Russian Novgorod.

[785boats]

A bit of a catch up on the progress.

I worked on getting the motor ESC & servo set up for the rotating platform & the raising of the cannon.
I also had to paint the barbette and the cabin before the final fitout of the cannon.

So I made a bracket from some aluminium angle to mount the motor & ESC onto.
I cut the base out of the barbette and connected the shaft of the platform to the motor/gearbox shaft with a flexible coupler.
A bracket was also fashioned for the servo that will raise & lower the cannon and fixed to the underside of the platform as this needs to rotate with the cannon.

It appears that the original ship would only raise & fire one cannon at a time. So I just connected the rear of them with thread through the floor to the arm on the servo.
When the servo is operated the cross arm would pull the rear of one of them down, raising the barrel. The other thread would just go slack as that side of the arm moved up.
Obviously operating the servo in the other direction would raise the other cannon.

Here's a few pics.

Brackets, servo, motor/gearbox, added to the underside.
m_IMAG0399.jpg

Thread passed through the carriage into the barrel of the cannon.
m_IMAG0404.jpg

All fitted, and also a 10A ESC for the motor.
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All finished.
m_IMAG0405.jpg

Front view showing painted cabin also.
m_IMAG0402.jpg

[785boats]

Not much to report. Unable to draw very much time from the 'Time Bank' lately. (
But I've put together the bollards & the air intake cowls.
The bollards are made from some wooden dowel and some pvc sheet.
The cowls were a bit more expensive. But a funny story.
I needed a cowl of 35-37mm with a 16mm riser.
I had the riser in the form of some plastic microjet irrigation tube that had been lying around for donkey's years. Sweet.

But to get the right size & shape for the cowls I headed off to the supermarket with a trusty little 150mm ruler and started measuring the caps on small deoderant sprays, shaving cream packs, ladies personal product type of packs etc. Lord only knows what the other shoppers were thinking when they saw me doing this.
But the ideal candidate ended up being a small Dove, spray moisturiser pack. Perfect in both shape and diameter. Just a bit long, is all, so I only had to cut them down a bit.
So I bought 4 bottles of it for about 2 bucks each, stole the lids, & gave the lidless bottles to wifey to do with them what ever they do with spray moisturiser.

After cutting down the length, I drilled an appropriate size hole in them finishing off the holes with a drum sanding bit in the dremel tool
The pipes were cut to the correct angle & shape and glued into the cowls.
Rosin core solder was used to make a ring around the lip of the cowl and also on the riser just below the cowl as seen in some images of the real boat and other models.
A bit of filler to fair in the pipes to the cowl and then they were painted in grey primer.

Once I cut them to the correct length and angle to match the curve of the deck, I'll paint them in their final colour.

Here's some pics.

m_IMAG0408.jpg

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m_IMAG0441.jpg

[785boats]

Again, not a lot to show for this weeks efforts.
I've mounted the main bridge and the flying bridges permanently.

To get the two flying bridges level and at right angles to the centerline of the ship. I taped them to a piece of straight wood then marked out the positions of the posts . Then removed the bridges to drill holes through the deck.
The posts were cut from some 4mm carbon fiber tube.
Then everything was epoxied in place with the wood brace still taped to the flying bridges.
The 30 minute epoxy gave me plenty of time to get everything set up straight, square, & level.

m_IMAG0442.jpg

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[Jesse J]

Nice Paul! Your work bench looks like mine when I am elbows deep in a build!
What are all the holes for?
And what scale is this again? I think some scale Russians are needed..

[785boats]

Hi Jesse.
About time I had another cleanup on the bench. But when I put everything away, I can never find something when I need it.
All those holes in the decks are for skylights as per the original ship. See the pic below.
I'm just waiting for the eylets that I've ordered to arrive so I can ream the holes out to the right size & fit them.
The scale is 1:48

novgorod_2_129.jpg

[785boats]

Hi guys.
I've still been chipping away at this project when I can find the time.
The most recent developement is the final painting and installation of the smoke stacks and the ventilators.


The eyelets arrived the other day so I installed those too after fitting a piece of clear plastic into them.
I put a drip of CA in the back of the small ones to hold it in place and it gave the plastic a 'frosted' look.
Fortunately, I think they look better than plain clear.
Still have the 6 larger ones to do yet. Also the port holes around the main bridge.
Anyhow, here's a few pics. The camera angles make it look as if things aren't vertical, but they are.
Cheers.
Paul.

m_IMAG0452.jpg

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m_IMAG0454.jpg

m_IMAG0455.jpg

m_IMAG0456.jpg

[Jesse J]

Hey Paul, how was maiden voyage! I keep looking for the video.. help?

[785boats]

Sorry man.
No maiden yet. Things have stalled out a bit over the last month or so. Work commitments. And now l'm on holidays down in Tasmania for a couple of weeks.
Should get back to it in a couple of weeks time.
Cheers.

[Jesse J]

Ok, whassup? Need some vid-ee-oh! Cmon mate, you can do it!?!

[Johnc]

Agree with Jesse, been fowling from the beginning of build (12/20 or so)
Hope health is all OK to finish the project

[Johnc]

Haven't heard hide nor hair from ya on the build since last September sometime, Just wondering.
Hope all is well.