Decided the next project will be the trumpeter HMS Hood with the Mk1 full upgrade kit. It will have all 4 props powered. I bought the whole package with the deans marine 4 motor kit off eBay about 2 years ago. The gentleman was rationalising his rc models and decided he was never going to build this one.

All the A frames have now been drilled to accept some brass tube which will act as bearings, and the caps where the prop shafts leave the hull were drilled to accept the prop shaft sleeves. This left very little plastic around the holes, so once glued to the hull, filler was required to fill the little splits. The prop shaft sleeves were then glued in place with 2 part rapid epoxy, which hopefully has made a watertight seal around each.

A hole has been drilled through the hull for the rudder, and a brass sleeve glued in, again with epoxy. To hold the glue in place around the brass sleeve, a little dam was built of 2 part epoxy putty. This allowed a nice depth of glue around the rudder sleeve to give it strength.

The prop shafts are only an m2 thread and about 10 inches long which allows them to flex a bit much for my liking. They were fastened in with 2 part epoxy, but there wasn’t a lot of plastic in that area so I was concerned about them flexing loose after a while.

Too get round this and ensure that there was going to be no leakage I’ve built a dam from epoxy putty around the shafts then filled the area over the shafts with epoxy resin. It took about 120ml to just cover all the shafts. This has taken 24 hours to cure, but flexing definitely won’t be an issue now.

The hull has had some spruce marks cleaned off and smoothed over with plastic putty, before having a wash in soapy water to remove any release agent. After drying for a couple of hours, it has now had its coat of plastic primer. Unfortunately the hull is too long to fit in my spaying cabinet, so cardboard and newspaper over my bench had to suffice.

A couple of superstructure parts have had their doors and grills removed whilst waiting for the hull to dry, and photo etched brass replacement fitted. These look much better than the moulded plastic.

The hull is getting painted at the moment so I decidedly that the deck which goes under the splinter deck could be started. Unlike the Pontus photo etch which gets you to completely remove lockers, the mk1 design kit only requires the tops to be cleaned, and then the new photo etched hatch/locker doors to be glued on.

The first part of the wood deck has been attached, which should have extended onto the front section of the focsle deck, but that bit of the wood deck was removed. The front half of the focsle deck will be glued to the hull, while the rear 2 thirds of decking will be removable. The missing wooden deck part doesn’t show as it’s actually under the splinter deck.

To see the detail on the rear half of the focsle deck such as the hose reels, doors, vents etc it will be necessary to peer under the splinter deck, and may well require a torch to see the detail. Never mind, at least I know it’s there!

The hull is now painted, which is a big step forward.

The anchor holes have had pieces of styrene tubing glued to the inside of the hull, and then 2 part epoxy resin wrapped around them. This should stop any water ingress, and will look good painted black on the inside, and the anchor shaft will slide up inside them. The tops were blocked off with a bit more styrene, and sealed with 2 part epoxy.

This allowed the front half of the focsle deck to be glued in place, and the wood decking affixed the length of the ship. There is no obvious point where the deck can be cut to allow access to the inside of the hull, so the rear half of the focsle deck, and the quarter deck will be connected together with the shelter deck ( not the splinter deck that I called it last time). This overlaps, so will make a nice joint and it will be reinforced on the inside to stiffen it up. This removable decking will be about a meter long, so will definitely need to get reinforced.

The shelter deck actually overlaps the front focsle deck by about 5 inches, and the bridge superstructure is on this overhanging part, but at least it will hide the joint between the fixed and removable deck.

The shelter deck still isn’t glued down, but part of the bridge superstructure has been attached. Yet again half the detail has been completely hidden by the next layer.

As well as building this, I’ve been busy making dozens of little lockers, winches and ladders, and the wife kindly made 3 of the gun directors which were small and very fiddly. After some discussion I’ve decided that some of the very small photo etch won’t be used because there won’t be enough glue to hold them in place with the vibrations from the motors.

T.he motors that came with the kit from deans marine are too powerful, so I’ve ordered 4 geared motors that will be much better. These unfortunately aren’t a standard mount size, so I’ll have to manufacture some metal motor mounts.

The motors that came in the deans marine kit were 28mm diameter, and looking at a YouTube clip, appeared much too high revving for the boat. In the YouTube clip it was nearly on the plane, so I decided new motors were required. Looking on mfa como site, I found some motors 22mm diameter and just under half the revs that the motors I had for the boat produced. I purchased 4 of these, then the fun started!

Mfa combo didn’t have any mounts for these motors so I had to fabricate my own. I had some 380 motor mounts but these had a 10mm hole in the centre, so a 14mm drill was ordered from eBay. The mounts were drilled on my myford lathe, then the screw mounting holes were widened with a small file. So far so good.

When these newly mounted motors were positioned in the boat it came apparent that the prop shafts came through too low to get a straight run to the motors, so I had to use double universal couplings to keep them as straight as possible. It also came apparent that 4 motors wouldn’t fit alongside each other, so the rear 2 had to be mounted behind the middle motors. That would have been much worse if I had used the original motors which were 6mm wider.

This left me another problem. The outside propshafts flexed far to much, so a little pillar was made with some brass tubing passing through to act as a bearing. The supporting column was filled with 2 part epoxy to secure it and that appears to have made everything rigid.

Last Thursday I wandered down to the local boat club to test the motor installation. I was still waiting for the actual receiver so find an old radio and transmitter for testing purposes. Unfortunately this system just wouldn’t work fully with the esc. Although forward and reverse worked fine, getting the props on one side to spin forward, whilst the props on the other side spin backwards to help with the turn just wouldn’t work.

The rudder throw also wasn’t enough, so some extra long micro servo arms were ordered from eBay to give me more rudder movement. What with the boat still too high in the water, it wasn’t a very good first run out. Hopefully this week, with the rudder throw sorted, a new receiver and a bit more ballast, it will work a bit better.

This week some of the superstructure parts that have been getting assembled we’re finally glued to the boat, but I’ve run out of grey paint now so bits will have to stay under coated until Wednesday when the new paint arrives.

With more superstructure fastened to the decks I took the model back to the boating lake for another checkout. The hull was listing to starboard and stern heavy, but about 4 oz of lead in the bow and another 4oz on the port side, she should sit perfect on the water.

The longer servo arms arrived but were too flexible so the current rudder throw will have to do. This didn’t seem to bad after all, and the arrival of the new receiver meant that the twin esc started working fine. I can now spin 2 props forward whilst the props on the other side of the model spin backwards. This really improves manoeuvring so I’m happy with all that now.

I received more grey paint, so many parts that had been assembled could now be painted, and some elastic rigging cord arrived, so assembly has really started these last few days. I have to say that it is starting to look really good and maybe another weeks work will see it completed. That will please the wife as she wants to start the Deans marine HMS Bulldog but the Hood is taking up all the working area.

I’ve attached a short video on how it is looking, and hopefully will get a video of it completed and sailing very soon.

I don't know why i thought getting up so close was a good idea, as all I see are errors!

Anyhow, here are some images, one of which is against a 2p coin for scale