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[AlisterL]

In the interests of my sanity, I decided that I needed something else to work on while procrastinating about the hard bits on my ULCC build.

I had been eyeing up the Hibbard ever since I purchased the magazine it was in back in October 2002 - actually, due to my location, I probably got it in November of December 2002...
Anyway, for those of you not familiar with the Hibbard, she is a modern semi-scale (stand-off scale) guided missile destroyer based loosely on the Arleigh-Burke class ships of the US Navy at 1:144 or so. That's what I recall from the article Mr Guest wrote to accompany the plan - my apologies to him if I have anything wrong.

Googling the Hibbard finds the plan but not any actual builds - well, that my Googling could find anyway... I looked at several plans from MB and MMI and eventually chose the Hibbard over the Nouveau (a modern commuter launch) in the April 2002 MMI as I wasn't sure I could find the rights types of wood here in dear old NZ...

Anyway, I studied the Hibbard, Googled for images of guided missile destroyers and considered altering the superstructure of the Hibbard, but have - I think - decided not to do that as I would run the risk of ruining the balance the Mr Guest achieves in his models. By which I mean the look the model, not inducing a list or something...

The next requirement was balsa - what a mission! Hard to find model shops in Auckland that supply a range of sizes and the price! 100 x 6 x 915 (or 4 x 1/4 x 36 depending on where you grew up) could be up to $11 per sheet! That's highway robbery in anyone's language! Eventually I found an online only supplier in NZ (based in Whangarei for any curious Kiwi's out there - Atomic Hobby Supplies) who had imported balsa supplies (imported cut to size rather than cut in NZ) and got  5 sheets at 100 x 6 and 5 at 100 x 5 delivered for $60. From a local hobby shop, 5 sheets was going to cost a minimum of $45 plus delivery. And lets not mention grades of balsa - there's only one grade here and it's what's in stock - none of this soft, medium or hard malarky! I think the stuff I have is somewhere between soft and medium - it's definitely not hard...

Anyway a prop shaft, prop and various other bits were required. I toyed for several days with ordering all the bits from Cornwall Model Boats - it looked like I could get all that I needed delivered for less than $100NZ. Eventually I decided to support my LHS (or nearly the LHS) and bought some bits from them. A 300mm proptube and shaft assembly, a prop and one half of a universal coupling for about $45NZ. Hmm - cheaper from the UK I think as the CMB order would have included 2 props, 2 shafts, 2 complete universal coupling and a Graupner 600 series 7.2v Eco motor (as specified by the estimable Mr Guest)...

Am I being a bit wordy? Probably so - so here's a pic or two:



Hull pieces cut as per the plan (more or less anyway). And all while epoxy was setting on the ULCC (yeah right...)

Some pieces getting stuck together:



Some more pieces stuck on:



At this point it seemed to me that the hull bottom had a bit of a twist to it. "xxxxx" said I. After a few days of applying weights to no effect, I settled for a bit of steam from a boiling jug, some more weights and going away for a family birthday for three days. Oh - and ensuring that I had as flat a work bench as I could - by getting piece of 18mm MDF to use. The result is a hull so close to flat that it's close enough to work with. Probably the cheap balsa - haha!
So I stuck the deck on:



Anyway, that's almost where I'm up to, I'll get up to date in another post some other time.

(ROFLMAO - I've been automatically edited! I couldn't figure out how those X's got in place during the preview. I promise to try not to use NZ English again - but if you see X's you will know I failed  )

[meyer]

Great stuff looking forward to this build indeed   

[Capt Podge]

Looking good so far Alister 

I've got that same plan squirreled away in my archive for a (very distant) future build.

Looking forward to your future postings on this one

Enjoy the build.

Regards,

Ray.

[AlisterL]

Thanks for your comments!

I tried test fitting the aft hull section and transom and had a mild panic until I looked at the plan and realised that transom sits at an angle! And things suddenly made more sense...
I sanded the angles on transom, gave things a good test fitting, adjusted things a bit, stuck some pins in it and looked at it some more. Given that it all looked reasonable, I glued the transom and remaining hull piece on.
And left it for a few days.
Then I attacked it with the sandpaper.

The end result is shown here:



And this is the current state of the hull.

