Model Boat Mayhem

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length.
Pages: 1 2 3 4 [5]   Go Down

Author Topic: Higgins PT boat, 1/32  (Read 42703 times)

andrewh

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,072
  • Location: Melbourne, Australia
Re: Higgins PT boat, 1/32
« Reply #100 on: November 10, 2008, 01:51:24 pm »

Andy,  Thanks.  Sorry to have missed meeting you over the weekend

I wil try and give your eyebrow a long rest, but i suspect that you are basically a better scale modeller than me, so it won't be permanent.

Today I'm a little euphorious - had a generally very good weekend and had a GREAT trial of the PT boat with non-wabbling coupling!  Night and day difference - smooth, quiet and faster :}
The weather was just turning pear-shaped when I took the pics, and only two of them are worth seeing.

Imagine a low hummmmm and this.  By this stage the battery was down in the mid-voltage

not the world's greatest video, but it gets better (briefly)

andrew

Logged

Capricorn

  • Guest
Re: Higgins PT boat, 1/32
« Reply #101 on: November 23, 2008, 01:36:36 am »

Andrew,  It's looking great, any updated photo's or movies?  How did the ZBF do?  It sure looks unique, do you have a movie of that one under sail?  Cap 
Logged

BreezyB

  • Guest
Re: Higgins PT boat, 1/32
« Reply #102 on: January 25, 2009, 12:43:22 pm »

Now the doping on of the tissue - this is venerable heavyweight model tissue - applied wet (damp) and applied with thinners in the time-honoured way - it went on  very well, with (near-) perfect smooth surface, and reasonable edges. 
[/quote]
Andrew
I read your Higgins progress with interest.  O0
But having just "Dope and Tissued" a similar hull using the GG method of applying the tissue with a "dollop" of dope and then laying it down with full brushes of neat dope, I was intrigued to read your method with the tissue applied damp. For the uninitiated, could you give a brief idea of how this is achieved.
Regards
Barrie
Logged

andrewh

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,072
  • Location: Melbourne, Australia
Re: Higgins PT boat, 1/32
« Reply #103 on: July 28, 2009, 04:15:31 pm »

As I was saying........

Sorry about the gap in communication - I have been doing some real life, running this boat very briefly with a brushless at Wicksteed, building and sailing Footys and quietly making  bits in the background

The story so far: 
Hull all complete, and running trials completed with both S600Eco 7.2, brushless 2210/21 (1200KV) and 540  buggy motor
beginning to complete deck fittings, armaments, etc.

I will also reread the thread, re-apologise to all the andys, and catch up with the questions/barracking/applause etc
Promise
This is where we were last night




The lifeboatmen are just visiting to keep the scale in mind!

I have been scared of making the Higgins eXhausts - 3 per side.  Pete Russell ignored them, but it ain't a Higgins without them
Mine being electric I have routed the exhaust electrons to come out of them (under water at displacement speeds) :}
andrew
Logged

andrewh

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,072
  • Location: Melbourne, Australia
Re: Higgins PT boat, 1/32
« Reply #104 on: July 29, 2009, 12:53:31 pm »

EXHAUSTS!

The Higgins boats ran their exhausts directly to the side of the boat level with the engines - each bank of each engine having its own exhaust.

The shape of these is quite subtle,

 

and my attempts so far have just exactly not achieved it (so far)

I am going to cast the exhausts in epoxy filled with microbaloons, so I need to make a mould and to make the mould I need a pattern for a LH exhaust and a RH

I will continue with these patterns to sort out the mould and method, but make much more scale ones before attaching anything to the boat.  I woldn't want andyN to have to lift an eyebrow :}
andrew


Logged

andrewh

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,072
  • Location: Melbourne, Australia
Re: Higgins PT boat, 1/32
« Reply #105 on: July 29, 2009, 01:02:28 pm »

While confessing to less that right shapes of the patterns, I can also confess to "NO CURE whatsoever" of the silicone used to make the mould!


The baby pink stuff is a 2-part silicone rubber.  This particular one is a VERY high thermal conductivity potting agent that we use at work.  It often doesn't cure, and this one hasn't. 
It has a very subtle cure system,and is five years out of its date, so no great surprise there :}
I have cleaned off the patterns, and will try more silicone, and also possible plasticene to mould in

As you can see from the picture I tried one side lying on its back in a balsa box filled with the silicone - this SHOULD and prolly did eliminate air bubbles.  The other side I just pushed into a puddle of silicone.  In hindsight I realise I have but used any release agent at all - so if the silicone had cured I would have had a third confession to make.


I like this pic - Bill the lifeboat is getting a good vew of approaching bank

andrew
Logged

andrewh

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,072
  • Location: Melbourne, Australia
Re: Higgins PT boat, 1/32
« Reply #106 on: August 25, 2009, 12:56:41 pm »

Update on the detailing of the PT boat

What a lot I learn as I do things - I knew vaguely that the Bofors (40mm) fired "clips" of 5 rounds, and that these are dumped into the holder above the breech. 
Now thinking about that - say they fire at one round per second (almost certainly faster) then the clip is used up in 5 sec or less - so someone has to drop in new one, or it all goes quiet :((
It can't be the two gun crew, so it must be a loader or two standing behind or beside the gun and reaching over the rails at behind the breech.  They would have to keep their piggies (and all other bits) well out of the way of recoil, etc!

I have some pics of the story so far with guns, torpedoes getting made

Torpedoes are rolled tubes of laminating film with foam fronts and balsa sterns.  Not my most glorious modelling success, but very light and not too bad for stand-way-off scale

pics follow - they are (slowly) uploading into p/bucket so can't do anything till that has finished

THe Higgins exhausts have been fiitted and painted - they DO look like exhausts - just not the right shape for Higgins boats - sorry, Andy :((.  Anyway a new and useful technique learned!
In the course of doing the mouldings I tested out a drum of about 10gall (imperial) of polyester resin which I was given many years ago, and was bought in the 1970s.  Still works!
pics when they have loaded
andrew
Logged

andyn

  • Guest
Re: Higgins PT boat, 1/32
« Reply #107 on: August 25, 2009, 01:57:17 pm »

Logged

andrewh

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,072
  • Location: Melbourne, Australia
Re: Higgins PT boat, 1/32
« Reply #108 on: August 25, 2009, 05:10:55 pm »

True, Oh King, and this one is a 78foot Higgins  - not sure what Pete Miller based it on but it has its gun tubs NOt where any pic or plan that I have seen includes them

Never mind - its generic (or I havn't found the pics yet)


The lifeboat men (George Turner 1/32nd) got pressed into service here tooo





it floats too, but the pictures havn't uploaded!

andrew
Logged

martno1fan

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,472
  • Location: Blackpool
Re: Higgins PT boat, 1/32
« Reply #109 on: September 03, 2009, 12:59:43 am »

Looks good Andrew ,heres the one i built several years ago for my son.He still has it but hasnt ran her in about a year,when we first fitted the 540 car motor my god it was way too fast but i think the motor is now past its best and its a lot more scale speed so to speak .Anyway heres the vid from her maiden voyage on christmas day 2006 running arround half speed with a weak battery lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5WPQneDh7o&feature=channel_page
Logged
Pages: 1 2 3 4 [5]   Go Up
 

Page created in 0.089 seconds with 22 queries.