NavyShooter

Ahoy and welcome aboard!

I have decided to pursue the FPV system for my Liberty Ship....so I've been puttering away with 3D printing some parts. I'm on version 3 of the camera mount now, and it's almost ready to assemble. If you recall my Can holder hatch covers, I've taken that same concept and created an FPV hatch cover, with a turret/dome mounted on top, wires go into the hull and there's a spot behind the turret for the antenna to protrude. Pictures will follow - I'm pondering how to make it a 'modular' setup so I can swap it from ship to ship without having to invest in a new camera, transmitter, and servos for each ship.

All 44 aircraft are now printed, it's now just a matter of completing them. I posted a picture in one of the HMCS Bonaventure groups showing the CF-100's, and there was some indignation about that aircraft having never been on the Bonnie....just wait 'til they have an aneurism over seeing the Arrows and F-35's. 🙂 I'll get kicked out of the group for the heresy I'm sure. I'll feel better about this massive pile of aircraft once I finally get a few more of them finished. The Trackers are about ready for decals next. That said, now I'm pondering printing up a couple of 20mm CIWS to stick on to be able to use instead of the 3"50 guns when I mix up the air det...I'm sure folks will disapprove of that too! In other news, my anchor winches and anchor chain arrived...so I've got other stuff to muck about with as well.

The F-18's are on the printer right now....the Skyhawks are done and primed. Here's how the Trackers look right now:

Good point! I'll see if I can find one of those...that means at least 2 more aircraft types are coming still...lots of options for my air det! Got some sanding and priming done tonight. Starting to look better! The Trackers had their landing gear painted last evening - and that went well up to the point that I knocked over the paint bottle. Silver paint all over the bench. Yah! The Sea Kings and the F-35's need some more filling and sanding, but at this point, I have the following aircraft printed: Banshee - 8 Tracker - 8 Sea King - 4 (of 6) HOS4 - 4 Bonus types: F-35 - 4 CF-100 - 4 CF-105 - 4 Still to come: A-4 Skyhawk - 4 CF-18 - 4 Any other possible aircraft that might fit with my fanciful RCN Air Det?

So, I've been busy with the 3D printer, and have built some additional aircraft options for my ship's air det. You can see the Banshee and Tracker at the front....who can ID all the rest of the aircraft? There's one more type that I'm working to find a good model of that I can print next.

Had her out again this evening - a good 40 minute run or so....one problem came up, the rudder over-rotated, and flipped the servo arm. That was - ungood...good news was that she was close to the dock when it happened, and I was able to recover her under her own power. Fixed the rudder - then adjusted the rotation limit in the radio by 15% (less) to each side. She'll turn a bit wider now, but I won't have the same flip problem.

Here she is sailing before the shaft-line failure: 3D printed Liberty Ship sailing on Canada Day - YouTube

There's the video of the rescue!

Finally, as you can see, the Liberty Ship has been out on the lake again this evening. Hooted the horn at some passing boats, but alas, no ducks to chase this evening. Good news though, the eagle has returned to the lake this summer. I hadn't seen him this year - but today he was out and about. I think I need to add a bit of additional ballast up forward, she's riding a bit low in the stern.

I was also somewhat envious of the 'dry launch' bracket things that a couple of gents at the local modeling club had and use. So, I decided to stop at Home Depot, buy some copper tubing, elbows, and build one myself. I'm pleased with the function - it's big enough to easily accommodate my Liberty Ship and my Tug boat. After the trial run, I gave it a layer of red Tremclad, and am going to grab some pipe wrap on the way home from work tomorrow.

So, a recurring theme with this ship has been slipping of grub screws in the drive-train, resulting in a loss of propulsion. It's happened twice now, and I'm displeased at it.... So...the 3mm grub screws (that used a 1.5mm hex key to tighten them - which strips when you try to actually tighten them) have been replaced on the dogbone with a pair of 5mm long socket head screws. Did not negatively impact the balance of the shaft from my observation, so this seems to be the solution going forward. Additionally - to make sure I've got the necessary tools available, I drilled some holes, and put a set of 3 hex keys in the stern-by the rudder post. You can see that I'm also keeping the old scale sized rudder in the stern area as well - in case I ever need it for display purposes.

