The plan: http://www.battlersconnection.com/html/zclass.html Got a giant stack of ridiculously thin balsa and remarkably expensive plywood. I think I'm set for the hulls. I better be, I've got to make four of em. buddies and I are getting into the hobby. Everyones going to do their own innards and such, but I'm the one who's competent at woodworking, so I volunteered to do the hulls. I figure by the last one, I'll have it down pretty good. So, any reccomendations for adhesives and waterproofing? DAP is my usual adhesive, but I haven't tested it on wood/wood in wet conditions. Battler's Connection has silkspan, which I presume is used for waterproofing, is that the typical way? I presume that relying on paint and clearcoat is going to be insufficient, given the holes that'll be punched in it routinely. Also, how important is it to use very flexible balsa? The stuff I picked up at hobby lobby seems decently flexible, but the BC picture seems more bendable.
Welcome to the world of wood built hulls. My first recommendation is to read the stickied thread at the top of this section of the forums. The thread shows some tricks and hints for building a wooden hull. Also, the Omaha build in this section shows a small hull build that may help out too. EDIT: Added Omaha Thread Link at www.rcnavalcombat.com/Forum/tabid/5...fault.aspx For adhesives, I use medium viscosity superglue for framing up the wood hull framework and installing the hull bottom. After that point, I tend to fiberglass the hull bottom for strength. The next step is general waterproofing. I use either epoxy resin or spar varnish ... both work fine. The silkspan comes into play after the hull is framed up and the internals put in. The silkspan is attached to both sides of the 1/32" balsa sheets with either an aircraft dope, clear laquer paint, or even thinned contact cement. Then the 1/32 balsa is cut to shape and stuck on the side of the hull using contact cement. The best 1/32 balsa is very soft and flexible. Hard balsa tends to splinter and crack when hit with a bb. The soft stuff merely leaves a hole when the BB hits it ... very desirable. If you have any questions about building a wood hull or the techniques other builders use, feel free to post here on RC Naval Combat. There are many expirienced hull builders on the forums.
Travis, Your Z-Boat is marginally smaller than my current Mogador build. You can checkout my build thread here: www.rcnavalcombat.com/Forum/tabid/58/aff/566/aft/441895/afv/topic/Default.aspx I may be in Annapolis this Friday visiting Marty. Maybe we could hook up and I can introduce you around. Steve Tyng
Travis, I just want to put out there that a small DD is a hard build for a beginner/ beginners. The amount of things you have to put inside it, keeping it at weight and not having it tip over are GREAT challenges. Before you jump in too deep, you should visit the Maryland guys from fast gun and look at what goes into a 144 battleship. We usually recommend class fours so you have some room amd you can have a few guns to play with.
Travis; We have building meetings almost every Friday at 1106 Skyway Dr., Cape St. Claire, MD (starting about 7pm). Come on over and see what goes into a Warship. Marty Hayes - combatMarty@yahoo.com
Additionaly, Tugboat is doing a thread on Cheapest Point of Entry. The first section of which is the building of a wooden hull. The link is http://www.rcnavalcombat.com/Forum/tabid/58/aff/566/aft/441667/afv/topic/Default.aspx There is a lot of discussion at the beginning of the thread so it isn't until about pg 7 that actual boat building instruction start. Again this isn't the same boat your building but it should give you some ideas and thoughts about what to take into account.
Thanks for all the info...Im afraid due to reserves this weekend, I'm not going to be able to attend any local events until next week, but I certainly plan on dropping by local clubs(most likely with a friend or two along with) to check out what's going on. I've already read through a good portion of Tugboat's cruiser thread. Good stuff, definitely. I'm not terribly worried about cost, and I have the good fortune of having all necessary tools already on hand, but I'm still waiting on plans to arrive before I start cutting. I was tempted to try winging it without plans, but for the first time, that's probably failure prone. I'm certainly not adverse to building other things in addition to destroyers, with the caveat that I've got about 3.75 feet of storage in my civic. Anything longer is awkward, and would require some effort to transport. I suppose I could use the kayak transporting stuff for anything truly huge, but I'd rather hold off on that till I know what Im doing. I'll definitely have to do some careful fitting on the DDs to make it work. Single gun is the plan for them, to both keep weight down and allow me to get comfortable with a relatively simple gun system initially.
You might be amazed at what one can fit into a small car. In 2008, I packed a 68" battleship, a 50" carrier, a 42" cruiser, toolbox, two large boxes of parts and batteries, transmitters, a table, and a large dufflebag into a VW New Beetle for an 11 hour trip to the MWC Nationals. Admittedly, there was no room for a passenger, but that wasn't a concern for that trip.
I used to have a 1993 Nissan Maxima that heald a IJN Musashi and a Andrea Doria with passenger and tools and Batteries. Not roomie but big enough
My '03 Civic coupe regularly transports my Bismarck with support gear and room for another passenger. Drove down to Houston this summer for a week of battle at NATs like that, actually I had my VDT in there too as well as my sister and her stuff for the week. If your seats fold down you should be able to fit just about any ship in the hobby in there.
This one year my Smart Car fit in 2 Yamatos and a 1/96 scale USS Montana!!!1! lol, sorry had to be silly
Not wanting to hurt the leather seats in the Avalon (200k+ miles; gotta baby it), I put towels on the back seat and sit battleships/battlecruisers across it (big'uns get sat at an angle). Smaller toys like Lil Scharnie get sat on the back floor. Tiny toys like Othar get strapped on front as hood ornaments.
This gets me to thinking I could adapt my tank transporter to haul boats. Should be able to get a couple of Yams on there not to mention my little fleet.
http://www.wunderwaffe.narod.ru/Magazine/MK/index.htm this site has Z-boat plans. It's all in Russian, though, so you may have to guess'n'check to find it. I used these plans as a reference to customize my own Z-boat as the Z-25 (Der Zee-Monster). There's also a whole bunch of other ships there too, including my favorite pre-dreadnought
If you've got almost 4' of room, you've got enough for a pre-dread, probably a smaller BC (I-boat, VDT, etc) or a lil' cruiser as well.
I can read English, American, Computer Nerdish, Gamer Geekish, Sheet Musican, G-code, and a little bit of Imperial Galactic, but unfortunately no Russian Travis, here is a size comparison between a Z-boat, a predread (Mikasa), and an Invincible. The predread is the same length as the Z-boat but twice the width and also more internal height, and the Invincible is 1/3 larger than the predread. On the other hand, all the gear you need for a Z-boat can fit in a handy-dandy 1'x2' boat box, while the predread and battlecruiser both require toolboxes. http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h237/kotori87/IMG_3397_small.jpg http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h237/kotori87/IMG_3396_small.jpg
