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Showing results for tags 'Flattie'.
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Hi, I'm building Corel's "Flattie" kit, modifying it to be sailable via remote control. Since I'm new to both ship modeling and RC, I decided to build the ship initially in a "barebones" form, with minimal planking, painting or decoration, just to test it on open water. If it turned out to be a disaster, with all hands lost, I didn't want to waste weeks worth of painting. Once that was sound, then I'd move on to do the final planking and painting. I've since completed the testing, and it seemed to sail fairly well. The pictures below are from the initial build. Now I'm moving on to the final aesthetics. Deviations I've made from the kit are 1) I enlarged the deck houses to allow more room for the electronics, 2) repurposed the centerboard slot to house a fin keel with weighted ballast, 3) attached extra rigging to main boom and tiller to allow them to be actuated by servos. I'm a complete novice, so if you have any suggestions or comments, they'd be appreciated. To be clear, this isn't a completed model. My plan is to make it look as similar to the box photo as possible, minus some creative liberties taken to make it easier to maintain and sail as RC. Is there anything I should use to seal the external planking against water? It'll be completely painted with acrylics. Do I need to apply any water sealant first or will primer and paint be enough?
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Corel Flattie American Boat Scale: 1:25 L: 335 mm / 13.2” H: 355 mm / 13.9” W: 100 mm / 3.9” Build Start: 27 April 2013 Initial impressions are that the kit is fairly nice, though the instructions aren’t exactly stellar (am going to test copying instructions into a pdf file, then highlighting the Italian text and copying it into Google’s translator to see if I get something more clear). In regard to the instructions, I suggest that one look ahead before starting a build because the kit tends to omit little details and so forth. The kit wood also tends to be a little brittle and splintery. Before I built and framed the keel, I scored the keel in a couple of places to simulate larger, scale planks and etc. (the pencil lines on the keel are the scoring layout). I painted the leeboard box black after I assembled the keel, and also drilled holes for lines and the leeboard pivot pin. Initially, I used slow drying CA to set the frames (they’re square to the keel). To reinforce them, I put the keel in my keel clamp glued all the joint’s with Elmer’s wood glue (I used the clamp so that glue would sit and dry on top of the joints). I then marked out the deck with its centerline and also put reference lines down for the leeboard and mast openings (figured those will help when I lay down and mark the deck center plank later for those items). The plywood deck, sides, and bottom are a bear to work with. Each is about 2mm thick and isn’t at all flexible. For instance, I soaked the deck for two days before I laid it down, and still fought with it to sit right and curve properly (a lot of clamps and a few choice words…that's one area where my background in the Marine Corps is helpful ). On the plus side, at least the laminate didn’t separate after soaking for so long. Rather than focus on edge fits, I made sure that the deck was centered on the keel—the edges weren’t great fits. After the deck, I then lightly faired the frames and tested that with thin planking that’s in the kit versus using the kit’s plywood side planks. I then put down the bottom plywood. I added bracing forward of the transom frame so that the bottom piece would have something more solid to attach to. Note: If you build the kit, there’s a reinforcing piece (part #4) that lays flat on the keel, forward of frame 5. Part 4 has to be trimmed on it lower edge and side toward the stem. If it’s not trimmed, the bottom piece will extend down too far and later, when it’s planked, both the bottom piece and its planking will cover up too much of the keel (there’s a pencil line visible in a side view photo—this is where I laid this out to account for the planking and bottom piece & hopefully illustrates what I’m trying to explain here). I trimmed the stem side of part 4 because it looked liked it would push the side planing too far forward. Can barely see the pencil layout at the stem. After the bottom was installed, I put in the leeboard before I put on the sides. The instructions don’t mention it, but this is a good time to install the leeboard’s brass fitting, too. That fitting is about a ½” long and you won’t be able to install it easily after the leeboard is in. Another issue that caught me is the width of the leeboard box—it’s a bit too narrow for the leeboard to slide up and down in, once the fitting is attached. So, my leeboard will likely stay in the up position once the model is finished. While that’s minor, that glitch will in-turn make laying out the deck center plank more difficult—will cross that bridge when I get there. After fighting the kit plywood deck and bottom, I knew the kit’s sides would be monsters to install. Rather than go there, I replaced those with 1/32” basswood (would have liked something a touch thicker, but that’s all I could find locally). To make the sides, I laid the boat on each side and traced the sheer of the deck onto file folders. I then taped those templates to the basswood and used a ships curve on the templates and as a cutting edge for my knife. Since the wood was thin, pretty easily to cut through in a couple of passes. I soaked each side for a few hours and then laid them down; after the glue set, I popped a few treenails into the sides/frames for a better hold (will replace the junk draw plate I got from MicroMark w/ Jim Byrnes’). After everything set up, I put Elmer’s wood glue into the gaps along the edges, faired the deck and bottom to the sides, and then filled in with wood filler to further get things flush and etc. This shot includes the side that came with the kit. After the sides were in, I cut rabbets into the stem post for the wales and side planking (the kit’s instructions don’t mention rabbets). And then installed the wales after giving them a soak overnight. Can see the brass fitting on the leeboard in this shot.
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