I used a micro servo, as the bofors gun is very light anyway, so you dotn need anything too big or heavy to operate it.
All i did to rotate the gun mount was cut a servo horn head down to a simple "T" shape, Drop a piece of plastic tube down out of the gun mount pivot and bond the servo piece to the top of it, after cutting a "notch" to take the tage on the servo head piece.
Offer up the servo to the base of the gun mount and then use this as the basis to make up the servo mountings.
if you add some small pieces of plastic card to the inside of the gun mount, to block out the open holes, it keeps the stern of the boat secure from excess water too, then simply paint these in matt black from the outside, so they still look like "holes" through the mount.
Dont forget the "Eduard" super detail kit, also includes a finer scale gun barrel for the bofors gun, plus finer 40mm shell cases and ammo cartridges, as wellas seats, foot rests, and the gun aiming sights too, so you may have to make a decision if you are going for one of these add on kits too, before you build too much, or you will then have to start cutting things back off.
One thing you can do, is open up the aperture in the engine room vent, it is supplied with some fine mesh, but vents to nothing, so why not cut the internals out, so it vents fresh air to the motors in the hull? Thats what i did and dont have any heating issues.
As for strengthening the hull, I used some square tube plastruct. It adds strength where you need it, for the rudder servo and also to prevent the hull sides from distorting.
Dont use the standard rudder blade for R/c operation, it simply wont turn when you want it too. the small rudders supplied by SHG are fine, but just cut down slightly, but not too much, its better to find you have too much rudder and then need to cut them down, than it just goes in a straight line and you have to replace the rudders fully.
the motor mounts I bonded direct to the hull floor, but for a bit of "BELT N BRACES" i drilled through 2 holes in each mount, through the hull and fitted some small bolts through from the underside and the nuts went on inside, just incase one sharp bang caused a mount to come loose. then simply epoxy over on underside of hull before sanding and painting it.
Author
Topic: Italeri Elco 80' Torpedo Boat PT-596 (Read 20136 times)