Russian Novgorod.

[JestDanny]

belated happy Australia Day. this is the first thread I check on when visiting OSE

[785boats]

Thanks Danny.
Despite the virus fears, there were still a lot of celebrations around the country. It was good to see.

[785boats]

A successfull mornings work today I think.
I decided to mock up the deck & the barbette for the guns.

Firstly I decided on the curvature of the deck from various drawings & photos. Couldn't find any exact measurements so, I go by the caveat that if it looks right, it is right.
The diameter of the barbett is listed in the specs of the ship so that was easy to scale out to the 1:48 scale that I am using.

I cut 16 deck formers to be arranged in the spider web arrangement around the barbette.

I cut a couple of discs of 3mm balsa, at 180mm diameter, for templates, And then a strip of 1/16" aircraft ply to wrap around them to form the wall.
I pre-bent the ply around a 4" post in my workshop that holds up the floor above.
No soaking, no amonia, no heat. Just the Uri Geller touch, and mind control.
I always think of the English Wheel when I do this.

So this is where I found out that the ring around the top of the hull is not exactly circular, as I had to trim the notches out on more than a few of the frames to allow the whole thing to sit down flush.
No biggie. An easy fix.

Here are the compulsory visuals.

Cutting the formers.
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Bending the ply.
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Bent ply ready for glueing to the templates. Very little pressure.
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Formers attached To the barbette
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Deck frame sitting in place.
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[785boats]

A little bit more done to the deck.
I added some cross braces of 5mm balsa to strengthen things up a bit. And to get a good curve & frame for the skin to adhere to.
Now it does look like a spiders webb
I'll lay a skin of 1/16" balsa and then plank it. I have some veneer that I can cut into strips.
I had a couple of sheets of the balsa so I bought a few more and cut some pieces ready for final fitting.
Cheers.

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[785boats]

I'm on night shift again for a few days, and I got home from work this morning and decided to put a layer of fiberglass on the hull.
I mixed up enough resin to give the underside of the deck a coat too, to seal the wood and joints.
When the hull is fully cured, I'll give it a sand and apply a finishing coat, and will give the topside of the deck a coat of resin only, to seal and make ready for the planking.
That will just leave the inside of the hull to brush on a coat to seal all the wood in there.

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[Jesse J]

Ahoy, the Parmesan boat!
Who ever convinced somebody to actually build this? Ohhh, those Russians!
How many were actually deployed?

[785boats]

Hi Jesse.
Seems rediculous doesn't it.
Only two were built, the Novgorod, and the Popov.
Here's the man responsible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei...ndrovich_Popov
Wierd, I know, but that's why I like building pre WWI ships. Full of innovation of the times.
Cheers.

[785boats]

Finished the fiberglassing and coats of resin on both the hull and deck.
And the deck has been trimmed and sanded to fit the hull.

Spent a lazy Sunday today building up the main cabin and cutting some 5mm wide strips from some veneer I had lying around, for the decks.

The basic frame was made from some 5mm balsa and the sides are from 1/16" aircraft ply. The top will be ply too, but that can wait until tomorrow.
I need some food and it's time to open a nice bottle of Cabernet Merlot.

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[785boats]

Well, as we all know, a piece of ply will not bend in both directions. So I decided to cover the roof of the main cabin with pieces of 1/16" balsa like the main deck.
The center of the roof ended up a bit flat so I applied a couple of layers of Auto body blade putty and sanded it to conform with both curves. It's now ready for planking.

I wanted to glue in a floor on top of the framework to mount the motors, shafts, servos, ESC's etc. But I felt the need to add some weight under the floor first.
So I bought a roll of lead flashing and cut some pizza triangles to fit in between the stringers.
I managed to get 3 pieces siliconed into each section. The total weight of the lead is just on 5 pounds. Not any where near enough I know, but it's a start.

So then I cut a disc of 1/8" ply and cut out some notches for the frames to come through.

Here's some pics.

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[785boats]

We had a day at the club yesterday, and I put the boat in the water for a ballast test.
It took another 22 pounds of lead (27 pounds in total) and it still wasn't down to the waterline.
That's a heavy boat for a hull that's only 25 and a 1/2" in diameter.

[Jesse J]

Dang bro, that’s coming along! I showed your build to my dad and he too was impressed with your off menu build style!
One thought: I helped a buddy with a big Rc river tug that also required a bunch of weight, and we used removable ballast to make transporting more reasonable. Knowing you, I’m sure you have some creative trick along these lines.
Great progress and I’m really keen to see the puppy in action!

Are you going to add this class to the race schedule this year?

[785boats]

Hi Jesse.

Things always seem to move quickly when you are having fun doing it. And the fact that it is so different to any other boat that I have ever built makes it more interesting too.
There's no trick with the ballast. I will be doing exactly what you guys did, and what I do on some of my other big boats. Blocks of removable lead.

I don't think there will be any takers at the club for this class of racing. I can't walk as slowly as this boat will travel at it's scale speed.

There are many different layouts for this thing & I've opted for one of the earliest versions with the flying bridges, open ships wheel, and lots of planking.
So the planking may be where the fun factor drops a little as the tedium sets in.

I made up a bit of a jig to cut all the planks to 150mm long.
Marked off the 'imaginary' bulkheads across the hull at 30mm (1/5 plank length) and using medium CA, glued the planks down in what is known as a 4 butt pattern.

Here's the start of it.

The layout that I'm going with.
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The extremely sophisticated plank cutting jig ( patent pending ).
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Progress on the planking.
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[785boats]

I got a bit more done on the planking. It's going much more quickly than I thought it would.

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[785boats]

I've decided to give the cosmetic surgery a bit of a miss for a while, and get into the engineering side of things.
So this morning I decided to have a go at mounting the motors & drive lines.

After marking out the centerlines of the shafts, I drilled the 6 holes in the hull for them.
Then cut 6 motor mounts from some 30 x 30mm aluminium angle and drilled the mounting holes for the motors. Then mounted the motors.
I also drilled & countersank 4 holes in the base for the epoxy to fill up and create sort of rivets to help keep them in place.

Using a hex flex coupler, from one of my race boats, to keep the shafts in line with the motor shafts, I epoxied the motormount and stuffing tube in place as single units.
I had to cut away parts of the ribs that were sticking up through the floor first though.

Then some epoxy putty was shaped around the stuffing tube where they passed through the hull for extra strength.
After that had all set, I installed the little metal universals that came with the prop shaft/stuffing tube units.

If you think setting up twin drives is fun, try 6 of the blighters.

I just need to epoxy in some ply braces at the motor end of the stuffing tubes to strengthen them up.

You will notice that I've got the props spinning outwards at the tops. Would spinning them inwards give me better handling?



Here's some pics.

Motor mounts & motor/gearboxes.
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Hex flex coupler used to aign the motor & shaft.
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All 6 installed.
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Those 6 props should stir up a bit of water.
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[785boats]

Relaxing day at the club yesterday, with time to sharpen and balance a few of the props.
They are so far out of balance that it is not funny,
They are obviously all out of the same mold because one blade is so much thicker on all 6 props.
Took along 3 boats to play with.


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