Any comments?

Sea-lick! I've gone the Styrofoam route with making large ship hulls; it's amazing how fast you can turn out one of those. What are you going to use to cover it? Normal fiberglass resin will dissolve the styrofoam. What's her air group going to consist of? I hope you know how much ballast it's going to take if you intend to sail something that size at its waterline. You are talking around a 150 pounds of ballast, easy. Maybe 200+ pounds. My four-foot-long Styrofoam-hulled French pre-dreadnought battleship took 35 pounds of lead shot to get her down to the correct waterline. Unless you want to give yourself a severe hernia, this carrier might best sail all of her voyages atop a fireplace mantle. ;-)

Pat

I just looked at his picture again:

think we are talking around 300-400 pounds of ballast, easy. You try to lift something made out of Styrofoam up that weighs that much, and it's going to fall apart. I don't think you want to make something that big in a marine RC form. It'd be like trying to hang a lead brick from a cloud.

Pat

Pat I agree ship models can be built very quickly out of foam.

I plan to cover in plaster to protect the foam from the fiberglass layer. When the fiberglass is cured I will eventually remove the base foam leaving me with a one of fiberglass hull. In other words this is a fiberglass hull something the size of a canoe.

As for air wing will let me first finish the boat before I worry about that. I do have several kits I have acquired from SU 33s Helix choppers etc.

In Sydney there is a model of the USS Enterprise in scale 1/72 and its ballast of lead I have been told is close to 250kgs - 551 pounds!!!

I expect to have close to 200kgs - 440 pounds or there about but there will be one thing I won't use and that's lead. I will use water tanks to sink it to the right level to avoid giving me a hernia. This ship WILL be under remote control - RC. I plan to have 4 motors - one per shaft and one car battery per motor at the moment but this may change as I work on the ship.

Also I hope to have running lights, deck lights, moving - guns, radars, elevators and who knows what else may work after all its big enough to work anything inside I want.

Also your link don't work....

Mick

Sydney Australia

I've added to the groups to your post, Jack, as my server carries them. In any case, "running rust" is a good description. I think the Kuznetsov is not very pretty. But then, I don't have the same loving aesthetic eye towards carriers that you guys do ...%)

- nilita

In message , La N writes

A colleague was First Lieutenant on HMS Sheffield in 1996, observing the Kuznetsov and her group as they deployed through the Norwegian Sea. He got some great photographs out of it, but one enduring memory was the _stench_ from that ship. She did not appear to be a happy vessel.

Various EW types got agitated by some photographs, showing wires strung along various galleries and studded at regular intervals with blade-like objects, wanting to know whether these were aerials for some bizarre ECM system? Antennae for an Amazingly Low Frequency radio? Some other new, scary and deadly threat? A close pass with a Lynx, and a steady hand by a photographer, revealed the prosaic truth: the crew had strung wires everywhere they could to dry fish, presumably after a live-fire exercise had brought a shoal to the surface.

Mick,

Thanks, you have given me an idea. I was wanting to build a 1/4th scale custom 49 Merc and was wondering how to build the body. Now I know....foam and fiberglass! Hoping to have opening doors, trunk, and hood. It's a dream I've had for a while, but thanks to you, one step closer now!

Oh, by the way, your ship is cool! Post a link so we can keep up on the progress!!!

Mike

-- Advice when most needed is least heeded.

Ok you brush the plaster on the base foam. You need to do this several times to build up the layer. While this is done you MUST not move the boat - It may cause cracking as you mentioned. The plaster is only a shield so that the Fiberglass when applied doesn't burn into the foam. When the fiberglass is on the ship all you do then is after it is set use body filler, similar to what is used with cars and sand back smooth.

Mick

May I weigh in on this?

Epoxy does not desolve foam. Noe does it get hot enough to melt foam (properly mixed).

and even West resin can be used for laminating fiberglass.

A dry micro fairing layer (microbaloons in resin) and some sanding can produce a very slick surface.

Just read this post and thought it was a good idea with the paper strips as a barrier between the foam and the fiberglass. Might give it a go on the next project. I will have to do some tests first to see if it would work for me but is worth keeping in mind anyway.

Thanks for the idea.... Mick

Be careful about the permeability of what you use when dried; the polyester resin I used on a test section over Styrofoam soaked through a couple of coats of dried latex paint and ate the foam under it.

Pat

"ozpirate" wrote

Best of luck/results to you. One thing I find "interesting" in that type size, are the numbers that instead of RC, that are manned. As always, some do it much better appearing accurate, than others.

"Paul J. Adam" wrote

Well, , my trend is to give decent regard to the people who strive to not waste resources. IMHO, Fish, squirrel, pigeons, geese, deer -- once dead, probably best to be used.

They probably got the idea from those small manned oil tankers that are used to train prospective steersmen in docking procedures. This is still the coolest manned model ship I've ever seen:

's from here: Pat

I'm still not quite sure what the intent is here...

But it you are trying to make a hull from a foam core all this extra stuff is counter productive.

Make the foam core to shape.

Cover with several layers of 1.5 oz glass cloth (sold as deck cloth) and epoxy resin.

If the hull needs to be hollowm melt the foam out with an ounce or two of gasoline/laquer solvent/etc.

The inside surface will be rough but can be cleaned up with sanding.

If you are making a mold instead, do the above to form the plug, wax well, spray with PVA, and lay on the glass layers for the mold.

FWIW...

Richard

Just had a look at the site. Wow now thats what I call big models. Mick

This website is interesting as it features attempts to design a Nautilus that agrees with everything in Verne's book:

two stories are particularly interesting in relation to its design: 's the website map: Pat

I can attest that moonshine whiskey will melt the foam. I learned this when I didn't drink the moonshine in a foam cup quick enough. :-)

"ozpirate" wrote

You / all might be interested in this site

some very interesting models of all scales and quality.

Meanwhile, for the person interested in 1/4 scale car. I do not know where you are at, or how you best learn (in person hands on interactive, or via correspondence/books) but besides the modeling community, you might consider the products and methods being used in auto racing. Much progress being made -especially in the Sports Racer classes.

Somebody enlighten me why somebody would want to make a model of one of the ugliest ships around - the Admiral Kuznetsov. Must be a guy thing ..%)

- nilita ("keep that thing in the garage!")