Scaleships Akula II

[Subculture]

I was thinking 100mm pipe. I do have 3m of 80mm pipe aswell

Peter

The builds I've seen used Engel tanks, and they need a certain diameter for clearance (minimum is 90mm for the 500ml tank, 100mm for all the others). However if you're going to use a different system, then you can use whatever you fancy. 80mm might work to your advantage as it should enable you to raise the buoyancy and lower the weight, perhaps by mounting the batteries underneath the module like on your Trafalgar (assuming you have the later kit with the NimH's, not the old one with the Pb brick)

[Peter W]

Me again, Andy I have the old lead brick type my is a 2000 vintage kit.Right have started on the smaller grilles top side, but as I said these do not have the pre-rebated indents in the hull that were moulded in for the vents. What they do have is scribed lines so rebating the grilles in is down to me. First I drilled and filed the holes undersize the same as the vents but to create the rebate I turned to my diamond burr set again and a steady hand to slowly, gently and carefully remove the required material. I have 11 of these holes to do 3 are done ( not surprisingly the easiest 3) but the other 8 are a bit trickier as 4 of them haven't even got their positions scribed.

As you can see the burr on the top one in the picture jumped a couple of times but it looks worse than it is. So far I am reasonably happy with the result although I am aware that the filler is going to be busy later on.


The other thing I tackled tonight was the propshaft sleeve position in the stern, with this kit you get a 5mm stainless steel rod about 9" long and a 2" sleeve for it to go through, a bit shorter than I am used to pro-rata to the length of shaft but there you go. I took my time over this and am happy with the positioning to the point that I tacked it into place with CA.

However here comes the biggest problem with this kit or rather my hull. This is where advice would be very much appreciated. I have a massive alignment problem longtitudinally. I work in the construction trade and have a pretty good eye for level and true but I can not see where the problem is.


They say a picture paints a thousand words well 996 of them are rude !Swearing Smiley



As far as I can tell the top half should pretty much touch the bottom half, there will be a gap of between 1/16th and an 1/8th but nothing compared to the leviathan I have here. I am currently thinking that I may have to sand the belly out of the upper hull but any suggestions etc. would be wonderful.

Peter

Please help !

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Wrap the ass-end in electrician's tape, hokey-stick style. Apply heat evenly with heat-gun, leave to cool. unwrap. Fixipoo! GRP is a bit thermoplastic as well as being a thermoset type of plastic.

[Peter W]

David, Thank you for the quick reply. Bear with me I am being a bit thick here. If I simply push the top hull stern down the front end pops up like a seesaw. Could I/should I therefore tape the whole thing starting at the front and working back to the stern or would this not work ? Sorry for my denseness.

Peter.

P.s. Fixipoo is now in my sub builders jargon book under the heading seriously technical.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

LOL. No problem. Yes, when you wrap the stern in the Electrician's tape, the bow will spring open. Apply just enough tape up forward to get the two hull halves to sit atop one another. Apply heat at the stern -- avoid hot-spots, keep the heat-gun moving. And be conservative here, there is a thing called, 'too much heat'. Unwrap and if the stern still springs open into an alligator grin. If so, repeat the process till the upper and lower hull halves meet without external force (tape). Once the ass-end stays put, do the same to the bow as required. Broad, even heating is the trick -- hot-spots and you ruin the hull.

[Subculture]

Ooo, more warp than a trekkey convention. The distortion may be equal in top and bottom parts. I seem to recall Ramesh having a similar problem with his one, so probably their mould that is distorted. I thought the whole point in using epoxy resin was to avoid that problem.

I think Ramesh did a bit of 'cut and shut' on his hull. Looked nice when it was done.

[Slats]

If David's fix does not remedy a lasting solution, you might need to consider some surgery options.
On a couple of hulls, the OTW Trafalgar, and the Oberon I did here a few years back the only fix in the end was to make a horizontal cut across the upper hull, get then then two upper hull halves sitting true on the lower hull half. Then seal (temporarily) the cut between the upper hull halves with CA and tape. You then need to invert the upper hull and glass across the cut / join demarcation. I'll try and dig out the photos for you. Not for the faint hear-ted but a lasting solution that does work. BUT by all means DO what David said first. Done that too with a couple of hulls and had success.

