Hi all,
I'm new to this forum, I've not built a boat for at least 10yrs I recently have been bitten by the bug again and google brought up this forum. So after a couple of days reading (so much info here) I've joined.
Current project is a Graupner Anja that I must have bought a few years ago and only recently discovered while tidying the attic, the kit has hardly been started so its a nice little project to get back into it.
So onto a few questions:
I recently came across some wooden coffee stirrers in my local cafe, at 6mm wide and about 1mm thick would they be suitable to use as deck planking on the Anja? Its 1:60 in scale so that would give a plank 36cm (14 inch) wide, is that too wide for a fishing cutter? If so what width/length would the planks need to be? To look more realistic.
Secondly my eldest son joined the Navy last year, and he's just found out his first posting will be aboard HMS Illustrious, now I've looked around and its either a choice of 1:96 scale (too big) or the Airfix kit (too small) but I did find Jecobin have a set of plans at 1:192 giving a model of around 1m, which is a perfect length for me, but despite searching I can't find any information on the plan or any build stories, can anyone help with that, no rush it's going to be a long term project with the intention of handing it over to my son when he retires from the Navy as a memento of his first ship.
There is a lot of talk about 2.4Ghz radios, I have no idea what they are, my catching up hasn't got that far yet. My current radio is a Futaba Challenger FP-T6NL 6 channel 40Mhz. Is this still a viable radio? Are modern servos and speed controllers compitable with it, or should I upgrade to 2.4Ghz?
Now i'll share some information that even if it helps one person on here it will be worth it. We all have a bits box where things are kept for 'just in case' or 'one day' I also have a box like that.
In the last 5 years my time has been spent making fishing floats and as such I have lots of spare bits that I'm sure will be handy for future boat models, i'm sure a lot of people on here wont know about these items.
These days a lot of float tips are hollow plastic, they come in sizes 1, 1.2, 1.5, 1.7, 2, 2.5 and 3mm and the centre hole is from 0.6mm to 2.3mm, ok they are painted fluoro red but that comes off easy enough, perhaps ideal for small guns, trying to drill a 0.6mm hole into a solid cast 1mm dia gun barrel is quite difficult even with the right equipment.
Spring eyes are a tightly wound wire that has a little loop coming off it, I've already decided i'll be using a few of these for fastening the rigging to various parts on the Anja.
Float stems are carbon, fibreglass, cane or stainless wire, these are available in lengths of 600mm and diameters from 0.6 to 1.5 (or 2mm for cane), ideal for aerials and probably many other uses, the wire is perfectly straight and the fibreglass will bend a lot without snapping, i'm sure many here will find a good use for them.
A search on ebay under Pole float making will bring up a few options, or google Finesse floats, I have no connection to anyone selling these items just a happy customer of Finesse and happy to vouch for their great service.
Thanks for reading all this, i look forward to asking more questions and joining in with the many great posts on here.
Scott.