Skipjack 1/72

[greenman407]

Finishing up the sail I drilled some holes to get the air out of the top of the sail and out of the exhaust fairing on the deck behind the sail. Inside of that fairing are a bunch of ribs that I cut a notch in for better bubble flow.

[greenman407]

Thanks Guys, I will drill a 9/64" hole at that location. This thing is starting to take shape. Dave, any word yet on the emergency backup ballast kit? If Im going to put one in, now would be the time.

[trout]

Mark,
Mine had a hole pre-drilled. Here it is:

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

You want the after face of the motor bulkhead to butt up against the two large hull indexing pins of the lower hull. You gotta move that cylinder foward.

M

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

You want the after face of the motor bulkhead to butt up against the two large hull indexing pins of the lower hull. You gotta move that cylinder foward.

M

[greenman407]

One question.I dont see in the instructions about placement location of the subdriver and the shock absorber pin. The hull is 41" long so I marked out center at 20.5". If I put the shock absorber pin to the rear of the front ballast drain hole, that works out to be where the center of the ballast tank will be 1" forward of the hull ctr. Thats a pretty good place to start from my past experience. Tom ,Alec, Dave, how far off am I? I kinda prefer a drilled hole sized better to the pin than that large drain hole, because it can allow the Subdriver to rotate, even with the velcro strap. Any Thoughts?

[greenman407]

Before we get too far , I wanted to go back and mention that another way to establish the outside radial lines is after you have used the compass as suggested to make your inside radial line, take a small drill bit, like 1/16" or smaller, carefully drill a small hole on the line,all the way thru about every 3/8". Then, on the outside, just connect the dots with a pencil and small straight edge.

[greenman407]

Like this. Ill be drilling a hole in the very rear of the sail top to get the air out. However, do not install the cap to the sail until the SAS snorkel assm. is installed on the hull and checked for proper clearance inside the sail. Once everything is good, then you can take the sail back off and install the sail top to the sail.

[greenman407]

Before I close up the sail I need to address the underneath of the sail top. Its a trap for air bubbles and needs to be smoothed out for good bubble flow. If I could do it over again I would grind the underside down smooth, but since I have already Caed in the masts and sanded and sealed it and rescribed it, I dont want to mess it up. So Ill just smooth out the edges. The top of the sail under the cap is another matter. The horizontal reinforcement serves no purpose after the cap is glued on so I will remove them.

[greenman407]

Tom, I dont think that its necessary to get the foundations to jam up. Its just there to hold the prop shaft bushings. When I install the top half of the tail cone Ill put some thick CA on top of the upper foundation. It wont be going anywhere.

[greenman407]

Nothing to it if you have a good line and you go slow. Yours is GRP so it will take a little more time and effort. Your razor saw probably wont be any good after the two cuts.

[Peter W]

Neat looking cut on the stern Mark, I have got that coming up on the Akula............nervous. Looking good though.

Peter

[trout]

Looking good.
I had to open the cast foundations a little because with the bushing installed it did not close completely.

[greenman407]

Heres one I missed. Looking from the inside.

[greenman407]

Then it was on to the prop shaft foundation. If youll recall back eons ago, I cut off the nice little alignment pins in the bottom stern portion of the hull that Dave went to all the trouble to design the prop foundations to line up on. After numerous "Hail Marys" and other attempts at atonement it was mutually agreed to that I could continue living and breathing as long as I watch myself. So, with that in the past, I carefully lined up the lower half of the foundation in the bottom of the bottom hull section and CAed it in with thick Ca. Later I came back to the scene of the crime and wicked in thin CA under it. Of course this was done after putting in the prop shaft and upper foundation and upper tail section and checking the fit. At that point I had to "Dremel" down the inside of the upper tail cone section to get it to close up properly. Dont glue on the tail cone yet. There are other goodies to go in there first.