Forum

Workshop

I have finally finished the new Shipyard. I had help to do the final build as it came as planks of wood. I painted the floor today which only leaves the outside walls to cover with a second coat. I will try to get a workbench installed before I have to go back home and work. This will be my retirement office when her in doors who must be obeyed says I can have the day off. I am lucky as my testing `lake` is at the bottom of the garden. The Danube.😀 I will buy a few small over the next year or so and then, hopefully, have a bit of uninterrupted building time. I have seen the lovely pictures of Colin`s new workshop but I would love to see where others do their work as well and the equipment used.

5 years ago by MouldBuilder

Blog

Revell Gato Class Submarine Conversion.

I am about to start the most ambitious project to date. This one will be running alongside the three others currently on the go, The Police Boat which is nearly completed, The Dusseldorf Fire Boat which is well underway and the PTB upgrade. My intention is to change this Revell model into a static dive radio controlled Submarine. I am lucky that Martin555 has agreed to help whenever I get stuck which will be invaluable since he has already almost completed the same. I started by purchasing the model from Amazon for less than £50. I have also purchased the water tight tube for the electronics. I will make the end caps and sealed internal plugs from some 80mm diameter nylon I had at work. It will now come in handy that I am a toolmaker and have a considerable array of at my disposal. I will turn the plugs next week and find suitable o rings. I have started to prepare the hull. There is an enormous amount of work required to adjust the standard kit. A lot of cutting and drilling. I have prepared the split lines and glued in the alignment pegs. I have ordered suitable shafts and propellers from the USA. They should be here in a couple of weeks. Next job is to stick the two halves together and start the cutting.

5 years ago by MouldBuilder

Response

Re: Exhaust Smoker

Re- following several weeks experimenting, I was going to ask what pump you had Graham but you have answered it here. Seems to work quite well, not sure how mine will go (if they ever arrive) but there are a number of air pumps on line to try. Need something with a bit of grunt to it. I think this little project has been a great example of Kiwi/Anglo cooperation as we have both swapped ideas back and forth to get this result. Graham has refined the electronics and done a great job and I'm pleased that he has taken an interest in my original simple idea, and with his electronics knowledge made it pretty flash. With the greater model boat interest in the UK, I'm sure it will be seen on more models yet and is a device which can be easily adapted to any model - tugs, PT boats, barges etc, - with or without water. The best thing is it can be made very cheaply as against the price of current marine smoke . JB

5 years ago by jbkiwi

Forum

Re-purposing an old Hull.

Thank you guys and gals for all your praise. I'm only doing it because I want to share what bit of modelling knowledge I have amassed over my 65 years of modelling, I started with my grandad when I was 5 years old. It seems that the first model that you make should be out of your own head, that way you can change things as you go. That way you enjoy what you make, and are more likely to carry on making. It's fortunate that my grandson is at a forward thinking school who already have a lego club, also a meccanno club. Both of them are well attended and enjoyed. Much better than those stupid electronic games . Tomorrow I will find out how well they are getting on with their designs. Cheers Colin.

5 years ago by Colin H

Forum

Are there fairies.

Hi DG. It looks a similar size, but definitely not the one I have. Plus that one has diametrically opposite brushes, whereas mine has three equally spaced brush positions. And I haven't seen the adjustable field windings on any sewing vintage or new. Cheers Colin.

5 years ago by Colin H

Forum

Are there fairies.

Definitely not sewing machine, my other hobby is restoring vintage sewing . Local retired electrical engineer thinks it may have been a generator /dynamo. Cheers Colin.

5 years ago by Colin H

Response

Re: Lighting and other tweaks ;-)

Hi Steve, Actually Martin told me what the lamp is signalling😉 I know Morse but can't read it very well🤔 In the COMMS systems I designed for naval vessels we had to do that for us😁 BTW: all Likes added to my post above should actually be credited to Martin - it's his work not mine! Me? I'm just Adm. SO CCaBW (Senior Officer Chief Cook & Bottle Washer) 😎

5 years ago by RNinMunich

Forum

Workshop

Just checked Hobby city, (main hobby shop in Auckland) AAAAARGH, some prices- mill drill $450, 24108 miller $2103, 24350 miller, $5398, 27110 micro miller $720, CNC ready miller $7802 ! and these are bare which need the 'accessories to be able to do anything with them. A bit beyond my meager finances methinks, could almost buy a Triumph 2000 lathe for that much second hand . (had a quick look and found a Bridgeport power feed mill for $7200. Try- Hobby city.NZ -should get you there. Bet they don't have them in stock and you have to wait 3 months (if you are lucky) Pics of Hobby city owners plane before and after. Decided he'd had enough and turned it into a submarine at high speed. SA guy, previously represented NZ in world precision flying comps (second) shame, very clever guy and nice with it. You never know!