The eagle eyed will have spotted in my first post that the length of the prop tube and shaft was 300mm - which is a tad bit too long. I measured from the plan the length of the tube and that came out around 145mm. Of course I needed to salvage the bearing so the first thing I did was cut off the end 20mm or so could do that. The bearing took quite a bit of work to extract - more than I had expected actually. I had previously successfully and quite easily removed the bearing from a tube from the same manufacturer (S.A.B - a NZ company) so I knew if could be done. I think the difficulty rose from not having enough tube to put in my vice without squeezing on the bearing as well. Anyway, I got it out eventually - after having chased it over the garage floor a time or two :)

I then cut the remaining tube down to about 145mm taking particular care after the cut to file the end of the tube off square:



and with the bearing back in place the whole thing is just over 145mm:



And that is where we are up to. I have marked out where one edge of the tube should be on the hull, but I have not cut or drilled anything at this point.
I still need to decide how to power this model - whether I go and get a Speed 600 motor, use one of my many can motors salvaged from various things or even go with a brushless option. I need to ponder all this and weigh up options and costs. Ideally I'd have all this sorted out before locating the tube and shaft.

Watch this space I guess :)

[AlisterL]

Re-reading the construction article reminds me that the motor used was a Speed 600 8.4, not a 7.2, and that with 4 D cells run time at full gallop was 1/2 an hour.
As most rechargeable D cells are (now) 9Ah - that means the motor might have been drawing up to 18 amps - surely not! I would have guessed at a max of 5 amps? Comments appreciated.

[AlisterL]

I solved the motor problem - waaay too many brushless options to select the right one and I don't have the budget to experiment. So that leaves leftover can motors or something bought for purpose.

A trial of can motors was very interesting: A large (maybe 700 size) 18v motor from a cordless Black & Decker weedeater turned over oh-so-nicely on a single AA NIMH - but squealed badly on 7.2v and given that tapping the motor would stop and start the squeal it obviously had a problem in it somewhere. The other two motors wouldn't run on a single cell, but needed two and were obviously  fast and pulled about .8 amps.
What other options then? Well the motor for the ULCC is a very nice one... .4 amps at 6v, quiet and smooth, nominally 12v, but runs on a single cell and its easier for me run a 12v motor at 6,7 or 12 volts than it is to run a 8.4 at 4.8... So I got two of these (http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?ID=YM2770&CATID=9&form=CAT&SUBCATID=306) - one to replace the geared down can motor in the Zwarte Zee and one for the Hibbard.

Anyway... Testing the new motor in the Zwarte Zee required some mucking about and a little bit of metal work. Plug it all and and test - hmm, no speed control - always on full , direction changes, but no central off position and no variation in speed. Neutral doesn't adjust, full speed adjust doesn't - weirdness! Check, re-check, test - problem keeps occurring. Change ESC (from Electronize 43HX) to Rokraft - problem fixed. Adjust neutral - even better. What is current draw? Good question - insert digital multimeter into circuit. No dice - can see Rokraft indicating throttle reverse, but no motor movement. Check, adjust, miss obvious, keep missing obvious, remove ammeter, test (ok), re-insert ammeter, miss obvious, test (fail), remove, repeat, wash, rinse, frustration abounding... click (what's that?) click (huh?) smoke... Something shorted somewhere - I think inside the Rokraft (I bought cheap and I thought unused) - and it is now knackered. And so, it seems is the Electronize...

And the obvious thing I missed? The lead on the multimeter still plugged into the V/Ohms socket and not the Amps... duh...

[AlisterL]

So only small amounts of progress have been made - it's been very hot here and that has not been conducive to getting much done of an evening.
However I have managed to build the motor mount as seen below:



The side view is definitely it's best!



The front view is not the good at all. In short, this was piece of metal flat along it's length but with a 90 degree flange along the long edge. I straightened it out with pliers, slowly working my way along the length, bending the flange out as flat as I could, then attacked it with a hammer to render it reasonably smooth. Holes were then measured and drilled, and then the new 90 degree bend put in it. I very nearly stuffed that up and had to take some remedial work to get it nice - with a hammer of course. The yucky front view is due to me trying be smart and putting breathing holes in it to match those in the front of the motor - they are ever so slightly in the wrong place... However it needs to be functional not beautiful (or that's what I'm saying anyway). The finish of the mount is not helped by the way the filing I have done has removed some black paint finish on the metal. Maybe I should repaint it :)

I have also shortened the prop shaft and added a flat on it for the one half of the universal coupling to sit into nicely:



One of these days I'll get brave and put the shaft into the hull...

[AlisterL]

It is my suggestion that drilling holes and putting the prop tube in a hull is the most stressful part of a build...

My little helper:



First I drilled a couple of small diameter holes, then some larger:



and then still larger holes:



by which time there was no going back.
Balsa, being soft, made it easy to use a small chisel to shape and widen the holes - the end result:



and:



Glue time! Before I glue I use some 80 grit sandpaper on the brass tube:



The glue baked off very quickly in the warm afternoon, the result was not a tidy as one would hope:



And that's where we are today.

