Ian_Grant

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......

Another absolute gem of a build, Siggi. I am in awe...........

Rained today so no pool testing. I finished painting the grey around the deck periphery and on the torpedo net storage shelf. She has a much more finished appearance with that done. Also reprinted all my weather deck hatches, skylights, bollards, cleats, and breakwater with the smaller 0.2mm nozzle and everything came out nice and crisp. Drew the 13.5" director platform and "spotting top" in CAD and printed them too. Reprinted parts. Torpedo net shelf and deck perimeter painted. Director platform above compass platform; spotting top above that; fore topmast inserted but not trimmed to length yet. Sorry for the focus. It turns out my foremast is a little closer to the funnel than drawn so I will have to make some adjustments to the spotting top and reprint. I still, as when I was a teenager, have difficulty seeing in the drawings exactly how men climbed up to these platforms,especially as Norman drew the foremast with tripod supports from aft which is not historically accurate. Supports were deleted during a refit early in her career when they swapped the positions of the foremast and fore funnel --- she was actually built with the funnel between the supported foremast and the compass platform which led to embers falling onto the compass platform and the poor men in the spotting top living in the smoke stream from the funnel! They wisely corrected that....🤔...and deleted the mast supports while they were at it. Early photo of Lion as built. You can just imagine the smoke and heat from the funnel spilling up the mast. Apparently the mast got so hot one couldn't touch it. Note also the other two funnels are shorter. Spotting top is seen but the director platform was a later modification. Lowest yard was removed when director was added. Thanks for following!

Geez Marc, you gave me a scare!! Checked in for the first time in a while and saw this, thought you must be very ill indeed.......scrolled upto see that you're just a busy guy.....what a relief!! 👍

Looks great John!! Looking forward to the cabin work.

I spend far too much time on the computer and not enough working on this model. I have made some progress, but I am going to switch from adding detail to getting it functioning on the water and keep adding to it. I have enough of the topsides done now that it would be presentable "with explanations" to the club members. Smoke and sound will have to wait for now. Here are a few shots. The foredeck: Looks great, but the only parts glued down are the main windlass and the anchor winches and chains. The rest of the parts are just placed for the shot, in fact I see I forgot to paint final grey on the breakwater which is still primer grey. Of course, it would only be the work of a few moments to CA the rest down, but only after I mask and paint the grey rim along the deck edges/torpedo net shelf. Forward tower FINALLY assembled with glue. I procrastinated for weeks due to needing to have forward shelter deck railings in place beforehand. The camera is certainly a humbling tool.........need to add a jumble of bracing beneath the forward projection of the compass platform out ahead of the chart house. Speaking of railings, for some reason I decided to try for handrails on the two ladders on the shelter deck's aft edge. Bent up from 0.5mm brass rod.I ended up making seven to end up with four; the other three pinged off my tweezers and I simply couldn't find them. I enjoyed the process so much I am not adding handrails on ladders to the captain's walk. 🙄 I will however have to add them to two ladders at the aft end of the aft superstructure since they're quite a climb from the upper deck; also the two ladders down into the aft well deck. Did not even contemplate handrails for the ladders between decks in the tower. Aft well deck, with some open engine room vents, a closed skylight, a closed hatch, and the pair of steam launches as yet unpainted. As I mentioned there will be a ladder with handrails on each side. Somehow other boats have to cram in outboard of the launches. Final shot: the painted funnel grates and steam vent pipes at fore and main funnels. My flat black seems to have become satiny near the end of the bottle which has happened to me before. Will be touching up. So, I now have both my 12V motors and my two ESC units. Next steps are: (1) Grease prop tubes and add props/shafts. (2) Add motors with U-joint links. (3) Measure the current draw of a motor driving its 2" prop. (4) Fingers crossed - the current is not high and I can order the smaller 12V gel battery. (5) If high will need to do another ballast/load test to see if larger 12V gel batt weight could be tolerated. If so need to rework the rotating mechanism for "Q" turret to make room for the bigger battery. (6) I can do some more building while I wait for whichever battery to arrive. If Canada Post goes on strike (yet again!) it could be a while. Thanks for following and the likes! Ian

Perfection!!

The family will be thrilled to see the result, Glen. Beautifully done!

I'd be "loudly wondering" the same thing. 😏

Beautiful plank job, and deck. 👍

Bill you have a new follower on your AV build.

Bill, love the LED "deck lanterns" and internal illumination. To reduce possibility of shorts, you could provide protective "heat shrink tubing" at your soldered joints. It is a neater solution than electrical tape. Can't be added now except at "dead end" joints for example to the left of the third internal LED in the first picture above, where you could slip the tubing onto the soldered length then shrink. Either a heat gun (preferred) or your iron can be employed to heat thus shrink the tubing. Just an idea for future soldering 👍 Ian 🤙

Hi Bill! Nice to hear from you. Yes, it's a new direction since getting back into modelling, but as you know it's a reboot of an old build of mine. She is going to look much, much better than before. Are you doing another wood build now? Best Regards, Ian

OK, so this has nothing to do with Lion or even ships, but seeing as penguins are a recurring theme among the cognoscenti like Keith and Glen, I bring the following to your attention: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/penguin-poop-helps-drive-cloud-formation-over-antarctica-according-to-a-new-study-180986686/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial&lctg=92646438

What character in a model, Keith! I love the lounging cats.....we too have always had one. Our current old man has been living with cancer for over a year after my wife the vet predicted his demise within weeks of diagnosis. She has him on prednisolone (sp?) and he's the same character though a little thinner. To get him to take the prednisolone, we crush the pill in a small bowl and stir it into a wee bit of vanilla ice cream. When we went away to Italy, my son messaged us worried that Ginger was suddenly refusing his medicated ice cream. My wife realized she had bought a different brand just before we left, so told Alex to go out and get a carton of "Kawartha Premium Vanilla" ice cream. Problem solved. 🙄

Finally got around to painting the bootstripe. It adds nicely to her appearance. I was out of "Frog Tape" masking tape so went to HD to discover they now sell Frog Tape only in really wide width; all others are "Painters Tape Ultra" which I know from past bitter experience is crap in terms of bleeding but I wanted to get the job done so I bought it anyway. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. As you might expect the tape bled in many places along the upper edge even though I tried my best to burnish it down. Redid it with 1/4" Tamiya tape with the green masking tape overlapping to shield the grey paint and got nice clean edges. Printed two little jigs to help me bend the steam vent pipes consistently; needed two because there were two different offsets for the various pipe s-bends; 3/16" and 1/4". Pipes at the aft funnel; "Q" turret's gun barrels traverse perilously near them. 🤔 In fact there are a couple of cross-pieces to add across the gap between the blast shields which must be concave to provide clearance for these barrels. Pipes at the main funnel: The funnels are not glued on; pipes are not glued in; need to form the support eyes and drill into the funnels to attach them. Looking at 12V lead-acid batteries I now see I can only get 5Ah in the size I had planned, as opposed to the previous 12Ah 6V battery. An unexpected consequence. I can get 9Ah if I can shoehorn in a battery that is 15mm taller. I'm thinking I can move "Q" turret's rotator servo and mount out from under the turret by moving it to the next compartment and using a longer belt, if available. This would make room for the thicker battery, however this battery is also 0.8kg heavier so I need to, sigh, do another ballast/flotation test. At least the pools are thawed now. Finally, I thought I'd buy the little sound card I saw a while go, which has an SD slot to store WAV audio files and is triggered simply by pulling any of 16 control pins to GND to play the associated sound. I can't find it now! Damn! 😠 Thanks for looking!