Battlecruiser HMS Glorious

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Fellow Boaters one and all. I am considering building the battlecruiser HMS Glorious , the plan of which I have states the decks are dark grey and so by inference not wood covered…can this be right? this pair of ships was built very light despite thier size, it could be possible..but where could I find this out? all pictures I have seen are b/w and of course none show the deck!  ALSO at 48X5 inches,,,will 4x toddy 15 or 20 mm props propel it adequately at " battlecruiser" speed? Ashley

[Robert PottleParticipant @robertpottle52027]

All three of the ‘large light cruisers’ had steel decks. These were fitting with hundreds of narrow steel ‘anti-skid’ strips laid in a chevron pattern. The decks of the Courageous Class are well illiustrated in R. A. Burt’s ‘British Battleships of World War One’. 

I’ve built the Courageous in 1/144 scale and am working on the mold for Furious. I do not look forward to laying those anti-skid strips again! 

Bob

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Bob, you are a hero. I shall look forward to the day when I take it to the water and rebuff all those "couldnt you be bothered with the planking" type rmarks. Cheers, Ashley

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

PS   any chance of a few piccies of your Courageous appearing?? Ashley

[Robert PottleParticipant @robertpottle52027]

Ashley, There used to be over 2 dozen photos of my HMS Courageous model on a R/C naval combat internet site, but a check today showed the site had disappeared since my last visit in April. I have all of the original photos and several VHS tapes of the Courageous in operation. Unfortunately I don’t have a scanner but will try to get access to one in the near future.  

Bob

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Bob. Top man. Just a quick question, bearing in mind my boat would be essentially a stand-off-scale job, yours would be that much larger than that which I am contemplating, (at 1;200 ish) do I assume you used 4 props? and obviously they worked ok.. Props for mine would be very small and I have doubts about their ability to propel it at "battlecruiser" speed, Two props at 25mm would sit nicely under the stern..but i did have a thought that a ducted or custom "jet" drive would sit unnoticed under the boat, exiting just before the rudder while flanked by essentially dummy scale props….now theres a thought…Ashley

[Robert PottleParticipant @robertpottle52027]

Ashley, I powered only the central props. The model ran considerably faster than scale speed (~2.5 mph). Propulsion was by a pair of 6V 550 motors driving 35mm 4 blade props through 2.5:1 reduction belt drives.

 A jet drive might be too large or too powerful for a 1:200 model. I would try  two 25mm props with small motors: 260s or 280s, or a pair of the old Orbit 205s if available.

 Bob 

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Cheers again Bob. As luck would have it, I have three  25mm brass props on 3mm shafts unused from my Turbinia build available, two of which would fit the bill nicely.  Ashley

[andrew hustlerParticipant @andrewhustler]

Rob. your rc combat site still exists i looked a few seconds ago http://www.rcnavalcombat.com

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Bob, Had quick shuftie but cant see any of your pics though? Ashley

[Robert PottleParticipant @robertpottle52027]

Ashley,

That’s a different site. The one I referred to was the North Atlantic Battle Squadron club’s website, hosted by pitelli.com from the late 1990s until this year. The site had not been updated since 2002 and was causing confusion because more sites with the same name were started by other club members. The content had been downloaded to a disc as a back-up but I’m no longer involved with NABS and don’t know who has it.  

Your message is a reminder to get the photos scanned and posted to the newer ‘R/C Naval Combat’ site, where there are several photos of my new 1/144 Furious and HMAS/HMS Albatross hulls.

Regards,

Bob

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Fellow mariners, The cruiser is in the water now having had its first outing this afternoon,Sunday, and looks ok- still needs a bit of finishing detail, mainly portholes, a job I hate. It was built using (the merits of which were discussed at length in a previous thread) a 3/4" plank of best b&q pine as the base and common or garden 1/8" hardboard for the sides and deck. It was going to just be a test bed, but the hull looked so good I thought I would continue. I have cut an oblong out of the bottom and plated this with hardboard underneath to get the batteries as low as poss, as trials indicated the boat would be very tender without this mod. Stability is fine like this, although I might add some over-scale bilge keels to stop the rolling whilst manoevering. Power is 2x 385 motors on 12v driving 2x 25mm 3-blade brass props and it goes really rather well. On 6v the speed is more than adequate for "scale" but reverse is woefully inadequate and there is nowt in reserve for sticky moments, I may pop in some 380`s on 6v as I only have one small 12 battery and this would give me a homogenous 6v fleet. Weight is a creditable 3kg on the nose, radio and lead included but not the battery (750g for the 6v 4.5Ahr type).

Its truly amazing just how well a plank of wood floats..   Ashley

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Warship buffs required

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

After a fair few sailings, last week when taking the battery out I noticed there was some water in the hull. It has been coming in from cracks around the bottom hardboard patch. I had used polyfilla rapid to smooth the joint, but a drawback of using a substantial timber base and hardboard sides seems to be a difference in expansion rates.. ie the wood dont and the `board does.

 

Nothing has fallen apart or gone soft, must be due to the sanding sealer . I have stuck the hyull in the workmate and scraped all the filler off and am using the epoxy filler I purchesed for the Fantome to repair it. That should hold it.

 

Ashley    nb   running on 2x 380 motors, and its dead FAST.  Nice

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