5 years ago by jbkiwi

Forum

Workshop

Perfect hobby , I'm in the wrong country!. We used to have a lot of small new lathes for sale here in machinery outfits for around $1200 NZ but I haven't seen any for a while. I could do with a small lathe especially for boat stuff. We had a Triumph 2000 (lathe not car) and a Bridgeport mill and all the gear when I was in the site services dept in the big woodworking co I worked for. I made good use of those, plus in my workshop I had 2 German RS2000 tool grinding which were great for touching up all your router bits and saw/ planer blades etc and a Chinese mill which I reco'd when the other guys didn't want to use it. Made my sons cars' frame and running gear (all 10 speed bike gears modified etc', -everything adjustable for growth) while I was there . Sure great if you have the gear!

5 years ago by jbkiwi

Forum

Workshop

I was lucky that when my work was up grading if I could carry the old one I would have it and stashed it away for later use ,I got a pillar drill from the jewellery department because it wasn't drilling at 90° got it home and all that was wrong was the table hadn't been squared properly,still keep in contact with my old squad so if anything comes up they let me know they also keep loads of handy off cuts .will post some photos of the workshop interior when I get the gear moved in 👍keeping my fingers crossed a 3D printer might need upgraded😂😂😂or perchance a laser 🤞

5 years ago by marky

Forum

Workshop

I am doing exactly the same as you Doug. I am buying all of the items, including kits and , over the next two or three years ready for my retirement move to Hungary. I wish I could bring my factory with me. I have a 1 metre CNC machining centre along with a 16 electrode changer CNC spark eroder, Bridgeport mills, J&S grinders and others. I think my shed is a little small and possibly not enough power as the maximum single phase power supply here is only 32A. Small bench it is then.😊

5 years ago by MouldBuilder

Forum

Workshop

Looks good Doug. The are exactly what I had in mind. We need the Martin. You do not.

5 years ago by MouldBuilder

Forum

EeZeBilts From Keil Kraft

"...I'd rather cough up a bit more and know that I could do something with it!.." Quite right! When buying, people need to understand the important features of a product, and with new technology it is easy for the advertisers to conceal these. For a CNC cutter, stiffness is very important, particularly if you are going to cut metal. The machine must not deform appreciably when it puts a strong force on the workpiece. It also needs adequately powerful stepper motors to put that force on. and, of course, it needs to move the cutting head to all parts of the workpiece. I was interested to see that the spec states 'max travel distance' - I would have expected it to say 'max cutting dimensions', and wonder if these are less than the figures quoted. At least we can specify a cutting area ambiguously, so that modellers can understand what they are getting. I would guess that 1ftx1ft cutting area would be fine for most aeromodellers, while 1ftx1yd is more what boat modellers want. But it is easy for an individual to chose. Motor power requirement is harder to define - it depends so much on the leverage designed into the mechanics. Screws have more advantage than belts, for instance. And if you are only count to cut softwoods you can get away with much less power than cutting steel! Usually I would like to see the steppers having between 5000 and 10,000 gf·cm of torque - though that is a 'piece of string'. Rigidity is even harder to estimate. You can get some feel when the seller says that this machine will not cut metals, or 'is an engraving machine'. The other indicator is weight - rigid are going to be much more massive. If the frame is light it will bend under stress. Though if you are using a laser...

5 years ago by DodgyGeezer

Forum

EeZeBilts From Keil Kraft

Yep, that's what I thought. OK for formers or bulkheads on airyplanes, but useless for a boat without a considerable extension. Anyway we should be encouraging people to make stuff conventionally and just use to save time perhaps when they get to be our age! But come the glorious powercuts, brothers and sisters, they'll all be f***ed and we'll all be knifing away happy as Larry. Martin

5 years ago by Westquay

Forum

EeZeBilts From Keil Kraft

"....I am looking forward to the next stage....." There will now be a short intermission while I sort out other things, and I suspect that a build will start sometime in September. Or later! In the meantime, this thread has introduced a number of issues apart from describing the egg-box structure that Ernie Webster used in the KK EeZeBilt series. It suggests that if CAD packages are used for model boat design then the plans created can readily be shared with other modellers over the Web, and shows that personal CNC costing a few hundred pounds are a useful supporting workshop tool for this process. Any comments on the above points would be read with interest!

5 years ago by DodgyGeezer

Forum

Water Jets

"...DG if you have a 3d printer you must have the design software for it too - otherwise its useless ..." I said I 'can get one printed'. Dodgy Geezers can call in favours from all sorts of places! And not only plastic deposition either - stereo lithography or selective laser sintering (if you want to 3-D print in tungsten) would be available through university contacts. As would design modification...Though, given how long it took me to get a pair of rather specialist gears lapped the last time I wanted a set, I would match RN's comment in saying that I wouldn't hold my breath!

5 years ago by DodgyGeezer

Response

Re: 40'' Seaplane Tender, new build P

Not sure if I can put much more up front Rob, it balances just in front of the motors now so will probably need a bit of rear ballast. I'll see how it floats before getting too carried away, although still working on the smoke out the exhaust idea (have 3 smoke to experiment with.)

5 years ago by jbkiwi

Forum

Magnetic motors

Much like what they have done with washing . I'm amazed at how quiet a direct-drive machine is on full spin....

