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Author Topic: Dutch Courage Build Diary  (Read 6451 times)

NigelW

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Dutch Courage Build Diary
« on: January 25, 2012, 05:00:00 pm »

Hi All,
Thought I’d share some pics etc of my current project with you. As a forty something boat nut, I’m getting older and slower, and thought it made sense to take a break from IC and try something a bit more sedate.
It’s a Model Slipway Dutch Courage which I’d seen some years back at Beale Park. Basically the Dutch Courage is a 1/32 model of a one of a series of modern tugs (plenty of info on Mayhem and MTF exists already about the origin of this model and some lovely builds out there too!). It’s a great kit, nicely turned out parts and very clearly worded, well illustrated instructions – a real credit to Laurie and Jackie at MS.
At 1/32 scale its small enough to get in the car but big enough to incorporate some nice working features.
The rear deck is quite generous in size and the fact that the kit includes a detailed static model of a deck crane got me thinking it would be a nice challenge to make the crane work, and even more exciting to add an RC rigid inflatable at a suitable scale that can be dropped in and out of the water.
Other working features on the nice to have list are:
•   Bow thrusters plus independent motor control
•   Working Anchor Winch
•   Lights (nav and deck lights in separate circuits)
•   Radars
•   Fire monitors (if space permits)
•   Some sort of sound generator
The kit arrived in Oct 2010 and sat on the shelf for a good while due to other priorities (I suspect one or two of you might identify with this!). During this time I thought about how to design a simple but reliable anchor winch and one which is easy to fix when it inevitably goes wrong (my local pond is salt water)! I also took advice on choice of motors, batteries and ESCs from people like Stavros and others, and bought these from Mark at Model World who I’ve found to be both knowledgeable and helpful.
I had a pair of handed 50mm Kort props made by George Sitek which are nicely fabricated and appear to be very good value.
The motors are direct drive Graupner Torque 720s which I intend to run at 12V via a pair of Electronize ESCs, and the bow thrusters is a Graupner unit running off an Mtroniks 15A ESC with BEC and using a separate 7.2V NiMh stick pack which will also provide power for lights and other auxiliary functions.
Anyway, enough rambling for now... below are a few photos of the early stages of the build.
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catengineman

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2012, 05:16:46 pm »

Nice start there NigelW

I do notice that your motors have no suppression fitted, I'm not telling you how to suck eggs though you may want to rethink before you get too far down the build and the fitting becomes a little harder.

(experience)
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Martin (Admin)

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2012, 05:40:59 pm »

Looking good.   :-))
Is that a bit of super absorbent cloth under the anchor chain?

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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #3 on: January 25, 2012, 10:05:32 pm »

Thanks for the cooments/advice both and yes it is a bit of super absorbent cloth under the anchor chain Martin - you must have eyes like an out house rat! Don't tell me it's an old idea!

Thanks for the tip on suppressors Catengineman. Seems obvious now but I wouldn't have thought of fitting suppressors on the little auxilliary motors as well as the main ones. An suggestions as to what value capacitors to use for these?

The yellow gizmo in the pictures above by the way is one of those laser level things borrowed from my bro' which made the task of getting the deck supports level much easier.

Couple more pics below showing the removable battery tray made from aluminium angle, and the front deck with small hole allowing screwdriver access to remove the anchor winch assembly.
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2012, 03:19:05 pm »

Having slightly trimmed the decks to fit I decided it was a good time to switch attention to the ‘daughter boat’ in the form of a 1/32 scale 8 meter RIB.

It needed to be around 200mm in length and 65m beam, and since there’s nothing on the market a scratch build was the only way forward. The tubes had to be around 15-18mm in dia to allow a scale appearance, bigger than the largest off the shelf styrene tube I could find, and the closest I could get was domestic 22m PVC pipe which was too big.

So I set about slitting the PVC pipe down its length, removing a section, then pulling it tight around a 15mm former before taping in place, heating it up to take its new shape, then gluing with cyano.

