Bedford

I didn't think it was possible to make small engines like this run slowly but the leaden flywheel makes it sound very promising, if I'm not mistaken it will also help dampen any wayward vibration that may sneak in.

I've moved my chair up the front!

Magnificent woodwork, I would imagine your customer was very happy with it.

Beautiful work

In the case of the real thing I would imagine it is fairly low revving and with the cranks at 180deg from each other balance would be no problem. This engine will have to rev higher I would think but still the cranks are at 180deg and in this case because it all happens so close to the centre line any minor imbalances won't really be an issue either.

Michael, you will have heard the expression "to sleep on it" it works and a good sleep has helped solve some of the trickier issues with my schooner.

A note on polishing the internal metalwork, I'm reminded of the story of a car maker in the UK that prides itself on quality, they needed to start making auto gearboxes and bought one with a good reputation and reverse engineered it but being the fastidious types they are they machined the entire inside of the cast housing which the original maker omitted doing. Gearbox after gearbox failed until they sought the help of the original manufacturer who told them simply, "don't machine the inside of the case. The rough casting stops oil running quickly down and causes it to drip onto the mechanisms which helps lubricate it all".

Now the truth of this story, I can't be sure of, but I would imagine you might be better off not polishing surfaces that don't need to be.

Thanks Michael, it's that "thinking outside the box" I do, I'm always looking for simple solutions and that generally means coming up with something completely different.

Robbyn, welcome back aboard! 

I was joking about selling her but to be honest I'm not sure where she will make berth in the long term because I don't have a huge house.

I do keep working out the issues and as I have said before, that's why I am building her but they just keep coming so I sometimes tend to just walk away from her for a while now and then.

As for my next project I'm tossing up between an RC square rigger or an RC 2 masted schooner called Altair, you can see her if you do a google images search, she is rather pretty. I also have the Royal yacht Caroline (kit) that I must do for reasons shown in my "signature", I think she will be next.

I have done a bit of machining today, I needed to make easily removable posts to stand her on. 

I will use the sailing keel attachment posts as the stand posts by screwing extension posts into them which will then locate into brass bosses in the display stand. I think this should make the change between sailing and displaying pretty easy.

The boss will be epoxied into the display base and the post will just slide into it.

I've been doing some machining today too but NOTHING compared to what you are doing !!

Ah yes! that makes sense.

Are you going to do the whole reversing mechanism?

As some will know I do enjoy a mechanical challenge so this build is really getting interesting now.

Clever design Michael, as one would expect.

Why the extra sump area outside the crank case?

I suppose when you put it that way I probably could have bought a RTR tug and had it moored at the bank ready to go, It would have cost more than the auxiliary power in the schooner. Much less headaches though!

Still, what I have is in keeping with my goal of working it all out from scratch and making it all work.

I will say that if I ever build another such vessel there will be no RC reefing, been there done that, and if it has an auxiliary motor it will probably be in the ballast bulb at the bottom of the keel and powered independently.

Hey Dave, yes I was concerned about LiPos in the early days but as you suggested, they have come a long way especially in the charging. My charger is computerised and constantly checks and maintains cell balance. Having said that I still charge my batteries on the sink or similar metal surface. I was sticking to HiMh but everything these days is geared towards LiPo etc so I gave in.

Thanks for the compliment on the sails.

Floyd I know, I know but it hasn't been cheap or easy and I want to know that if something goes wrong I can drive her ashore in a hurry.

Well Floyd I always wanted to rely on sail but with no-one else around here sailing I thought it was a pretty good idea to include auxiliary power. I am still looking at it but since I will have to buy a new speed controller I might just as well get two smaller motors too. Much less weight and the 540's are big enough to drive a much larger vessel.

Today has been the first real time I have had on the schooner for a while and while I am achieving a little I am taking about 5 steps back for each step forward.

Firstly I have commented in the past that when I power up the radio system some of the winch servos travel in and out which causes great concern because it is all at once and I have no control. While the extra BEC I bought to supply power to the system has cured the glitching that was occurring with all the servos connected it has not stopped the servo "reaching" that occurs on start-up so I went and bought a few more servo extension leads of different lengths so now I have the joins in accessible places meaning I can stow her with these servos disconnected and when I power up the system I can connect them one by one with no misbehaving. Problem solved.

However!

In trying all this and making sure it all worked the main gaff lazy jack gave up and broke, I can't see why, there was no big harsh snap like before, it just seems to have failed so I will have to replace it and am still considering whether or not I will increase the size of the line which means replacing all three of them but may be worth it I think.

And then!

I tried the motors just to make sure all is well...................................dead as the proverbial Dodo!

I checked the switch and it isn't the problem so the speed controller itself must have died for no apparent reason.

Anyone want to buy an unfinished schooner?

Seriously though, it is more of a challenge than I was hoping for but one day I will win.

Oh and I floated her just to see how the weight is going and she is heavy in the stern as I expected because of all the servos down there as well as the motors and she is listing a few degrees to starboard which I figure is mainly due to the location of the servos in the aft deckhouse with the rudder servo being in the centre so I have relocated it as far to port as I could. You can see the holes where it was mounted right beside the winch servo.

Now to really plan where everything else gets mounted because I want to level her out with essential hardware rather than with added ballast because that would mean less weight for the sailing keel. I have read that you want such a vessel to ride a bit high in the bow, makes them sail better, so it is heading in the right direction.

I MAY however decide to ditch the motors as they are quite heavy and if I learn to sail the yacht I may not need them in the schooner.

Beautifully done my friend and nicely displayed.

This is going to get quite intricate, at this size the cam and valve gear will be very small.

I don't want to miss any of it!

Clearly you have some years of experience in machining Michael, so interesting to follow.

She's beautiful! Think I will have to watch this take shape.

How do you get the brass so smooth after machining?

Impressed Michael, very impressed!

Here is the last sail raising video you will see until she is in the water, 

It is a great relief to finally have all of them done, all that remains now are the sheets for the stays'ls which will pose their own challenges.

I have tried to show how the rings work to raise and lower the stays'ls through differing ranges of travel but I can't do slow motion. Basically I have made the outer stays'l the master since it travels the furthest, I tied a ring into that line and another into the other two lines at the appropriate places and ran each line through the ring of the next so that when it reaches the next ring it pulls it down and raises that sail etc. I did the same in reverse to lower the sails. 

When the sails are all the way down the top ring goes above the cross tree so I had to thin and fair the timber on one side to allow it to slip through without catching and you will see at the 14 second point that there is a loop that forms above the cross tree, this was prone to catching on the cross tree when being hauled down so I added a brass wire guide to keep it from doing so. You will see that in the pics below.

This pic shows the slack line that was catching on the cross tree, the wire guide did the trick!

This shows the faired cross tree timber.

Making the spark plugs and all, you're a better man than I Gungadin !

Looks like there will be a wealth of knowledge there.

Will you make your own spark plugs? I have a contact of a bloke who sells them, not sure if they are small enough though.

Steve

Thanks guys, Bob there is still a long way to go yet.

I will drop a little bomb here and say I doubt she will sail before I sail from Sydney to Hobart aboard the replica Endeavour in late Jan/early Feb next year.

A 10 day voyage aboard that magnificent bark culminating in the wooden boat festival in Hobart which is a big deal for wooden boats, both 1:1 and scale so I am really looking forward to that !! They also have r/c sailing there so I will be keen to pick up a few tips...