Installing the Decks and Casemates, part VI How long is this going to take? More casemate stuff. Correcting the casemates. The fiberglass hull has two angles on the casemate area, there were actually 3. So I made wedges that corrected the error and glued them in place. I will have to connect the rib to the 1/8" strip on the back side of the casemate to make it work right for sheeting. Installed more subdeck at the stern step. This shows the 3 angles around the casemate cupolas. It also shows how dusty working with G10 is. The deck step on the hull terminated about 3/4" early, I did not catch the error until after I had installed the cross brace. This means I will have to make a small penetrable area just in front of the black casemate cupola. Forward casemates on one side glued in place. The barrels are only loosely installed, I will have to remove them to cut the windows.
Installing the Decks and Casemates, part VII I put some Z bends in the piano wire for the latches to make it ride up against the deck. I put a couple of slots in the lockdowns in the back end to keep the piano wire from turning in the casemate cupola. I ended up gluing the ones in the front of the ship to keep them from turning. These show the lockdowns in the back end of the ship. I filed a couple of shallow slots in the crossbrace to the right. The latches snap into place with a little click. This construction is a little sturdier than what I ended up using on the front latches, because the piano wire is supported on both ends. This shows the front end. Works well enough. Went ahead and riveted in the bottom of the boat. I applied goop to the joint before riveting. The grey square things are the part of the bilge keel that fits through the side of the hull. Did another float test to check for leaks (yes it leaks already) and make sure the waterline is right before cutting windows. Also checked the drive motor amp draw. Using Titan Marines, cost $17 each from Tower Hobbies, rated for 14.4 volts, have good and hard brushes that, and they sound pretty fast. I think they should last a long time with proper maintenance. Swinging a 1.125 inch prop that was cut down from a 1.5 inch prop at a 3.11:1 gear ratio, each motor draws 5.6 amps on 13.2 volts. The motors draw 2.1 amps with no load, and 2.6 amps turning the gears and props in air. This puts them a little bit under the maximum efficiency point. I figure without the pump running I will have a comfortable two hours of run time with the 20Ah batteries.
That is turning out to be a real nice build. Nagato will be sharp when you get done with her. The machine work is awesome.
Guns. Bam! Took awhile to build 8 guns that fit inside the barbettes. Each twin gun assembly has 2 modified "Pate" style spiral magazines. The main modifications are the screw caps for disassembly and the gas is ported on the bottom of the magazine. This is the master for the internal spiral mold, prior to making the first mold. It was unsucessful because the latex stuck to itself. I'm more used to rtv. inch: They feature a built in 20° down angle into the interruptors. 15° offset. More conventional placement. With all the guns present and rotating turrets gun placement is really flexible.
Very interesting guns! I have never seen that style of magazine and I love how compact they are. I assume the main gas inlet is at the bottom of the gun directly off the solenoid - so is the gas tap at the bottom of the magazine just to help move the BBs into the gun or is it necessary to build pressure for firing? Does the gun use a standard piston interrupter, and how are the magazine and gun connected?
Thanks! You may have seen something similar in someone's gun parts pile, Jim Pate used to make magazines that operated the same way, except they were narrower and taller. They were made with a 5/8 inch brass tube and plumbing caps and silver soldered together on both ends. There are probably a hundred or so examples of those around. The gas tap at the bottom of the magazine works just the same as the gas tap on a standard fast gun cannon, basically helps the gun pressurise quickly and stirs the bbs around a bit. It is not necessary for loading bbs with these cannons due to the down angle. I had to plug the bottom ports in the valves and bring the gas in from the sides due to bottom clearance problems, the guns in the picture are from the lowest turret in the ship. The piston is a normal type, the valve actually replaces the cap on the bottom of a normal interrupter. There is a short 0.65 inch long piece of stainless tubing brazed into the magazine and interrupter. I don't fool around with silver solder, it is too weak for use on guns that you expect to last a long time.
What format is the boat? Saw earlier IRCWCI and MWCI for stringer but 8 guns and the guns look to be .177 (ie. fast gun). Confused here =D
If I have to guess, Ron will pin various cannons to make it a 6 unit Nagato for fast gun. By having all those cannons that rotate, he can select gun layouts at will.
Its soo nice to have this mad scientist 10 minutes from me.. Makes it very easy for a young punk like myself to actually get my ship up to speed. These pictures dont do this build justice.
Thanks guys. 10 Units. Yep I will be pinning 3 cannons and unplugging one pump except for the ring of death. Which 3 are pinned and which one rotates at any one time will be a surprise.
I realize that it is that there are 8 rotating guns and a magazine system that sound very similar to big gun thus my confusion.
Did sea trials the second day of ircwcc nats during campaign. Turns as good as my HMS Invincible, acceleration is acceptable. Immediately had a construction flaw revealed when Carl Camuratti's new North Carolina and Mike Butts in my Invincible blew out the step deck vertical panels in front of turret 3. I didn't notice until about 10 minutes later when I was attempting to chase down my LST driven by Marty. Shipped water when I went into a turn. I had substituted a go pro camera for the incomplete rear superstructure so we now have a good video of the bottom of the pond.
The ship was beautiful build. Once the gaping holes were sealed, it became a formidable weapon. Coolest part of the videos was Carl catching the gun pin wire, reeling his boat up on deck and then cutting it loose with his prop.
Iceman: That was really really cool video. Eventually it will get linked to this thread, when Mike finishes editing out the boring parts. I really agree about the formidable part, when the guns worked they were like little jack hammers beating on the Allies' hulls. Time for a mini-refit and a makeover. You have won best of scale too many times in a row and need a little competition. Nikki: she is 7 days old now.
That's a clean boat. You have a good shot already. Just remember to build the superstructure light....there's a lot of it.
Some additional nformation on the drive and pump we collected on Friday: The pump is a strike models pump, since it is on a 12 (actually 13.2) volt system I had to try some different motors. I used a Titan 21 turn. Draws approximately 2 - 3 amps unloaded, while priming and normalizing pressures it sucks around 36 amps. This drops back to around 20 to 22 amps pumping full stream. This means it uses 264 - 290 watts. For comparison my iboat pump uses about 140 - 150 watts and outputs about 2.7 gallons a minute. I haven't noticed any thermal management issues yet, but I expect this may be a little too much for the Titan 21 motor and will result in premature failure. Next time I will try a Titan Marine which is 23 turns and may last a little longer. The drive uses 2 Titan Marines, on the same batteries. Initially I tried separate speed controls (mtronics viper 25) for each motor, but bench testing showed a problem with sparking from the brushes, and an occasional stutter. I tried a remedy suggested by Carl using a 10000 uFd capacitor in the power side of the circuit, but the problem persisted. Eventually I dropped back to a single 25 amp speed control for both motors and the problem went away. Testing in the water showed a currrent draw of about 12 amps starting and stopping and 10 amps cruising. I only measured the battery capacity once while recharging and it showed Nagato used 6.7 amp hours during the Thursday pm. two sortie battle. Ron Hunt
