R/C Naval Combat

she looks great, Don't for get to counter-rotete the porps!!
Nikki

haha i know its the right one looking at the stern, im still trying to figure out why counter rotate just doesnt make sense to me. any way now im workin on motor mounts and trying to figure ou the ruders

You'd probably want to angle those outer shafts slightly inboard, towards the rudders, not outboard, away from them.

Since the outer shafts are probably not going to be driven, it doesn't really matter if they angle in or not ... unless the scale purists would like to see it that way.

Depends if you are planning on battling or just cruise around. If just cruising around, no need to trim rudders and you can power all three shafts. If you plan on combating though, drive the center prop and not the outer ones to get the best turning possible. Also, do not trim any extra off the rudders if planning on combating.

is it better to have all 3 props angled slightly down or keep them pretty much straigh to scale?

Slight angle is better. It will provide clearance once their inside the hull with the hull bottom.

will it make it go faster by anychance? (i am not entering to battle, strictly show boat)

If your drive shafts are straight and level, you might notice tiny fractions of seconds trimmed off your speed times, but another advantage of down-angle propellers aside from hull clearance is how it pushes your aft end up slightly, rather than pulling it down into the wash vortex caused by the spinning blades, which in my opinion gives a better appearance at speed for cruising. Certainly there are ways to ballast your hull in order to counter that as well, but there is a more important issue for a down-angle that hasn't been completely explained yet: clearance inside the hull.

Whether you intend to direct-drive or gear-drive your shafts, you will need some space inside the hull to work with when it comes to fitting parts into place on your shafts. It will just be easier to do things if you have space to work with. My Iowa-class USS Illinois has excellent clearance on the inside at the main/inboard drive-shaft stuffing tube ends, but I left space for my two outboard dummy shafts to be driven as well in case I want to go to a four-shaft drive instead of my current two-shaft drive. However, my outboard shafts are awfully close to the internal curvature of the hull, which could make fitting drive connection components... interesting, but that's neither here nor there.

Gotta say your Bismarck build is coming along nicely, and I'm looking forward to seeing more progress as you move along!

Another thing to consider with your rudders is doing a geared system as opposed to a push/pull rod armature system: I started out with push-pull in my Iowa-class and it turned great. I switched to gears to see what the difference would be and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the six-foot battleship's turning improved dramatically. Hard over on the stick will cause the ship to turn almost inside its own length (or so it looks from shore), which to me is only an advantage for maneuvering in tight spaces or working on ponds/lakes with lots of prop-fouling gunk or submerged objects.

thank you miller there will be a picture of were i placed my motor mounts tonight as for the rudders i kinds want them on the 8 degree angle but i gues it dont matter, so were would i find these gears to make it? oh and i have plent of room in her hull i could probably fit 2 more motoes and shafts but oviouslyim not doing that. yea i want her to scale and want her to run great is all. if you have questions on my pictures please ask because this is my first ship and i got no idea what im doing so if u ask y i did somthing hell i might be doing it rong and not notice. all tips, coments, and advice are much appretiated.

Are those 380-size motors on your drive shafts at present? I was toying with the idea of doing 4 380s for all four of my Iowa's shafts, but went with two 600s to power the inboard shafts, not only to get running that much faster, but also to comply with combat rules that allow for the pump to be the same size or smaller than your largest drive motor. Since you're showboating that won't apply, but in case you decide to build a boat for combat, it's a handy piece of information. I'm mostly interested to see how those three motors will work for you when it comes to speed and maneuverability; conventional wisdom I've seen for Bismarck/Tirpitz is to put a monster 970 motor driving the center shaft, usually with a huge prop--something like two inches diameter or bigger... but again, that's for combat. Looking forward to seeing this ship develop, you're doing fine so far!

Also, the gears I mentioned are available at Battler's Connection--www.battlersconnection.com on their rudders page. There are two gears sizes: the main gear affixes to the servo you'll use for steering--a standard servo works beautifully, such as the Futaba S3003 available probably at every hobby shop that deals with the RC hobby. Really great servo. Anyway, the other two gears are smaller diameter--I think maybe an inch or so--and those will mount on your rudder shafts, linking up with the bigger main gear. You can also acquire V-struts from this same site; I have a pair of them on my outboard shafts as well and they look really cool.

thank you for the tips miller and i think im just about at that stepp were i gota mess with the rudders....most difficult part for me.

What size are those motors? Are they 6 volt or 12v. I don't know if they will be powerful enough to move a large model like Bismarck at 40 lbs. Maybe if all 3 are running at 12v with the speed controlled by electronic speed controls. I remember using 380's in a Lutzow weighing in at 12 lbs and it got it to speed. But that model did not displace a lot of itself below the water line and it's a narrow hull. Your working with a much wider ship and 3 and half times heavier. I don't think they will be strong enough to push it fast enough . Maybe at 12 volts but power consumption will go up because of the increased load on the motors. Depends on the speed that you may want to have. I had a pair in a fully ballasted VU class and that model clipped along pretty good. I don't know if anyone else with a Bismarck that are using these motors could offer their take on it .
Definitely allow more space to allow prop size changes or motor size changes inside. Looks good overall. Keep it up.