I think the smaller chain - have a look at this site: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234987388-flower-class-corvette-hmcs-sackville/ Here's a couple of images of the capstan and anchor chains:

I also paid a visit to one of the local aviation museums yesterday with my son, and we puttered about looking at some of the aircraft, and their model of the Bonnie in 1/200. Also some detailed views of a Tracker - alas, not in Bonnie Era paint scheme though. Got some good detail pictures of the torpedo dolly, however, it seems not to be one that would have been used on the Bonnie - rather, used with the Trackers later in life when they were shore based (hence the green colour.)

A couple of quick updates - I've got 5 of the 8 trackers filled, sanded and primed (again) after there were still some gaps after the first layer of putty. I've done a bunch more 3D printing - you can see some of the TAPV's that I'm busy painting up for a friend who's a Company Commander and wants them for their sand-table training use with the Army. Also visible are some of the Sea King bits that are in progress - and the island.

Looks like the Anchor Pics don't show up properly in the previous post...here they are again.

I found a guy in Germany that sells an Ankerwinde kit. I've ordered two...we'll see how they look when they get here, and I'm hoping that google-translate has actually worked for me! My high-school German was a bit rusty. NS

An interesting - not oft spoken of - piece of data about early machine guns such as the Maxim (and Vickers) and other such designs is the oil that was used. It's a type of oil that is no longer available - but gave outstanding lubrication and minimal wear in service. Here's the tale as found 'in the wild' on the internet: "In 1963 in Yorkshire, a class of British Army armorers put one Vickers gun through probably the most strenuous test ever given to an individual gun. The base had a stockpile of approximately 5 million rounds of Mk VII ammunition which was no longer approved for military use. They took a newly rebuilt Vickers gun, and proceeded to fire the entire stock of ammo through it over the course of seven days. They worked in pairs, switching off at 30 minute intervals, with a third man shoveling away spent brass. The gun was fired in 250-round solid bursts, and the worn out barrels were changed every hour and a half. At the end of the five million rounds, the gun was taken back into the shop for inspection. It was found to be within service spec in every dimension." In WW1 and prior there was a special oil used...that being whale oil. Whale oil was a nearly perfect lubricant - natural - unfortunately non-renewable though. The heat aspect was managed by using asbestos gasket material. So, a week ago, in the UK, a commemoration was held of the 100th anniversary of the end of the Machine Gun Corps, and they fired 16 Vickers guns at once on the ranges in Bisley. An incredible scene - guns blazing, steam blasting - people in period uniforms - some great video available. But, the lost aspect to the legendary mechanical reliability of the Vickers and Maxim guns is the whale oil used as the lubricant. NS

I was actually at the Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa last year with my family, and while we had a great time, I do not recall seeing this ship model. I'm sorry!

Continuing background work...I took a few minutes today to visit the memorial in Point Pleasant Park in Halifax to the military personnel lost during the 'Cold War' years since World War 2. It is a very fitting tribute, a fouled anchor, with the chain leading off into the sea... After paying my respects to the fallen (including one of my shipmates who we lost in February 2005 north of Poland) I then focused on taking some measurements... because this is one of HMCS Bonaventure's anchors. And now I've got some chain and a new anchor ordered....

I have in my archive somewhere a picture of a very early Maxim gun in a Naval Reserve Unit here in Canada - it is on display in the unit museum. It was magnificent - as I recall, the brass-work on it was incredible, but I'd never seen a Maxim Naval Mounting, so I'd assumed it was some kind of prototype - thank-you for sharing this bit of history! If I can find a picture of the gun in my archive, I'll add it here. NS

OK....so I have a small pile of money wasted on FPV gear....Amazon is a dangerous website...I'm going to add FPV to the Liberty Ship and my Wolf 8 Tug boat as well I think. I'm not going to post links to the stuff I wasted my money on until I see if I actually wasted it or not!

Doesn't look like much, but here are 4x Sea Kings having been successfully given a layer of primer. I did a bit of sanding and added another layer of paint to them tonight.