Good morning everyone, this will be a slow 🐌 build although looking forward to the challenge.
Firstly though I'm needing some idea's/expertise at the start.
This will be rc with 2 x motors plus of course rudder. The centre prop will be either fixed or free spinning. However, unfortunately when I opened the box I found that the "arms" for want of a better term which the port/starboard propellers are attached to are solid with a nipple on the end to afix the blades to being as this is intended to be a static build. Likewise the rudder, however with some patience I can cut out the fixed rudder and get this to operate with a servo.
The issue is with the propellers , has anyone got any advice on this please. The only video I've seen on utube of a 1/400 scale Titanic shows the props in situ and working but didn't go into detail as to wether the "support arms" were hollow in the first place and tubes threaded through or they were solid as in this case and they had to be drilled out. Alternatively I could bypass and run an external tube but I believe this would look messy. Hopefully the photos will show you my quandary. Thanks in advance folks 😊

Well after the initial problem with how to fit the propellers I decided on the following solution. First idea was to just have this as a single screw, however this wasn't going to work due to the close proximity of the rudder. Solution 2 was to fit additional shafts alongside the moulded ones, in theory they won't be seen because it's all below the waterline and in practice I could have two motors plus the room for the rudder servo. Success - it all works. Initial "sea trials " in the test tank all good. A string of led lights originally for fitting in a wine bottle have been placed inside the hull to give the impression of cabin lights through some of the portholes etc 😀.
The rest of the build so far has been carried out in fits and starts, a fairly straightforward construction process with the exception of the rigging lines to the funnels which I've managed to start using a needle, only problem is I've come to realise that unfortunately with getting older my eye's aren't as good as I hoped when threading through the eye of the needle 🤣. More to follow. 😊

Well, she's finished. Maybe not the best I've made, still it was a different challenge with the build instructions not so clear at times. Basically running on a 2 channel set up and for an experiment I added some basic led lights for night time. Had an initial sail this morning in the test tank, a little bit tender so some ballast readjusting to be sorted before next weekend 😀. A big problem is that the kit is flat bottomed, maybe a little keel added would help but we'll see how she sails. Initial run was good until one of the motors decided to seize up- back to the spares box 📦 ,replace and try again later. If all goes well next weekend I'll try and post a video. Until then, a couple of photos from earlier. 😀