That's great, Mark! Sounds like you've made a lot of progress. Glad I'll be battling IJN, I wouldn't want to be on Yamato's business end. Have you got any photos of her on the water? 146 lbs of lead! Wow! You could get a hernia lugging that around...[] Carl
after a lot of debating on how I wanted to mount the pumps, I went with the most strait forward approach (and it looks a lot neater). went to the hardware store and picked up some 2" long bolts to replace the ones that hold the pump housing together(12) along with 12 more nuts. drilled holes through the hull bottom base plate (3/8" ply with 1/8" bass wood plank + a layer of 5oz fiberglass), put the bolts in from the underside and secured with a nut on the inside (the nuts also act as a 1/8" spacer to allow H2O flow under pump) then put pump on and secure with the other set of nuts. sorry no pics of sea trials too buisy playing with boat promise to post pics of the interior tomorrow night.
12 bolts hold the pump housing together?! How big is it? Are the dive weights deigned to be removable?
what the hell, I can't do anything with my file folder. all I get is a "you are not autorised to upload" or something along those lines. so I guess no more pics
as for the 12 bolts, there's 3 pumps (fron BC) 4 bolts each. 1 aft, 1 midship, and 1 in the bow (this is the small 1/2 unit pump, the others are the full size ones)
Instead of carrying as much lead ballast, have you considered adding "sea valves" (hardware store ball valves?) and ballast tanks located inboard to use water to offset the need for extra weight to bring her to scale waterline?
the lead takes up less space, the water tanks would be too large and get in the way of the other ship systems
bring it on! on a less combative note did you get my e-mail? and there's a Q for you, if I make a plug of the I-400 would you make me a hull in fiberglass? and no this doesn't mean I'm switching to fiberglass boats, just for one of the I-400's to try a different setup. got a lot of scrap wood lying around need to cleanup shop http://www.rcnavalcombat.com/rcnavalcombat/FileManager/ViewFile.aspx?id=1177"\>"\>
I would, that would be very cool. I also pay a small commission($10) per hull sold to the plug-builder. The hull would split in half, with a lip for mating them together. The superstructure would need to be separate from the hull proper. I'll check my junk folder for the email. Is it thru the pm system on here, or regular email? I love that pic! It's like the 550-size motors are little little tiny! Gives one a good idea of how BIG the ships can get
it was through regular e-mail. were would the split be? between the deck and the hull? also is there any particular way the plug should be constructed? and we need to decide on the armor thickness of subs ( this will impact my plug design to some extent). I think to make them able to dive to at least 2' they should be allowed 1/16" balsa, otherwise a fish could swim by and tear a hole in 1/32" at any kind of depth
1/16" seems reasonable for a sub to me. I agree that 1/32 would be to frail and prone to accidental sinks.
i think 1/16" is reasonable for subs. Pressure on the hull at 2 feet would require it. Before someone chimes in that 2 feet is deep... in 1/96, your conning tower going beneath the waves puts the keel 7-10 inches down, to say nothing of actually diving enough to avoid having the sail hit warships on the surface.
I agree -- go with 1/16" for subs. I really don't think 1/32" balsa will cut it much more than a foot below the surface. And as Tugboat pointed out, that's not as deep as it sounds in 1/96. Even if by chance the 1/16" balsa on a sub gets hit with a round that doesn't penetrate, it's still likely to leak when the sub submerges due to the increased water pressure. Carl
Okay, I'll post a proposed revised rule for subs in its own thread. Mark, I found the email and marked you as 'safe' so hopefully we won't have any more of that hotmail silliness. I will email you some pics. As for the plug splitting... hmmm... my BC I-400 hull splits top and bottom, which seems to work fairly well. The intent being to mold them that way, and then allow the final builder to join the halves permanently after constructing most of the ships systems (I guess, that's what I plan)
I would want it molded as hull then deck not split at the water line (like what I think you're saying) I have all the stations cut for the I-400, just waiting on the results of the 1/16" balsa 1? them it will take me a day or two to compleat the plug. I need your address to ship the plug, if you want to keep it off the forum just e-mail it to me. I'll post a pic of the plug before I send it so that if there is any questions and corrections that need to be made, they can be addressed.
The problem with that method is that the very back of the ship would make the mold a 'cave', if you will, which would be very difficult to lay up, to say the least. I'll give it a shot, but the nature of the hull form means that there may well be some ugliness in the very bow and stern where I can't get a roller in; some air bubbles might exist there in the hulls produced. Are you going to do a superstructure plug, too? I'll email the address to you Got to get back to work, now.
