In truth, I haven't run the motors yet. The motors on 12V should give 120 rpm, at no load and since these are only 280's the won't pull much current. The gearing is very low so torque should be relatively high and I expect to loose very little in rpm due to the small paddle blade size and there only being three of them in the water at any time.
The motors should run equally well in both directions but yes, the motors hole mountings are symmetrical so reversible.
I will pop a battery across them tomorrow to see. I hope they are silent too.
The plywood is 3mm thick. Some I bought from a specialist supplier is birch ply waterproof stuff at £44 a sheet and it cuts very nicely. Some came from Jotika and was a lot less but can't remember how much it was. It laser cuts OK too. If you use too slow a cutting speed, the edges of the wood char badly so you have to be carefull there. The glue also melts and stains the wood and looks a mess. It doesn't matter since when its dry it sands off and of course its painted too.
The thin ply is 0.8mm, from John Wright again and cuts and engraves well.
I,m not sure how to do the armour yet but engraving lines into the thin ply was my initial thought, we will see.
Planking the wooden decks should be fun as the planks are American Oak veneer laser cut into 2mm wide strips and stuck on with PVA. Guide lines are etched into the ply sub structures by the laser to keep everything straight.
I have say, I really like this wood stuff!
The small wheelhouse sits on top of a truncated cone, to tight to wrap ply around so I think it might be a cone of brown paper wrapped around the wood substructure then planked with precut plating made from the thin ply. That's a tomorrow job too.
I'll keep you informed.
Its all new to me so any suggestions would be very help full.
I'll post some piccies of the Choctaw tomorrow too.