[AlisterL]

Late last night, on the way to bed (does this happen to anyone else?) i stopped off to do some more work - entirely unintentionally - and ended up figuring out what height the motor support block needed to be:



That would be, roughly, 3/32" at the low end and 19/64" at the high :)

[AlisterL]

Greetings to all.

I finished the motor mount off during the week, glued it in place and screwed the motor in as a final check - all good. Motor is now removed for ease of construction:



In hindsight, I think I have made the prop tube/shaft a bit too short - I needed to make the holes for it in the hull and bulkhead before cutting the shaft and tube down to a size based on motor location rather than moving the motor to the prop shaft - that would probably have made sizing the mount a bit easier as there would have been a meatier piece of balsa to contend with. However it is done and it works.

I then set about the rudder bits and bobs. I scrounged up some 3/16 tube and, while trying to find some 5/32 rod, realised that the aluminium off-cut from the prop was indeed 5/32 - problem solved.
Some measuring and cutting later resulted in the rudder tube and a shaft. The shaft require a slot cut in it to accommodate the blade of the rudder and that was done with a combination of a small hacksaw and a high speed Dremel-like thing with a cutting attachment. Given that I was using brass sheet for the rudder and aluminium for the shaft I epoxied the rudder to the shaft after roughing up the surfaces of each with 80 grit paper.
Previously to that I had drilled the hole for the rudder tube in the hull. I started with 1/8, realised I had the angle slightly wrong and corrected it with the 3/16 bit:



I like to let the rudder tube protrude ever so slightly below the bottom of the hull, just to prevent any chance of the the rudder moving and binding or scraping against the hull:



I used CA to glue the tube in. What I do is to first rough up the surface, then push the tube into the hole, but leave a fair bit poking out. I then apply the CA around the tube and push it into place. The idea is that the CA both binds the tube in place as well as providing a bit of water proofing of the inside of the wooden (balsa) hole. Probably doesn't matter a damn, but I do it anyway.

Anyway, the finished rudder is put in place and held with a temporary fitting at the top:



It seems rather large! But is exactly as per the plan.

Remaining item: Finish off (start!) the tiller - probably a bit of brass sheet soldered to the fitting seen in the previous photo. That fitting is obviously supposed to be go on a motor or prop shaft, but previously I tried drilling out the hole in it and made it wonky - too wonky to use for a motor or prop shaft as it would be off-centre and out of balance, but fine for a rudder with it's limited range of movement.

A picture says a thousand words (and I nearly had that many here describing the problem that is illustrated below):



See that gap (MSPaint wouldn't let me put an arrow head on the curved line) - I added a strip of 1/16 balsa along the edge of the deck sheet and sanded appropriately. Problem solved.

And that's where it's at today.

[AlisterL]

Annoyingly, about the only thing that's in focus in this photo is the net curtain at the back! But you can see that the push rod from the server to the rudder is now in place. And that means that the rudder is now irremovable.
As I mentioned previously I used that knackered bit of brass connector as the basis for the rudder arm. I cut off the excess brass, doubled some thin brass sheet over (to stiffen it enough) and then soldered the two bits together using a gas bottle. I didn't realise the brass would retain the heat as much as it did, so when I went to move the arm to quench it, the brass fitting moved about on a sea of solder! I grabbed some pliers to reposition it which also took enough heat out of it to allow the solder to solidify. A bit of tidy up of the piece with a file, some extra holes for the push rod connector (I think it's called a clevis?) and away we went. A little bit of adjusting to get the rudder plumb when connected to the servo, and it's now complete and tested with a bit of radio gear to ensure good and free movement.

[AlisterL]

Greetings to all,

time to sheet the hull (so much for doing this when I'm not working on the ULCC!)

Sheeting the stern:



Sheeting the bow:



Lots of use of clamps and stuff here.

When it was all covered and sanded flush to the hull and deck I needed to check the lines. looking at the hull bottom you can see that I have attacked the hull on the left, but not yet the right:



I had to add the ruler to get the camera to focus!
After a bit more work on the hull sides I checked the angle of the bow against the plan, made a line square across the width, scribed the angle from the plan down it and trimmed it to get a square end for the hardwood. That also showed that while I had sanded at the top and bottom of the sheeting, I had missed the middle, so I was able to get that correct too. I then trimmed up a piece of pine and glued it in place. I thought my method of using a small finishing brad and rubber band a good way to locate the hardwood bow while the glue dried as it left only a small hole in each surface to fill:



In a couple of these shots you can see a large hole in the end of the sheeting. I literally had to screw down the sheet to hold it in place on three or 4 sheets as they went around the curve of the deck.

