It's been a long time coming, but thanks to @bsgkid117 at South Jersey Shipyards this dream has become a dreadnought! This will be my first 3d printed battleship so I'm excited to see what it's like. Already I'm way ahead of a conventional build. The middle two sections of the hull finished printing yesterday at Will's build session and within an hour all four pieces were glued and bolted together and the hull was basically done. I jokingly commented that to reach this stage in a conventional build I would have already spent 90hrs staring at the boat. Overall, very fast hull acquisition. I'll be using my now standard drive setup, 24v brushed belt drive. Damage control will be the venerable Carl pump. Guns will be my own powered by SJS's Rhino reg. Threw some components in the boat last night to see how they'll fit. She has a lot of room. Once I finish the superstructure design that will be printed. Going for a 1920's look. I wanted this hull specifically for the casements but I also think the PA class looked absolutely smokin hot in this configuration. So anyway, super excited for this build. I think my next step is to glue in the stainless stringers. I've heard varying reports on how easy/hard it is so I will let you all know my assessment. Stay tuned!
I just want to be clear that the regulator pictured is not the SJS normal regulator, it is a prototype/sample regulator that was provided for this build to receive some feedback. I, unfortunately, can't battle 18 boats at once to test all of the new stuff we may or may not be rolling out. Looking good so far @Beaver
Work continues. Over the last few days I've installed the stringers. I've heard varying reports that people have had trouble installing them so I thought maybe I'd detail my process. Step one was to clean up the stringer channels in the ribs. There were bits of plastic and glue in them. I found using a drill bit as a rasp to clean the channels works rather well. Much better. Next step was to void the warranty and make the stringer follow the profile of the casement cutout. Will accidentally made the stringer straight. This will be corrected on future hulls so no worries there. To make a channel for the stringer to lay in I heated a piece of the 1/8 rod and slowly melted a channel in the appropriate place. The next step is to pre-bend the stainless rod. I hear this is the step missed most. If you don't do this there is a good chance the stringer will pop back off the hull when you unclamp it, no matter which glue you use. Here you can see the stringer laying on the hull with no clamps. This is what you want. Next apply glue. I'm using JB Weld Plastic Bonder to glue these in. Testing is out for Will to see if it's a viable alternative to E6000. One of the perks to this glue is it drys really fast. You can glue all the stringers in, have lunch, pop the clamps off and keep building. Great for a build session. I just don't know if it'll withstand the abuse of a ram and other battle stresses. Time will tell. Now time for clamps. Taking a tip from @Kotori87 I used zip ties when I ran out of clamps. I would honestly just use zipties for the entire glue up. One could easily keep working on the hull with the zipties still in place. Also great for a build session. lol With the stringers in it's now time to start looking at outfitting the inside. As I said in the first post I'm using my belt drive system for this build. Need to build stuffing tubes and order the hubs for the motor mount but I did a mockup to see how it'll fit. Not bad at all. That's all I have for now. Need to build stuffing tubes, add magnets to the hull and then decks when I get them from Will. Till next time! [EDIT] Forgot to include the video of one of the stress tests on the stringers. I'm optimistic this will become the glue of choice for this process. View: https://youtu.be/08zUrmn112U
Its like it was designed to go together and have the internal components fit in certain places! WIZARDRY!
It's been a busy couple of months. Progress has been slow but here's a update on what's been done so far. First off, we have some very cool (future) products being tested here. The Amish Skunkworks bus bar makes power distribution in your boat a breeze. Made from 16ga copper plate with precision laser cut holes to drop your connectors in and solder together in minutes. These will be offered on SJS in a variety of connector combinations hopefully soon. Once soldered together you need to cut the connecting tabs on the ends and then pot in epoxy. For those of you that don't have 3d printers here's a simple way to make nice potting containers of any size rather quick and easy. Take some cheap plywood or popsicle sticks and cut and glue in the shape you need. I used some cheap luan from work and super glue to make this crude box. Now you can skip this step if you don't have spray adhesive but it helps with final cosmetics. If you have it, spray the interior of the box with super 77 or any spray adhesive and then take a plastic shopping bag (epoxy doesn't adhere to it) and carefully work it onto the bottom, corners, and sides of the box. If you don't have the spray you can just place the bag in the box but the corners will be funky. Still works great if you don't care what it looks like. Now fill up with slow curing epoxy. Rapid curing epoxy will get VERY hot and can melt the plastic connectors so the slower the better. Looking at internal placement. Bus bar will likely be under the crossmember and all electronics central to that. First gun built. Need 3 more. Decks have been waterproofed. Sprayed them with Helmsman spar urethane. Seals the wood and prevents water damage. 3 coats should do it. They will get epoxy coated as well. Adding deck lines before I do the epoxy seal job. Need to finish scribing but it is time consuming. Ordered low profile 550 motor mount plates (right) to give myself more room in the hull and make this boat more standard to what others running my belt drive system are using. Best drive system in the world. You get the reduction of geared with the quietness of a direct drive in a space saving, durable package. The motor mount plates will be available on SJS soon as well. That's it for now. The plan is to have this ready for next year. Totally possible if I keep at it. I need to get the other boats ready to rumble after getting beat up at nats. So much to do, so little time. lol
Work continues on the PA. Need to have her ready to battle by May so the time crunch is on. Went to a build session at Steve's. Got a lot done. Here she is with her future running mate, Rob's Arizona. Added a piece of angle here to glue the power bus bar to. Props glued to shafts. These are 5 blade, carbon fiber reinforced nylon. Same type of prop as on the Bart and has proven to be very durable. 1/8" bore drive pulleys finally showed up. Belt drive can soon be finalized. Did some prep work on gun parts at Steve's, now putting them together. Using a soldered brass ring plus O-ring on the mag and uptube connections instead of the traditional delrin ferrule. Bent the mag tube for D turret. Going with copper mags for the stern deck. I want the mags to stay within the stern deck and bending the nylon mags to fit would be pretty hard if not impossible. Pump is ready to go in. Rudder setup just waiting for chain. Using #25 stainless chain. It seems the chain doesn't quite mesh right with the SJS sprocket on the rudder shaft. With a little sanding I think it'll work but it was a surprise.
Your steel chain may have a larger minimum radius, that 9T sprocket is the smallest I could reliably get to function with the plastic chain. If you want, I can make you up say a 12t that would be a larger OD and may work better for you? It just may not fit right in the cutout in the subdeck to slide down and in.