Despite the time involved it worked well, and all that remained was to cut it into sections and bond into the shape of a RIB.

Having done the difficult bit, it was then a case of gluing the stern on (0.8mm styrene) and fitting the lower hull, again in styrene sheet. Before finally turning up the tube-ends from some balsa block.  Some pics below:
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Tug-Kenny RIP

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2012, 06:42:59 pm »


Very Tidy piece of engineering.  Looks just the job.   :-))


ken

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pompebled

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2012, 09:46:37 pm »

Hi Nigel,

Nice build!
Usually these three are fitted:


If you have one, I'd mount a pully instead of running the O-ring directly on the motorshaft, this may work in dry conditions, but if the shaft gets dirty, or wet, the O-ring will slip.
Also the grease from the motorbearing could cause you grief if the motor got a bit warm after hauling up the anchor.

I'd at least make a barrier in the form of a tight fitting washer glued in place to keep the grease away.

Regards, Jan
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #7 on: January 26, 2012, 10:44:57 pm »

Hi Jan, good advice re-pulley and thanks for the suppressor diag :-)

Nigel
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #8 on: January 27, 2012, 12:45:30 pm »

Here's a few earlier pics of the bow thruster area after filling, and also of the running gear going in at the stern, using the jigging method recommended by Model Slipway which guarantees damn near perfect alignment.
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2012, 12:56:02 pm »

And a couple of photos showing the installation of the speaker for the sound system which will go in at a later date. This was fiddly as there's not much space to accommodate the speaker and resonator (in this case a trusty Pringles tube).

Not sure how she'll sit in the water (or whether she'll even float!) with all the extra weight but time will tell. May end up having to run with just one battery. Any one got experience of running Dutch courage with 2 x 7AH batteries?

Incidentally there's a new sound module just been released by Technobots (too late for me as I've bought a different one now) but I suspect it'll be a good one since it's designed by Alan Bond who designed their previous unit which I have in a 4x4 crawler. Here's a link if anyone's interested:
http://www.technobotsonline.com/programmable-engine-sound-system.html
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #10 on: January 27, 2012, 01:02:47 pm »

Forgot to say, the sound unit I went for in the end was a Hunter Systems unit, and whilst not as flexible as some of the other very good units out there (Action's Noisy Thing for example) and lacks features like start up sound etc, it does have a built in amplifier and just made sense financially at the time.
http://shop.huntersystems.co.uk/multi-cylinder-diesel-interactivesound-simulator-type-1tm-379-p.asp
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catengineman

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #11 on: January 27, 2012, 04:22:52 pm »

Did not use two sla batteries but one large one I still had to put some lead in the stern to get the vessel down in the water enough to have a good grip from the props.
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #12 on: February 13, 2012, 09:51:41 am »

Hi All,

It's been a while since the last update and I've pretty much completed the 1/32 RC RIB which will sit on the rear deck. Few photos showing various stages below.

Being a RIB, there's not much room to hide the RC gear even with a micro servo so this ended up getting hidden inside the dummy outboard engine cowling.

Knowing that at some stage it's going to get a good dunking, I'd made the cowlng so it could be split and the servo replaced.
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #13 on: February 13, 2012, 12:36:10 pm »

A few more pics of the RIB construction showing the scalextric motor going in. Initial layout has Lipo battery laying flat. The eagle eyed amongst you will spot a rising pool of water during the buoyancy check in the sink. It seeped in through the open end of the propshaft :embarrassed: - might have some problems here even after it's filled with shaft and grease!!!

Weight as I suspected is very borderline despite careful selection of components.
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #14 on: February 13, 2012, 12:36:10 pm »

A few more pics of the RIB construction showing the scalextric motor going in. Initial layout has Lipo battery laying flat. The eagle eyed amongst you will spot a rising pool of water during the buoyancy check in the sink. It seeped in through the open end of the propshaft :embarrassed: - might have some problems here even after it's filled with shaft and grease!!!

