Albacore continued

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

pussy!.......

[greenman407]

Says he who has every tool and jig known to man to build anything! I must tread lightly with my builds.

[greenman407]

Friday night , this was the state of affairs with the Albacore. I abraided the top of the sail and applied masking tape to make a sort of dam. I made it taller than I needed to give me extra to cut down to the shape I needed. I had forgotten that I had this 2 part liquid epoxy when I stated earlier that I was going to use JB Weld. That stuff is too thick.

[greenman407]

Once Ive got it shaped close to the pictures dimensions Ill cut off the back of the sail and start making my sail rudder. The hobbie store didn't have any sheet plastic so ill take some old stuff and using plastic weld(cohesive) ill build up some pieces thick enough and then taper it down. Its a work in progress.

[greenman407]

Ok , borrowing these pics of Daves....................OH!...Sorry ,He who must not be named.........pics im going to enlarge and put them up here. Thats what ill be trying to reproduce.

[greenman407]

If you take the bottom picture and hit and hold control and scroll...reduce to 50%. Thats the size of my sail.

[greenman407]

Let me introduce you to the best thing since sliced bread. Its a Dremel Multi-Max MM20. It comes with a host of attachments for cutting wood , metal, drywall and more. It even has a attachment for sanding. Works great! It doesnt melt plastic as your cutting and unlike a cutting wheel , you can cut all the way to the bottom without cutting into adjacent material. Why am I showing you this??? Because Im going to use it on the sail.

[greenman407]

Now, let me show you a scary picture! I warn you, its not for the faint of heart!

[greenman407]

Yep, Im going to use a power tool on my plastic submarine. Dont worry, its variable speed.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Now, THAT is slicker than snot, Mark!

Like the guy said in the Independance Day movie, "I gotta get me one of these!"

David

[greenman407]

Yes and just an item of note. Your work needs to be well restrained, as this thing works by vibrating minutely back and forth to do the cutting. If your work is free to vibrate along with the blade, no cutting will take place. It makes sense.

[greenman407]

Its time for major surgery! Using a pencil I marked out the shape of the back of the sail minus the rudder and started cutting.

[greenman407]

And then an unintended consequence. The vibration of the cuts vibrated the sail right off the hull. Thats Ok, thats what we wanted initially anyway. So we continued the cuts with the sail propped up on the desk.

[greenman407]

As you can see it cuts cleanly with no melting. If you have any sence of whats level and can follow a line, youll do ok.

[greenman407]

Cutting plastic, as you know, with a standard cutoff wheel takes a lot of power(unless you do it a little ata time)and melts the plastic and tends to bind. Well, try this diamond blade made by Dremel. Its thinner and cuts smoother. Try it! Whadaya think I'm a Dremel salesman?!

Ok, now on to the rudder. I'm laminating 4 sheets of 3/32" plastic together using plastic weld cohesive. The dimensions for the rudder is 1" x 2 and 7/8". Four pieces at 3/32" equals 3/8" thick. Here you can see heavy weights placed on top until a cure is achieved.