Moebius (Revell) Skipjack Build

[trout]

Thanks guys! It is your shoulders I build on and rely on for guidance. I am not an expert and people wanting to build a Skipjack will learn from ALL of our postings.
Alec, There are three indexing pins on the bottom of the sail, all or just the center one is removed? And thank you about where to glue. I was playing with the flex of the sail to see just how much I could glue it.

The reaming out of the sail bushing worked great (I will post pictures later). The Klik-on will hold for a while, but will disconnect (maybe I am over traveling it or being too forceful), but because of the excellent design, I can repair or make adjustments - since the sail bell cranks can be removed.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

TOM, your doing a much better job documenting assm. procedure than I am. Your thread will be much more help to others to clear up some questions that are bound to come up. At the rate your going, looks like youll be done soon, whereas im still in first gear.

Agreed! Excellent work, Tom. Keep at it.

M

[greenman407]

TOM, your doing a much better job documenting assm. procedure than I am. Your thread will be much more help to others to clear up some questions that are bound to come up. At the rate your going, looks like youll be done soon, whereas im still in first gear.

[alad61]

The most important thing when gluing the sail together is no gluing the bottom seam or you take away the flex ability. And do make those planes sit the sail sit with a level cord cause it don't take much angle to to alter its dive or surface angle...

[alad61]

Looking good so far Tom :biggrin:

I removed the lower locating/indexing pin in the sail otherwise you loose the abilty to flex the sail if you need to. As for the ribs in the exhaust fairing I haven't had any trapped air issues with mine. But I see what you mean about the risk, though the ribs are so small they'd only trap very small bubbles and with it's movement under water they probably get washed out. Also I left the pin at the aft end of the exhaust fairing on the hull to help stop it flexing when handling the boat.

[trout]

The aft mounting foundation is marked up.





I am still thinking about those ribs in the exhaust fairing trapping air and there is a pin here too that needs trimming. It needs to have some part of the pin left in because it is the stop for the mounting foundation. There is a lot of air going through this section (there are 3 - 1/4” holes to facilitate air leaving the hull). The bottle neck seems to be where the pin is. There is a voice yelling at me in the back of my mind “This is not rocket science”





Estimating the areas that need to be extracted on both halves of the sail.





Path is clear on this side.





A little harder to see, but there are remnants of the pin for key and an easy exit for air. As far as the ribs go, I will smooth out the top after it is glued together.





Sail plane install, using the instructions I marked as I read. Marking up the sub seemed to be the best way for me to understand.





Trimmed off the areas





With a small amount of sanding to the outer edge of the sail plane bushing, it fit into the original sail plane hole. Then I used CA. In hindsight, I should have put the fittings kit sails in before gluing because a small misalignment occurred that made on plane slightly tilted aft. I corrected it by filing the hole to the correct angle (we are talking about a degree or two).





Placed the lower bell crank in and tested range. Tacked shaft retainers will test more. I have a tightness in the sails in their bushings (even with all other parts removed).





So, my plan is to take a brass rod or tube, rough it up and try to ream the bushing out a little. Will let you know how it goes.

[trout]

Continuing on the marking, following the instructions. The datum is the center of the forward most pin that the sail fits unto.



When I cut out the sail plane opening, it did not look like the photo in the instructions, no not because I cut mine out crummy (and I did), but my opening seemed smaller. This is a good time to say, I am not an expert.





I remeasured and my lines were where they are supposed to be. Then I did some measuring off the picture I saw a possible reason.





So, with this new view, I marked up the area again and cut it out.





Now the cut out looks closer to the picture.





Continuing on it is time to trim the pins or "tit" and drill a hole in the two locations of the pin in the forward upper quarter. I am not going into super detail because those downloaded instructions are where the meat of the install is. Aside from a couple of discrepancies it is a good document (even though I have to read it over several times)





The sail needs to be opened up. Following the directions, marked off the areas to be cut.





