FS Glorie

I'm in the process of building the Glorie, this will be my second ship. I have cut out the windows of the fiberglass hull, now i would like to install the subdeck, i don't want to use wood. What is another material that i could use?
In the other ship i have (Lutzow) their is a grey rubbery material used, it was most likely pored into it, molded.
I was wonder what i could use?

 

You could install a fiberglass deck. Since the Glorie is a CL you don't have a lot of weight to play with. Instead of installing a 1/4" and 1/8" set of decks just use 1/8" and 1/8". I did this with plywood on my Glorie.

 

Are you talking about the subdeck or water channeling?

I like Bob's method for the subdeck and may give it a try someday. For my Gloire, I went with 1/4" square spruce and expoxied it into place 1/8" below the deck rim. The deck itself is 1/8" ply and screws down on top of the sub deck.

The grey rubbery material in the Lutzow is PL self leveling cement used for the water channeling. Although it does weight more than balsa, the small ships don't need a lot of it. My Gloire has the stuff in it for the waterchanneling and it still made weight, albeit barely. To put it in, a waterchannel frame is built from wood and positioned in the ship. Then the bottom edges of the wooden frame are sealed with RTV to prevent the PL from seeping under and into the waterchannel. Lastly, the PL is calked in around the waterchannel frame and left to sit. The stuff will level itself out and set within a few days.

That Lutzow was the first ship I put the PL into. The ship is very stable with the weight low in the hull.

I still use the PL in all my ships. It is just too easy.

 

Mike,
let me ask,
on your Glorie, did you reinforce the ribs? and what did you use for the superstructure?

 

Mike,
Are you using the PL in the Mogador?
Steve

 

I did not reinforce the ribs on the Gloire. If I were to do it again, I might stick on a short 1" piece of 3/16" square stock on the back of each rib to keep the internal armor from accidently getting pushed out against the hull skin.
The superstructure was made out of foam blocks with 1/16" plywood platforms. A simple example can be found in the HMS Erin build thread.

Steve: The Mogador's water channel was put in before I knew about the PL. Instead, it got a clear resin. Weight wise, they should be about the same. The Mogador really didn't need much at all for such a small ship.

 

The only backing of the ribs I did was to hold up the interior armor. Even my old 1997 Swampy hull has held up well without backing ribs. CA don't really need it.

 

Yeah I thought I had backed the ribs in my old Bismarck and after the pounding it took at Nats I was very surprised they were still all intact. That's on an old very thin swampy hull.

 

Where should i get the wood for the Deck ( not the superstructure) and the balsa for the hull? (siding)

 

AKA Contest Grade Balsa.