5 years ago by DodgyGeezer

Forum

Boat retrieval

There are a number of commercial 'missing signal' units available. Fly boys use them to set controls to default safety, or sound a beeper for finding a lost aircraft. I believe that there are some specific ones for subs. Washing and boilers both have pressure detection units inside. This is what a typical one looks like. They are mechanical microswitches operated by a diaphragm. The blue screw sets the pressure at which it operates. They could form the basis for an independent safety system - emergency blow with a Sparklets cylinder, for instance, or releasing a 'sub down' tethered buoy.....

5 years ago by DodgyGeezer

Forum

CNC boat kits...?

"...To prevent parts falling out, There is a low tack film sheet that airbrush painters users that you could stick to the under side of the wood...." There may well be. But it turns out to be easy to just specify a cutting depth which has exactly the same effect. I was surprised at how precise these can be. And I'm running off such archaic software that I would have to do tabs all manually - a lot of work....

5 years ago by DodgyGeezer

Forum

CNC boat kits...?

A strong magnet would work - but in fact I have found that: - cutting 1/16" and 1/8" balsa sheet - using a 0.5mm cutting tool and a 12v boat motor the sideways cutting forces are sufficiently small for a simple raised lip around the cutting table to hold the sheet in place. One difficulty with passing round files of 'cutting instructions' to people so that they can create their own kits is that the cutting are all different. They will all accept 'G-Code' of some kind, but that code effectively says things like 'Go to position 25"x2" and cut a circle radius 2 inches'. Now, if you have a machine that only has a 10" cutting bed, you can't do that. You have to reposition the part so that it fits onto your cutter. So I've passed a DXF file to Nick - this is a CNC file with the shapes drawn on it. He will have to take each shape and position it on his machine where he want to cut. I have designed my machine to be able to take a standard sheet of 4"x36" balsa, because I expect to do most of my cutting that way. If other people have cutting beds which can do this, i can pass them cutting files directly. Another difficulty with cutting everything out of a single sheet is that one part may fall out of the sheet while cutting is going on in another part of the sheet. The best way I have found to avoid this is to not cut completely through the balsa sheet - leave a small gap of about 5 thou. Then you can easily push the shapes out later...

5 years ago by DodgyGeezer

Forum

3D Printing.

Go for it! If you get one in kit form it will keep the costs down, with the added advantage of learning how the machine works as you build it. Prusa probably do the best kits on the market, pricey but decent European quality. Tronxy or Creality are good Chinese starting at around 150 for something decent enough to get you going. Chinese quality has come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years and they have listened to the community and made improvements accordingly. And then comes the endless hours of fun 'upgrading'. There are plenty of on line forums and social media groups for advice and assistance, so for the price of a boat kit you can add a whole new dimension to your modelling skills. Not just modelling either, there is a thousand and one things you can do. For example, I replaced a £15 button on the washing machine in half an hour with 20 pence worth of plastic.

5 years ago by Nickthesteam

Forum

CNC boat kits...?

".......I am on a bitof a learning curve at the moment........" A few lessons I learned: 1 - Get a good, solid base-board which isn't warped. The local timber yard may have off-cuts of 3/4" ply. You will want to assemble the mechanics on a proper base, and it helps to have it available first. You will want to paint it anyway, so it will need time to dry. 2 - Get a dial indicator. An easy way to check for precision in assembly is to attach a dial indicator to the end of the Z axis and run it over the base board. It's good for other fault-finding and calibration as well. There are cheap ones on Ebay. 3 - Plan out all the wiring. I put my limit switches in as an afterthought, and found that I had wires which couldn't go in the places I wanted them to go. 4 - Wiring loom control. Consider Drag Chains, Heat-shrink tubing and Braiding. All items are very cheap from Ebay. If you don't put the wiring in at assembly you won't be able to put it in later once everything is connected up... 5 - If you use a drag chain for the USB connection, you will either have to make sure that it's wide enough to take a USB plug passing through it, or cut the plug off, pass it through and re-solder it afterwards. If you do the latter, note that the shielding in a USB cable is aluminium, and won't solder. So you will need to use a connector plug which has a physical connection to the shielding, because interference can ba a problem on these ....

5 years ago by DodgyGeezer

Forum

CNC boat kits...?

While it helps to be accurate, the final trimming of the work holder is done by the machine itself. Here I am cutting the edges of the holder so that a sheet of 4" balsa will be neatly held. That's about 1.6mm wider than a 100mm sheet, so I will need a packing strip if I use the metric sizes. It's surprising how precise these are - I'm moving the cutter in by 0.1mm each pass, but it can move in much smaller steps - one microstep is 6.25 microns, which is about 2.5 ten thousandths of an inch. The balsa will be held between some raised sides made of hard balsa, so that they can be cut easily by the machine if I get a command wrong and move the cutter out of the work area. I expect to put a 2mm felt layer below so that the cutter will have something soft if it goes completely through the workpiece.

5 years ago by DodgyGeezer