And that's where we are today.

[AlisterL]

Much time was spent carving away at the pine bow to make it right. I also realised that I had sanded away too much of the hull sheeting and it was too narrow at the pint were it met the ping bow. To correct that and to fill all the wee nicks and dents I put some filler on. This just a standard building/home handyman type product. I thought about using a body filler type, but on the balsa I didn't want hard filler to sand away against soft balsa. One application of that was done then some sanding and another application to get the bits I missed.



 By this time I think I was creating as many dents as I was filling, so decided to get some sanding sealer on the balsa. I don't have any dope, and at $20 for 250mls I wasn't about to get any!
I have had a can of sanding sealer for quite a while now, so, after I had found it again, I put a coat of that on.





I have just given that a light sanding. Even though I brushed and vacuumed it after sanding, there was still quite a bit of dust left on it. I tackled that by wetting a cloth in very hot water, wringing it out so that there were no drips, and then lightly wiping down the hull. I'm now waiting for that to dry and then I will apply another coat.

[AlisterL]

Forgot to mention - somewhere in that process I also sanded a radius onto the bottom sides of the hull.

[AlisterL]

The plan calls for card to glued ontot he hull to create a waterline and to protect the hull. Having salvaged some cat food boxes I set about putting the card on. When complete and with some filler in the joins it looks thus:



I have also started some of the bits and pieces to go on her. These are the two guided missile silos and the forward gun:


 
If you think the left silo looks like it's not square then you are correct - I got carried away sanding. The forward gun is made up of four pieces of balsa laminated together then shaped.

I made barrel today for the gun. 1 piece of aluminium tube, 1 piece of brass tube and a length of 1/8" brass rod, superglued together:



I stopped of at the LHS early this afternoon to get some stuff: "Tissue and dope please" I asked. "I don't stock that" was the reply... <sigh>

And that's where we are.

[AlisterL]

Well I got carried away and the plans have changed - literally:



Lines in red is the redesigned superstructure, lines in dashed green are the existing hull openings. Printed on A0 paper would be at build size.

No other progress.

[AlisterL]

Coaming:



Forward superstructure starts to take shape:





5mm and 1.5mm balsa - maybe even the odd bit of 6mm too.

[AlisterL]

More superstructure:

[AlisterL]

Progress:



And aft:



I sourced some tissue - except that it's not tissue - it's something called Litespan and apparently it requires something else called Balsaloc and an iron to apply. Not what I asked for...

[AlisterL]

More progress:

[AlisterL]

and on the hull:



The bridge is sitting but not glued in place. I'll probably finish and paint the bridge and that deck area before glueing it in place...

[AlisterL]

The start of a mast - it's just sitting in the bridge balsa block and not glued in:



This is a length of 1/4" OD aluminium tube that was squished in a vice with a piece of 1/8" rod in it to limit the amount of squish.

And my Araldite's gone AWOl...

I have attached, in case anyone is interested, the DrafIT file that has the superstructure. It (should be) an attachment to this post.
Even though it is attached as .txt, you should remove that extension when saving the file. (DraftIT is a free download from Cadlogic.com in case anyone needs to get that too.)

[AlisterL]

More mast. Now glued in to the bridge block.

Side view:



And front:



The bridge block is still not glued in place and isn't sitting quite level...

[AlisterL]

A "no photo" update.

The last week or so has been all about sanding sealer, sanding, undercoat, sanding, filling and more sanding. And vacuuming up the dust... Then repeat (except for the sanding sealer bit...). Funny how a dose of undercoat highlight all the imperfections you thought you had sorted out.
With any luck I will get the first topcoats on the hull this weekend.

[AlisterL]

The workshop (read garage) is very, very dusty at the moment - even though I stop regularly to vacuum up the dust from the sanding process...

A shot of the deck with a light dusting of undercoat applied to it:



This is all rattle can paint - the undercoat is the Dulux brand and it is good quality stuff. On the other had, this is the second can as the first developed a problem and let go all it's contents in a short period of time... My bench and a lot of the bits that are on it got a fair number of splotches on them before I could wrestle the can outside... Fortunately I wear glasses or else I would have had an eyeful too - I had to clean my glasses with turps to get the undercoat off...

Anyway, I sourced some .010 plastic sheet and have started to make some of the detail bits.

VLS tubes for the rear of the modified superstructure:



And two shots of hatches and vents applied to the superstructure:





Humm, that's a bit hard to see being white on white and all, but that's where we are at today...