R/C Naval Combat

 My favorite ship, the Viribus Unitis..  

Cutting the new deck height here is going to be a serious pain......

I am going to post a drawing tonight and have somebody look at it to make sure I am correct before I cut up this deck....

thanks.  I just made a new thread for decks.  Check and see what you think.  I need Tim to look at them if possible.

 Building has been at a halt the past couple of days as I have been under the weather.  Turns out, today my doctor tells me I have Strep Throat.....  

arghhh  life is good with a school teacher as a wife and 4 kids....  somebody take me out back and shoot me!

For those who are following the thread, sorry for the delay.  I had to either winterize my shop(garage) or move a large portion indoors to the basement area.  I chose the basement, its heated.... 

We are now back u and building here at Spudswerks now.  I have finished my wiring and fixed a small bug in my travere system for the Bruno Turret.  Pics coming soon.

Right now I am at a standstill and dam near put the Mutsu up for sale....    I am fairly good at building.  Three pole mast ase easy.  The 6 pole support system for the Mutsu Pagoda is cusing me to loose what little hair I have left.

Does anybody have a neat little trick in doing this?  The angles in those poles are the issue.

Here is a very nice reference on the different decks of the pagoda.

Model reference

For those who are following this build, sorry for the lack of posts lately, the Secratary of the Navy (WIFE)  shut down any developments over the Christmas Holiday.  Plus I had to move the shop in out of the garage as the temps are droping enought to make my old bones hurt.

I have moved indoors into the basement now.  Shop is smaller and my major tools like the table saw, sanders, ect are still out in the garage.  I did manage to get three work benches and most of my smaller stuff into the basement.  I luv heat! 

Click here for larger photo

You can see the SMS Baden in drydock to the right and the IJN Mutsu in the background.

With funding approved by the Sec of the Navy, construction has resumed.

The first thing on the calender was redoing my linkage in the rotate.  We now have a very simple, sturdy rotate.  The gun elevates and depresses on its own as it travels over the lower turret so there is no need for a elev/depr servo.  I use a spring to keep the gun depressed and to keep it depressed while firing.  The spring is just loose enough to allow the gun to elevate when I traverse over the lower turret.  I also changed the push rods and it now has only one of the rods you see here.

Click here for larger photo

Click here for larger photo

Work on the Pagoda work began this week.  With Jeff on the video cam with me to give me moral support I began the dreaded work.  The main reason the Mutsu has been in the shipyard for 7 years now is because of the Pagoda.  I have made some very nice masts in the past, even a very nice scale reproduction on the Arizona's cage mast.    The Mustu's 7 pole pagoda is clearly the most difficult thing I have ever done.....

Progress started out slow, and of course by the time you come to the end you have discovered several neat tricks along the way.  I sure wish I knew of them at the start....  

I found the best way was to locate and drill the locations of the poles into the lowest deck.  The I made a template of the upper most deck and drilled out the pole locations there.  The template was then glued to the center pole to keep it sturdy while I constanly adjusted, repositioned, put together and pulled apart the decks one by one a thousand times till I got them all to fit.  What I had to do was work one deck at a time.  I would drill out the center hole, slide the deck onto the center pole, then slide each of the 6 outer poles in the top template and then visually align the poles to the bottom plate.  Once alignment was ok, I marked the pole locations on the new deck and took it all apart, drilled the newly marked holes.  Then place it all back together again to verify and most times...  re drill holes till it was right.  Rinse and repeat till all the decks had been completed.  This process took days!!!    But in the end it is worth it because even though the splinter shields and a few other details need to be done, the pagoda is starting to take shape and looks very nice.

Click here for larger view!

Click here for larger view!

Click here for larger view!

Click here for larger view!

Click here for larger view!

Click here for larger view!

Click here for larger view!

Click here for larger view!

Click here for larger view!

Click here for larger view!

The Blast plate and a few other things need to be moved into place better.  I put them on to get the photo... 

Click here for larger view!

 Next will be the top two levels, a few sights, some windows, a little roof work, the range finder, and the splinter shields.

At the local hobby shop I found some very thick plastic sheeting.  1/16" thick....  this stuff is great for the decks because it is just thick enough to make it very sturdy.............  its like 20MM i think.  And grey 

 This pagoda is from one of BC's kits.  He uses a 10 or 15lb Rigid Foam.  Smoothon has it at 25.00 a set that goes a long way.

I would recommend using Foam-it 15.

http://www.smooth-on.com/Rigid-and-...index.html

Just got my funding from the Secratary of the Navy (Wife) to finish the Mutsu.. 

30+ years in the wood working areana, both for a hobby and some professional work for a few years...  Let your guard down one second......

After a few hours I decided to mix a few things together to see what I would get.  I mixed up a dremel tool with steel cut-off blade, a pair of rubber gloves, and a heavy dose of stupidity.......

Here is what came out of the mix................

I'm humble now.....