fine and rapidly sink in the middle of the pond on its maiden voyage. Thankfully neither event occurred.
You aren't the first by far. Heh. During my first battle with my first ship, I sank 7 of 11 sorties due to things like the pump running backwards, bad tactical decisions like passing behind a North Carolina (triple sterns anyone?), and using ancient dried up stiff balsa which splintered into chunks when hit. Know what though? I had a blast anyway! Got to love this hobby!