J

[Subculture]

You had warpage on an OTW hull, John? Blimey, I've not encountered that before. I know Dave had some issues with the Vanguard, but that was because he cut the lip away on the inside, and admitted as such. Polyester hulls will move a bit over time if they're not pegged or joined together in some way, but you're the first person I've heard of having problems with a new hull.

BTW I find releasable zip ties are very handy for keeing hull halves nicely together. Not much use on a taper though

[Peter W]

Well chaps, I am not going to deny I have been worrying, fearing, panicking and more this job, I didn't sleep last night haven't been able to concentrate all day but I finally took the plunge and.......................................decided to use BLACK insulation tape. I know I know it isn't very exciting or brave but I didn't have the courage to use a red or a blue let alone a 2 tone colour.

Oh yeah controlled melting of my Sub easy peasy, worked a treat. ( Dave, I pulled easy peasy out of the jargon book)

I took my time, taped it up in a couple of key points then, woosh, hot air gunned away. I had seen when I taped it up how the hull reacted so decided to apply heat to the lot.

John and Andy it certainly helped to know that this is a previously known problem. John I don't think dealing with a problem like this in any way, shape or form is for the fainthearted.

All taped up. (Black is boring I know)


I always knew that there would be a little filling required as the upper hull has a slight lack of GRP.



This side is better.



There is still a little I might do but that will be a little later.

Must say thank you to the chaps who offered advice. especially Dave for introducing me to the idea of napalm and ofcourse the word fixipoo I now know what that word means.

Peter

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

LOL. And thank you for having the guts to put heat to your very expensive (and otherwise excellent) model kit. Go get 'em Tiger!

[Slats]

You had warpage on an OTW hull, John? Blimey, I've not encountered that before. I know Dave had some issues with the Vanguard, but that was because he cut the lip away on the inside, and admitted as such. Polyester hulls will move a bit over time if they're not pegged or joined together in some way, but you're the first person I've heard of having problems with a new hull.

yes Andy - upper hull was bowing upward slightly at the stern - very much like the Akula in this thread. Given OTW lips on the inside of the hull are designed to prevent this happening, it made it impossible to correct with heating methods. I documented all of this over at SPs but alas all of my IP at the site (including photios is gone now). If find the photos - 2 computers ago now I'll post them. By the way - not a complaint against OTW. Sometimes **** happens. I was very happy how the boat turned out.

J

[Subculture]

You're not the only one with lost threads over at SP. I keep all my important photos over on photobucket these days.

Sounds like either the tooling has warped, which I think is very unlikely, or perhaps the hulls got pulled a little too early and were still a bit green. I believe I'm right in saying that Bob contracts out the glasswork. In the early days when they only had one or two boats in the range, Bob and Steve used to do all the lay-ups themselves, but as the range increased and more orders came in, it probably got a bit much.

[greenman407]

Lookin good there Pete. Dont let it WHOOP ya! As my Dad always use to say "Ah, Ive had worse places in my eye before". Thats what hed say every time.

[Peter W]

Hello, Mark thanks for the comments, it isn't whooping me life is. Busy at work and not getting the evenings to do it just some weekend time but as I said on the Vengeance build I am not a quick builder mainly due to the aforementioned. I have to say that now the hull is better shaped I feel tons better. I am hoping to strengthen and line up the 2 hull halves next, then I can start making it look prettier again.

All the best,

Peter.

[Peter W]

Ok Ok I know it has been 7 months but unfortunately life keeps getting in the way.

Recently though I have been back on it and although the pics aren't the best ( blame my not so smart phone which is being repaired) due to a back up phone I have managed to get some evidence of some progress. Now I know from the pics it may look like not a lot but in fact it has taken a fair bit of work to get to this point.








The 1st 3 pics show the smallest of the grates to be fitted, these are the ones that have taken the time as the hull isn't marked for all of them and then the ones that are have not been indented. I have therefore had to open the holes up then file them out, smaller than the size of the grid and then use the pictured diamond burr bit in my mini-drill to rebate the holes.............time consuming! and nerve-wracking! they are now all fitted and all they need is some gap-filling CA and some rubbing down and they are done. The bottom pic shows the continuing installation of the vent door flaps. These need to be slightly curved, flaps bent then fitted. Again they will need thick CA and rubbing down.


Back soon,

Peter