R/C Naval Combat

I'll try to snap a pic and get it up in the morning.

With a weekend coming up, I plan to cut a lot of ribs out and put them loosely on the keel I will also be posting some pics of different ways to brace the wood while you cut.

I am sincerely hoping to get something resembling a subdeck design lesson going in the week ahead (or the week after, depending on how long it takes me to hand-cut the ribs. At least half of my pride in the project is in doing it totally with hand tools on the cheap!

Either way, Tug, your suffering will be to everyone's benefit in the long run; when I do a convoy ship (I'm leaning seriously towards building a CV-6 Enterprise for my next project once I get the Illinois done), I'll be doing it from scratch.

Okay, true believers! (God, I sound like Stan Lee) This morning, I started cutting ribs for our project... and after three ribs with the hand-powered jigsaw, my arthritis told me to be weak. So I'm doing the remaining ones on my powered scrollsaw. It takes about 2-3 minutes on the powered saw, and about 5-9 minutes by hand, to cut one rib, depending on the complexity of the shape, etc, etc... Using a hand saw, bracing the wood is VERY important. I sat it on a sturdy table with a can of ready-mix concrete on it, and sawed on the edge of the table, so no more than 1-2 inches of wood was hanging in free space. More than that, and you'll have a hard time cutting as the wood flexes. Don't try to cut exactly on the lines, cut a little outside and sand or file to the correct shape. You can also sweat enough water to exceed this model's max displacement in a short morning of hand-sawing! So stay hydrated please!

(For those wondering, no I'm not hideously old nor infirm. I'm 39, with 10 years of damage from early-onset arthritis which after three ribs is making it very hard to type this! I will continue to make sure that each step is possible with hand tools, but I will break down and use power tools to save myself the pain. If you can spare $40, I recommend a no-name dremel from Harbor Freight. With an inexpensive selection of the right bits, you can cut the whole boat out with it for less money than a $200 scrollsaw).

Share this Dremelesque wisdom oh great Sensei.

Either that or if you live in/near canada you can go to your local Canuckistani Tire and buy one of their scroll saws on sale for less than $100.

But seriously, I have to respect those who choose to do this with hand tools.

--Chase

Thanks, Joker! I was beginning to wonder if any 'students' were working on the project...

I have four sets cut

i have my carpenter shop at work (the bicycle casino) and all the wood i need.
even better i am the only carpenter thay have.

Following but keeping my self to working on 1 armored cruiser at a time.

Though in the vein of this project where is a good cheap source of 1/8 ply for decks? I realize this is skipping on a bit in the lesson plan and I won't be needing till then.

It's okay, I skipped ahead and bought a 12"x24" piece of 1/8" ply at Hobby Lobby for $6.99. No shipping to pay, just a little tax. I figured that I'll be there shortly, so I may as well have the material on hand! Tonite I will be posting a lesson on 'putting the ribs on the keel', which is not REALLY difficult, but there are a few tricks. Joker, you are the man Soon we will do the 'laying out and cutting the subdeck' lesson, after which we will need some 1/8" plywood. A good bit for the deck, some smaller bits (scrap from cutting the deck) for the casement decks, and some thin (maybe 1/2" wide) long pieces for the armor belt.

You guys shouldn't need more than 2 square feet of 1/8" ply. By the way, it goes without saying (unless you are a Casino's carpenter) that you need to save all your scrap wood, you never know when that little piece my be needed to reinforce a motor mount or something!

I can get 6"x12" but I guess the deck does not have to be one piece.

Mine won't be in one piece, but that's fine. If someone has enough large scraps of 1/8" laying around to build a deck, I'm all for it!

Tonite I got a bit more done, cutting ribs, gluing to the keel (pics, etc are in the camera for the lesson to come). I cannot find 4 ribs, which vexes me greatly, since they were already cut. I had some guests in the shop and stuff got moved around (possibly by me, who knows). So after I finish Edie, I know that I will find 4 ribs in my shop.

Indeed. That is how the universe works.

hey tug, i know this is getting ahead of the lesson, but what type of radio do i need. i want to go ahead and see what type of deal i can get on one.

For my ship (Edie [because all my ships are girls!]), I bought a $45 Chinese 7 channel 2.4GHz radio. If you buy a radio off Hobbyking.com, make sure that you get some good standard servos with it in the order, because you can buy them for like $5 each, and they won't add to the shipping cost much! There are several inexpensive 2.4GHz radios available now (some are discussed in the Electrical and/or Product Review sections of these forums). Another option is hitting E-bay for a used 3,4, or 6-channel radio in the 75MHz frequency band. Do NOT buy a 72MHz radio, as these are aircraft-legal only, and not allowed to be used on surface ships (nor subs!). A couple of guys have gotten lucky at yard sales with radios buried amongst the clutter.

For our purposes, you will need to buy 4 servos: 1 for throttle, 1 for rudder, 1 for guns, and at least 1 spare (I would buy 2 for a total of five). The pump will be controlled by a simple auto pump switch, so someone using a 3-channel radio (lots of RC car guys have these) can run this ship without a problem. I will post the model number of the servos I'm using tomorrow, I don't feel like going out into the hot, humid, oppressively sweaty Georgia night to look at one right now! We will have a lesson on waterproofing the ones I'm using (which are very similar to the Futaba standard servos) before too long. The good news is that they do pretty well, even with no waterproofing! Not to say that I would be SO irresponsible as to send a ship out with un-waterproofed servos!! NOTE: When buying a radio, find out how many and what kind of servos are included. Micro servos can be used for throttle switches, but not for guns nor the rudder.

K, thanks. I'll see what I can get.