Then cut it out, did a better job at cutting out - still need to improve.





Since the picture that David made does not show the alignment pin in the opening, I will remove it. Also cut out an opening for air to escape from the exhaust fairing (not finished). When I see all the ribbing in this exhaust fairing, I wonder if I should smooth out the roof or inside top of the fairing (after gluing) to allow air out?





The mounting foundations need to be marked for where the hole will need to be made for the 4-40 screw will attach. There are two forward and aft. Here is the forward mounting bracket.





Used a Sharpie marker to indicate where the hole is.





On the aft mounting foundation there was a small nub that needed to be trimmed off.





Like the forward mounting foundation, mark where you need to drill.





Later, I will carve out the air passage later. There are some steps I skipped (like drive shaft and putting in the threading because I need to go out and buy the parts. If I can get them locally that will be great. If not, it will mean the sub will not be ready for Keystone (July 21st).

[trout]

Opening the box I found a wonderfully detailed kit, nice work to all envolved. Even though this one is destined to be RC’d, I can see that even a static builder would enjoy having this sub on display.
This sub had the common issues that I have read about like one quarter being slightly warped,





or the heavy areas where the sprue attaches to the hull.





Both of these do not concern me. It can be fixed. There was one thing I saw, the grating in the lower forward quarter, all the way at the bow (left in picture) was soft in detail, not the crisp edges like the others.





If I was not going to cut this out or this was to be a static model, this might bother me.


At the time I opened the box I was working on the Aluminaut. So, I put rubber bands around the quarter pieces and the sail. And kept it in the garage hoping it will help with the warping (although the warping was not that bad - slight pressure and it came together).





I have been putting building this off too long and would like to take this to the Keystone Regatta (even unpainted if I must). So time to read the instructions - Mike Caswell did a great compilation of David Merriman’s cabal reports here: http://support.caswellplating.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/369/18/the-moebius-skipjack-model-instructions


I will be following this document (for the most part).





and marked up the sub per the Skipjack instructions downloaded to make sure I understood the instructions and what size drills I needed. Frankly, I had a tough time just reading the instructions - some of the terms used I was not familiar with and working with sub in hand helped a lot.







I must have lost my (M) Hull Rudder Hole Blanking Disks because I could not find them. Also, on this model, one rudder hole was larger than the other - Any of you have that too?
Using some sprue I heated over a flame and squished it to make a fatter section, larger than the holes. Then chucked this up in the lathe and trimmed it to fit the two rudder holes.





Note - if you do not have a lathe, no big deal - I find myself finding reasons to use the lathe because it is so fun, but P.T.L. (prior to lathe) I would have done one of several ways to make a plug like fattening a piece of sprue and hand sanding using a drill or heating and pulling a section of sprue just past the fattened area, that taper would eventually seal the hole and using a proper cohesive glue the sprue melts together with the hull. Then you can just fill the hole with Evercoat filler. Anyways my point is, do not stop because I mention a tool you may not have.


Gluing my plugs in, I used Plastruct liquid glue. It melts the plastics together (cohesive) and once dry your piece becomes one with the hull. Once dry, trim and sand.





Drilled out the new rudder holes per the instructions and temporarily put in the hardware to test it out. The arch in my rear dive planes yolk was bent out of shape making the plane have a funny dihedral in it. Since the metal is soft, gently pulled it until everything lined up.



Then made the pushrods (I love the pliers for making a Z bend)



Then continued to trim bits off. I intend to leave the hull stand openings open and use them in the cradle to lock my sub in (Mike Dory does that and I like the idea).





Marked the Z cuts for the hull. Did not have the tool David used to mark the hull, so I improvised (sorry it is burry).






Page 6 on the instructions (or Skipjack cabal part 6) says:





But a 7/16 hole is HUGE especially when it is compared to the holes mentioned to be drilled out.





So the document should be corrected to say 7/64”