Scaleships Akula II

[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 !

[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)

[alad61]

Hi Peter. There's no confusion on my part. I have the sheerline akula & you have scale shipyards. I was just wether the etc in my akula would fit the one you are doing is all.

[Peter W]

Andy, the fence is a good idea the only problem I face is the vents I now need to do are nearly all marked but the marks aren't recessed so getting the brass flush is going to be harder. ( recessed is probably a better word than indented, sorry)

I was thinking 100mm pipe. I do have 3m of 80mm pipe aswell ( long, long story) but haven't really thought too hard about that bit yet.

Peter

[Subculture]

Are the parts you need to indent the same size? If so couldn't you make a fence out of some scrap metal, that should speed thinks up a bit. The boats I've seen converted have used 100mm diameter acrylic pipe, in an effort to keep the cylinder below the waterline and minimise displacement.

[Peter W]

Andy, think you are going to be right about the length of the WTC.........................poo pipe, how quaint.

This weekend I got a fair bit done for me. 64 holes and counting.



After the vent holes were all dealt with I had to have a play with the etch and indulged by having a look to see how pretty they looked.



I have decided to have them all open but thought I would show them in both positions.

Next I moved onto the 4 vents on the sides of the sail. SIDENOTE, although this is a stunning model and I am really happy with it there are 1 or 2 little issues with it. Here is 1 of them.



As you can see there is a slight resin deposit on the said indents. The indent on the right is as it came, the one on the left is after I grew a pair and went at it, freehand, with a diamond burr. This side wasn't too bad to deal with but the other side bore the full amount of my extensive foul language. Ultimately however, I eventually got the desired result.



I am now faced with more vent holes with etched parts along the top of the hull but these ones have no indented marks to help so I expect more foul language, it is good that I have an extensive vocabulary in swearing or it could get boring. I do have a reasonably good idea of how I am going to do it though.

Peter

[Subculture]

Pretty sure Sheerline use 11cm diameter PVC poo pipe for their WTC's. The rod will add two or three centimetres at least, so it might just squeeze on width wise, but I have my doubts that it will fit lengthwise, as the Trafalgar is a much larger scaled boat.

[Peter W]

Alec,

Years and years ago I nearly bought the Sheerline Akula but went with Trafalgar instead, possibly a patriotic move on my part who knows. Anyway I have been wondering whether the WTC from the Trafalgar would go in the Akula, I am not confident though as the external fixings that hold the WTC together probably make it too wide to go in. When I have the time I will get the Trafalgar out from where it is docked and have a play.

Just to save confusion though this Akula is the Scaleships model not the Scale Shipyards one.

All the best,

Peter

[alad61]

Looking good so far Peter.

There is something about the look of Russian subs that is to me a little enigmatic. I have the Sheerline one and that is a great boat to drive but not overly accurate like the scale ships one. It would be intersesting to know if Chris's wtc worked in the Scale shipyards one.

[Peter W]

We continue,

I have now moved on to the upper hull, the holes I am filing out at the moment all have etch fit to them so I am not filing out to the marked line but am stopping just short so as to give the brass something to fix to. I have decided that all the flaps for these holes will be open, I prefer that look.





21 down 9 to go.

Peter.

[Peter W]

Hello all me again not done as much as I would have liked this weekend. Hospital, kids and all that but I have managed to finish the holes in the lower hull. Unsure of what to do next. I think I may start opening up the holes in the upper hull next then I can start looking at bracing the hull, a common theme with the Scaleships hulls seems to be slight twisting etc. If I do the holes first I will then know where not to put the bracing. besides I like filing holes, don't know why just do.


All the holes filed.




Peter

[Peter W]

Mark, that isn't the reactor scoop, it seems to be a sensor of some sort but google translate doesn't help much on the Russian sites when they start getting technical. I have only seen the scoop for the Sierra in plans but whether those plans were trustworthy I don't know. I think they follow the design of the Typhoon but obviously smaller.

Typhoon scoop


Peter

[greenman407]

Now that you mention it................................................ .........................................do you have a picture of a Sierra scoop? You posted one the other day but it doesnt stick out very far. Are we sure its the same one as on the Akula? Take a look if you get a chance.

[Peter W]

Hello Mark found this picture shows the difference between the old and the new. The old one looks the same as the Sierra class scoop.




Peter

[greenman407]

If you look at the fourth one down youll notice a difference between it and the others as far as the large scoop.