Weight as I suspected is very borderline despite careful selection of components.
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #15 on: February 13, 2012, 12:47:45 pm »

The layout was changed to make the seat much narrower, by having the Lipo on its side. I'd somehow overlooked the fact that a 1/32 figure of John Wayne may have looked slightly out of place amongst the rest of the crew ok2

Outboard was attached and steers through a static 0.8mm linkage connected to the transom.

It's tightly packed but luckily everything fits, including a Spektrum Orange receiver. (for those of you running the DX6i by the way, these are available for under £7ea from Linglipo-2008 on EBay) see link: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/250958517299?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_1200wt_905

The seat and console snap into place at the front, and are fixed at the rear by an M2.5 captive screw.

All that's need now is the gantry/roll bar containing the lifting hook by which it will hopefully be hoisted in and out of the drink. I'll come back to that a little later in the build, once the crane has been assembled.
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #16 on: February 13, 2012, 12:50:44 pm »

It looks a little out of scale on the deck but I think it's ok, and the size of the seat/console were really dictated by the running gear/radio etc
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #17 on: February 13, 2012, 12:55:22 pm »

No for the electrickery bits. Not my strongest area so any suggestions welcome :-)

the challenge is that the only safe place to put this lot is under the fwd hatch, and this area needs to be clear for removal of the battery's! so I'm thinking it'll probably all have to sit on a board which can hinge forward allowing the batteries to be taken in/out.

There'll be a few switches/fuses relays I also need to find a home for too. Bit of head scratching needed.

It's funny really because when I first saw the hull, I was amazed how spacious it seemed!!

That's it for now folks...
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #18 on: February 13, 2012, 01:04:51 pm »

One last thing - big thanks to Mark at A Model World for supplying motors, ESCs, batteries, & Robbe Multiprop modules, and also for his help in selecting the various bits of kit. Always helpful on the phone and never in my experience beaten on price. Cheers Mark and don't forget you owe me a pint if I can get the crane to recover the RIB :-))

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tt1

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #19 on: February 13, 2012, 01:25:44 pm »

 Some nice engineering Nigel, hope the rib works ok for you, I do like it. I have a Hunter sound unit in my loyal class but needs amplyfying I'm afraid, ok on tne bench though  {-) {-)

           Keep posting, rgards, Tony. :-))
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sailorboy61

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #20 on: February 13, 2012, 01:49:54 pm »

It's tightly packed but luckily everything fits, including a Spektrum Orange receiver. (for those of you running the DX6i by the way, these are available for under £7ea from Linglipo-2008 on EBay) see link: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/250958517299?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_1200wt_905
I know DSM2 Rx are suppose to work with any DSM2 tx, but this guy is making a pretty big thing about specific models and Air only - have you tried them out? I have a dx5ethat I have used with other orange rx, just wondering why he would be going to such trouble in his aution staement.

Otherwise seems a pretty good price!
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #21 on: February 13, 2012, 01:54:33 pm »

Thanks for the kind words Tony.

There's some true craftsmen on this forum who's work I couldn't even aspire to, but I have to admit, I do find the engineering bits very satisfying - on those rare occasions when they go right!

The Hunter sound generator was demo'd to me in a very noisy Weymouth Pavillion during last summer's model boat festival, and was so noisy in fact that all conversation was immediately replaced with stunned silence - I think it must be their version of Action's Noisy Thing!

Nigel
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NigelW

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #22 on: February 13, 2012, 02:01:23 pm »

Hi Sailorboy61,

Yes you're right, about the auction listing. Best thing is to drop him a line and check.

I'm not sure about DX5 but they definitely work with the DX6i - Having tried one to make sure I've just bought another 4!

Good luck,

Nigel
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Netleyned

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Re: Dutch Courage Build Diary
« Reply #23 on: February 13, 2012, 05:30:34 pm »

I've four of the orange Rx's and they work fine with my
 DX6i DSMX

Ned
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