R/C Naval Combat

This is the underside of the after deck. I created a magazine holder that uses a rubberband, but other than that I havent built anything to keep the guns on target. I might have to use one of those blocks that hold the barrels to the deck (ugh)

Here is the triangle I made for the water channeling. I plan on putting a screen over the triangle and filling the outboard edges with concrete sealer at a slight angle.

The batteries sit on either side of the channel and forward of the pump. I might be able to fit the regulator of the CO2 bottle in between the batteries, with the bottle running up into the bow.

Here are all the guns roughed in. They kind of flop around alot now, but once the  turrets are attached to their hinges and the stern guns are actually affixed to something, I think they will be pretty solid!

I don't know if I'll be able to get her on the  water any time soon though, it snowed almost two feet on Wednesday!

I'm not sure how the guns are mounted inside the barbett, but dont forget that you need to be able to take the barrels completely off to service the guns if you get an oval BB stuck at the breech. Also, you'll need to adjust the nut at the barrel to tweak the guns. Mounting the cannons o the deck in at least two places will make them secure enough so that the barrel doesn't have to take any mounting (except to keep the barrel pointed in the same place for the duals, they can shift a little from bumpin'). Seal every wood surface since water can touch everything in the boat. Don't want to have a little rotten cannon mount come loose at a critical time I'd also cut out all the windows before you go too much further since they have to be done anyway and you can see inside the hull to make sure you've got internal clearance before hard-mounting something. Other than that, just keep chugging away. You're to the "parts go inside the boat" phase, which is definate progress.

The clippard solenoids (MME-2PDS-W012) work well.  I used them in my scratch built VDT without any problems.  Only thing you really need to be mindful of with them is that they are rated for 12V not 6V like the Kips.  I routinely use them with 7.2V NiMh battery packs and have never had any problems with them.  A fully charged 6V gel cell will fire them just fine to but by the second sortie the voltage on the pack has dropped enough that you often have trouble getting them to fire.  If you want to go with gel cells you can always just run the solenoids off a seperate battery, its not that big a deal really.  At $20 each I consider them a rather good alternative to Kips if you dont mind the 12V rating and having to use adapters to get the 1/8" NPT port to the size we use (10-32), I guess you could  alway use larger hoses as well.