1:72 Los Angeles

[spankey]

So after a 3 month hiatus, I'm back on the project!!

I have a good excuse now, I'll be going on Active Duty in March, so I MUST get this boat in the water before I leave!!

Any word on the availability of the 2 motor'd 3.5" Subdriver with a single output shaft?

Daniel-

[ADDINGTON]

Pardon the interruption, but may I ask why you wish the two motors?
You should be able to easily churn up a proper bow wave with the venerable single unit with attached 3:1 gearbox?
-Kerry

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

We'll sell you either the two-motor or single motor, but Kerry's right. Why over-push this thing?

David

[spankey]

With regard to the question about overpowering...I guess more than anything, to quote a recent President, "I did it...because I could."

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I like the way you think. Let's do this: you buy the single-motor SD and run your monster with that, if you still feel the need for speed, send me the motor bulkhead and we'll discount off that and send you a two-motor bulkhead. How's that, hot-shot?

David

[spankey]

Fair deal. I like that idea. I'll get some stick time with it on the low power setting before I give it enough 'juice' to fly right out of the water!

[spankey]

question... I have a stainless steel motor shaft, that is threaded for my propeller on one end. The extreme stern of the boat has an oilite bearing in it, as does a bulkhead about 6 inches forward of the stern. I mounted the bulkhead with the stainless shaft in place to attempt to ensure alignment of the two oilite bearings so they wouldnt 'fight' eachother when the motor shaft was spinning...

Problem....The two oilite bearings have strayed a bit from perfect linear alignment, so when I spin the shaft by hand, its tough.... Any ideas?

I used valve lapping compound to attempt to polish the shaft and the bearings so that the shaft wouldnt bind, but that was a disaster...had ALOT of trouble getting all the lapping compound out of the oilite bearings.

Any other ideas about getting the shaft to spin freely in the oilite bearings? Only thing I was thinking, was to spin the motor shaft in the lathe, and use some rough grit paper to polish the shaft down.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Find a suitably sized round file (chain-saw supplies), chuck it up in a variable-speed drill, put the drill in reverse, and jam that dude in there and ... ROTATE!

David

[spankey]

Yup, that worked. That Oilite responds pretty well to the file....doesnt get too scarred up.

I didnt wallow too much out of the bearings, but enough. Also, loosened the retaining nut on the prop, and re-positioned it. The prop was pressed up too tightly to the extreme stern of the hull....that was part of the problem also.

[spankey]

I just received my 3.5" Subdriver from Caswell this afternoon! Excellent! Actually it was the last of the 3.5" units (I think), because I think they're changing the product line-up, BUT as expected, Caswell and Mr Merriman delivered! Since it was the last unit, and they didn't have any more units in kit form, they sent me one they had that was already assembled! Thanks alot, I really appreciate it!

These guys are awesome. This next week is going to be busy, but I am hoping to get this thing into the boat soon! More to follow....

[spankey]

After a LONG hiatus, I've gotten back on this project. I'm Active duty at Flight School, so for those of you aviators out there, you know this takes most/all of your time.

Just putting together the Subdriver that Mr Caswell and Merriman sent, it was the last of their old 3.5" units, and I'm very grateful to have it.

Question....As you can see in the picture below, I'm starting to put stuff onto the rear motor tray, and wondered if anyone had any advice about preferable locations to put stuff.



I just bought a new 50MHz Lepton Receiver, so when that gets here, I am going to put that on the most forward tray shown in the photo. Any issues I should be concerned with about where those servo's and the speed control is with respect to the motor?

I'm planning on putting the level keeper (just bought this from Caswell) on the bottom of the tray, right below the two servo's. Any problems with this location?

Dan-

[Tugfan]

Thread dead?

[spankey]

Thread not dead, I'm on active duty, so its been hard to have time to work on the boat. Finishing truck clutches, etc on the weekends... you guys know the drill.


I should be back on this in a couple weeks, so Standby. Next up will be loading everything into Mr. Merriman's WTC and crossing my fingers that I've put it all in there correctly...!

[spankey]

Question, does anyone with a little more experience than me have a good way to locate the WTC in the hull, and have the ballast tank properly positioned for a good trim?

Thanks, Daniel

[greenman407]

I have always had good results with finding the center of the submarine and putting the center of the ballast tank 1" further toward the bow.