Ian_Grant

As always with Amazon, there are various vendors at various price points with the inevitable "straight to you on a slow boat from China" at the bottom. Of price and quality. I see six for $16 plus $6 shipping.

I was thinking the same thing....

Look at the reflection in the copper plating! Your fairing must be perfect..........very nice!

Torpedo net booms stuck into the starboard side. Each boom has a brass etch eye at the outboard end through which I will be threading some "rope". I discovered I don't have much natural colour thread left around so I'll be looking in the sewing shop tomorrow. Once the eyes are threaded I can glue the booms in. Also, I made the four mechanical semaphores. They turned out pretty good. A 1/16" brass rod with two 3d-printed parts, painted to look like wood; then two "EverGreen" plastic "arms" and some very small wire for handles for the signalman. I didn't actually rig them. 😏 I was amazed that the little part behind the "handles" printed faultlessly using a 0.2mm nozzle. Here it is in CAD; the disks are 0.109" DIA, 1/16" thick; with a 0.07" DIA semi-circular cutout for the brass rod to pass through. They printed flawlessly with no support required and stuck to the (textured) plate. Amazing machine..... The grid squares are 1/8".

"Wow" doesn't cut it.

Gorgeous!!

I have re-installed the same pair of counter-rotating plastic propellers from the 70's.

Footnote: I looked up the motor manufacturer data. Using 385 motors instead of 540 would give me about half the torque, at half the current draw. Since the 540 drew zero additional current with the prop in water as opposed to air it must have abundant torque for the task. Sigh. Could have had half the draw and twice the cruise duration. I am going to try two identical propellers and if there are no adverse effects (I wouldn't expect any) then change the internals to drive both with one of my motors, thus doubling the duration. Maybe I could sell one motor and one ESC on to someone in the club? And my never-to-be-used 6V battery. 😞

Hi ddp: Yes of course. The ESC units take care of that, reversing the voltage (or not) depending on whether I move the transmitter stick up (Fwd) or down (Rev). Rereading my post, I think you misunderstood when I mentioned "gearbox"; I only meant a metal box with two shafts connecting to the prop shafts and a single shaft connecting to a single motor, with internal gears to connect them and rotate the prop shafts appropriately. Not a mechanism with forward and reverse gears!

RC boat club has our annual demo at the "Stewart Park Festival" in Perth in a couple of weeks, conveniently located 8km from our cottage during our next stay. To this end I would like to get Lion on the water. I will probably take my sailboat too in case the wind obliges. I greased up the propeller stuffing boxes then mounted the twin 540 motors, along with 6mm-4mm couplings, and 4mm U-joints I had in my parts box from the 70's. 😏 U-joint close-up. I have a handful since I had several boats running back then. I like the two-ball joints since the motor and prop shaft axes need not intersect. Due to the greater distance from baseplate to shaft centre compared to my old Decaperm motors, I could not get the prop and motor shafts to align; dropping the motors lower would have meant almost nothing to screw into underneath them! Conducted a motor current draw test with my 5C NiMH pack. A single motor draws 620mA @ 6.3V on the bench ( almost exactly the manufacturer's no-load spec), and the same driving the propeller in the pool. It's obviously not feeling the load; I could probably have gone with smaller 385 motors😠. But anyway, 1.2A @ 12V, times two motors, 2.4A; I'd drain the 3Ah lead-acid down in about an hour at full speed (I think). A little more battery oomph would be nice. In fact, I'm sure a single 540 motor would deliver sufficient power for both props if only I could order a gearbox with my random shaft spacing. I could do it with belts and timing gears but it would be a trick to get counter-rotation. On the other hand, is it even necessary in a scale model boat at scale speeds? Also I am considering putting the twin ESC units on different channels so I can run on one motor only, most of the time. In future I could try fitting two identical propellers and drive both from a single motor via belts, to save battery draw. In the meantime I have added some detail. Main director, and spotting top glued and painted black. The masts above the funnel tops are black too. The fore topmast isn't tapered or painted or glued in so far. Aft searchlight platforms added, with more anti-splinter railing mats. Access is by ladders hidden in this view. Need to add some metal bulwarks behind them. Considering adding another searchlight each side; not historically accurate but it gives a nice balance between fore and aft searchlight groups and I like the look as seen in the 3D render (which is inaccurate in other ways too!). Extra searchlights in the 3D render. I've also been busy printing more deck furniture and gluing in place. Here is what surrounds "Q" turret at present. The flat circles are coaling scuttles. Bridge with rangefinder, chart table, both compasses, access ladder. Thanks for following and commenting.......👍 Ian

A lot of electrical work, Bill. The terminal strips are a good idea.

I was thinking fixed relative to the bow 🤔. I later thought, "Wasn't it just v-sights rather than an optical tube?". Oh well. Thanks for your comments and encouragement!

Just a quick pic or two. Printed the magnetic and gyro compasses for the bridge. Came out pretty good for such diminutive parts. I can't find any info as to equipment present in the spotting top. I felt certain there must at least have been one of those gadgets with a circle graduated in degrees, and an eye-scope one points at a distant object to read off its bearing. Here's my rendition, in the top. As it turns out, with the overlapping cover in place over the top, one can hardly see into it but I'll know it's there as well as those few who peer into it.

Very nice display for the gardens!

I enjoy creating the CAD drawings for stuff, and it's great to see the crisp printed parts, but in the back of my mind lurks the thought "is this true craftsmanship"? Perhaps it is just in another way. What is certain is my HMS Lion would not look nearly as good if I'd had to try to create all those small parts by hand in wood or plastic. I marvel at Marc's carved plastic pieces......