1:72 Los Angeles

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Daniel,

(I refused to address an adult as Spankey ... what's next, Buckwheat?!)

Two motors on a 1/72 LA is for crazy people!

Is this your first r/c sub? If so, start with the single-motor set-up till you get your confidence up. This way Mike and I can take you to the cleaners twice: first, the single-motor bulkhead; then, when you get cocky, we're in your pants again selling you a two-motor, single-shaft motor bulkhead.

Oh, and when you make out that Caswell order form, don't forget the relative bearing grease, water slugs, and magic-smoke.

What a country!

David

[spankey]

I was also trying to find the golden rivet that somebody told me was someplace in this kit...

I've been driving your 1/96 skipjack, and a 1/72 Gato I converted for 5 or 6 years. For fun, I gave that Skipjack boat a 7 bladed scimitar prop, and that thing MOVES. I think I might need to get the twin motor setup....

[greenman407]

Thats tellin em Spankey!

[spankey]

The first ship I was on, somebody told me to go looking for that golden rivet, and a bucket of steam...I just went and took a nap for 4 hours.

Jokes aside, I really appreciate all the help I've been getting.

Is two 550 motors really too much?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Well, next to Norbert's little Delphine model, my 1/96 SKIPJACK is the most dangerous/fun r/c model submarine out there. And you enjoyed it.

OK, it's official, I'm dealing with a nut.

Yeah, spring for the two-motor version. But, tie that lead-foot of yours behind your back when you first operate your LA, OK?

[spankey]

No Kidding!!! I love my skipjack! With the upgraded prop (I know its not scale), but that boat approaches 8-10kts submerged. Torque roll is a VERY real problem, and depth control is EASILY lost, but its only for short sprints. Believe it or not, I've had (accidentally) the skipjack come completely out of the water.

I promise I wont go overboard with this thing...I've put too much into it to pile it up into somebody's dock support or something.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Offset the two stern planes and two rudder control surfaces to produce a roll counter to the propeller torque. Now you can fly!

David,

[spankey]

So, marked, and cut the nose off on the lower hull half. Picture attached. I need to clean it up before it gets glassed onto the top half. I'll probably make the rear cut before I do any kind of glassing.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Do all your glass work (bow and stern pieces, and indexing strips) in one sitting.

David

[spankey]

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea...try to kill as few brain cells as possible....I need as many as I can keep ahold of.

I just cut the AFT end of the 'Z' cut. The hull came with indexing lips, which I heard were good to alternate...more work to glass them on, but I think it might help keep things lined up. The linear distance of the hull that needed indexing lips was ~50", so the plan was to go with 5 strips. 3 of the strips will be on the top of the hull, and two will be on the bottom. I've used paper clamps to show them in position, where I intend to glass them onto the top and bottom halves of the hull.

I will mask off the whole top and bottom halves of the hull, so that through sloppy glass work (Entirely within my ability to do), I dont get any resin on the 'good' sides of the hull halves.

Before I glass the stuff together, I'm going to be working on finding some blocks of either plastic (Probably LDPE or HDPE) or possibly aluminum or brass. These will be positioned in the tail cone where the rudder and plane penetrations will occur. The intent is two-fold...first, have a thick solid surface to act as a 'bearing' / support for the planes and rudders as their control arms pass through the fiberglass hull. The second purpose will be when I extend the top piece of this support material (for the upper rudder) in the AFT section past the Z-cut. If this material is aluminum or brass, I will drill, tap, then thread this, and the top hull half will screw onto the bottom half into this material. If plastic (Polyethelene) I will glass, or in some way glue a nut on to the material, and it will also function to attach the two hull halves together. I'll attempt to draw something that show's what I'm up to later.

In any event, attached are a couple photos of the hull halves which have been cut, and the indexing lips.

Daniel-

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Good plan on the indexing strips. You can minimize dribbling of the epoxy resin by mixing in some talc or other inert filler -- make a paste, less likely to run.

Way, way overkill on the bearing holes for the rudders and stern plane operating shafts -- keep it simple!

Looking good so far.

David

[spankey]

The indexing strips worked well. The sides of the boat line up good. I am going to have to do some filling work on the seam between the bow sonar dome, and the lower hull half. After I made the cut, I sanded it, to clean it up, and it didnt look so good. Cut just wasnt up to par, so I'll have to do some sorting on that.

Otherwise, went well. I am glad you warned me about thinning the glass...I thickened it, but apparently not enough. I used 'Fiber Glast' 2000 series resin for the job. When you mix that stuff, it calls for 1 part hardener to 3 parts resin. I added more, maybe 1.25 parts hardener to 3 parts resin. The working time before it got tacky was supposed to be 120 mins....I figure I needed at least that much time. I had the indexing strips clamped with paper clamps while it was curing. Beefed it up with 2 layers glass cloth an it still ran...even with thickener. Between when I left the boat last night, and when I got to it today, it had run down into the top/bottom of the hull halves. Ohh well, I'll sand/s****e it out to lighten up the hull a bit. No hard done.

Edit...apparently cant say s c r a p e....not sure why.

Unfortunately no pics on this yet. Should have some in a couple days.

Having to study for a Biannual flight review now...

[spankey]

Good news, passed the Flight Review, so I'm back to work on the boat now.

Over the weekend, I was working on cleaning up the indexing strips and adjusting the fit of the bow cone to the bottom hull half. I used some evercoat metal glaze to start blending the two halves of the bow sonor dome. This stuff wasnt completely hard last night, so I havent sanded it yet.

I also had some trouble with the cut when I removed the sonar dome from the lower hull...the saw blade drifted, and I had to add some material to the lower hull half to fill a crack between the sonar dome, and the lower half. I did this by putting tape on the bottom hull half so the tape followed the curve of the hull. Then, I mixed up some evercoat, and added some fiberglass cloth fibers...individually, so that the filler would have some meat. put that stuff on the sticky side of the tape, and let it cure. When the tape was removed, the filler followed the curvature of the hull bottom, and I just sanded off what I didnt need so that the bottom half now meets up with the top half at the sonar dome joint much better.

During this process, I've had grey krylon primer on the boat. The hull has a white gel-coat, and the paint keeps sc-raping off... it looks terrible. What can I use to get the grey primer to stick to this white gel-coat?

I'm sorry to dissapoint, but I still dont have my camera back...the other photos were on a borrered camera.

More to follow in a day or two.

[ManOwaR]

Spankey,
If you have any shine on that gell coat at all your primer will have poor adhesive performance. Do an entire dry or wetsand with 400 or maybe even 320 over the whole thing to get that shine off. Make sure you clean and degrease the surface with lacquer thinner or acetone too. Second, you might want to change over to an acrylic auto body primer like Evercoat Durabuild or DuPont Nason (same stuff as Dave uses but different name). It can be airbrushed on and thinned with lacquer thinner to different consistencies depending on your task ie. thick high build priming or thin for visibility coats. The flash off time is a fraction of that Krylon stuff and also sands much better.

Regards,
Joel

[spankey]

Joel, Thanks for the input. I'm getting help from a master now! I'll check into those primers. I've heard DuPont Nason mentioned before. I'm looking forward to your marketing of the 1:72 Seawolf. I'm going to be getting a copy to accompany this LA boat.

Daniel-