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[guard_jamie]

I must first admit to being somewhat out of my depth in this field of modelling- I'm a railway man myself! But after watching The Cruel Sea I simply had to have a Corvette, and I got a Revell one. I haven't made much of a start, but I was wondering if anyone could give me some really detailed information on motors, batteries, props, RC equipment, and all the other related paraphernalia that has to be included if I wish to make it sail (and I've never seen the point in a model that doesn't work!) What you would recommend, where to put what in the boat, any easy yet fun extras I could add, what to use as ballast. Basically, 'the low down', in its entirety!

Thank you,

Jamie Green

"The boy stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled. Twit".

[RickF]

Jamie - "Voyager" has just started building an R/C Revel "Flower" on the "Your Builds" board - Check it out!

Rick

[guard_jamie]

Painfully elementary question that I'm very embarassed to ask- how on earth do you stop water getting up the prop shaft? ???

[Youngat65]

Stick some grease in it or I use motor-cycle chain lube some may say that useing grease causes a lot of drag but so what we are not talking fast electrics here
                                                                       Cheers
                                                                           Bob B

[funtimefrankie]

Check this out
http://www.cbrnp.com/RNP/Flower/contents.htm
Frank

[malcolmfrary]

Regarding the water up the proptube - I agree with the greasing, but make sure that you can service it (ensure that yoiu can get the rudder out of the way without demolishing the back end of the boat).  I sail mine in a salt water lake with plenty of silt and geese, after several years and about 500 real miles, I had to change the prop shaft assembly, the shaft was badly worn in the area of the bearings, letting water up the tube, and the brass tube was corroded. 

[Shipmate60]

And ballast her deep, I have seen so many bobbing over the waves and looking very toy-like.
When they are deep in the water they look superb and handle better.

Bob

[Daryl]

I agree with Shipmate60. I used 11kg of ballest in mine to get it to the right level.

Daryl

[malcolmfrary]

Daryl
Are you talking about the Revell Flower class?  Its a 1/72 scale model, and the correct weight is 6 pounds, give or take a very few ounces.  11Kg would be disappointing.

[Daryl]

Why disapponting????? I ballasted it to a photo I had of the real thing. Works for me. This photo was taken at Kingsgate Park Yate a few months ago. The inside of the hull is lined with GRP. When you convert pounds to kilos it works out at about 5lb of ballest then add about 1lb for motor and battery and there you have the result in the picture.

Daryl

[cbr900]

Daryl,

I reckon you could probably do with another pound these sort of ships were not supposed to ride the but cut through the water, nice model and all...

Roy

[ron h]

Daryl, lovely looking model on the water, but you have your lbs and lilo,s mixed up, its 2.2 lbs to 1 kilo, what he ment about dissapionting at 11kilo,s which is 24.2 lbs it would sink under the water.

[Daryl]

Hi Ron,
your right, wrong conversion!!! sorry folks.

I put most of the ballest towards the front to try to improve the sea keeping which to some extent worked.

I have just had a look and its got a 5 Kilo weight in it plus battery etc. Which makes it about 6lb.

11kg is fine for a 1/48 scale but as you said on the Revell it would sink it. The shade of the colours is brighter than the RN Western Approaches scheme in that I have seen several near misses and one sinking where the camoflauge did exactly what it said on the tin. So I thought I would make it a bit more obvious.

Daryl

[dannymax]

the lb ands kilos in these posts are all over the place......454g = 1lb so basically to make it easy a kilo is around 2lb

[dougal99]

I have just had a look and its got a 5 Kilo weight in it plus battery etc. Which makes it about 6lb.

5Kg is about 11Lbs (1k = 2.2Lbs)

Cheers

Doug

[Youngat65]

Wouldn't be having all these problems with weight if we just stuck to good old english lbs if your working imperial stay imperial if you are working in metric stay in metric saves a lot of messing about with convering one to another.

[ron h]

Wouldn't be having all these problems with weight if we just stuck to good old english lbs if your working imperial stay imperial if you are working in metric stay in metric saves a lot of messing about with convering one to another.

I just put 30lbs of lead in mine, and a few batteries, she is 7ft long ::) ::)

[Daryl]

Umm.... glad to see its all getting confused, that way I can spread the balme!!!!

Now I am at home I can clarify what I have in there, when I got the confusion going I was at work trying and failing to do three things at once and mucking up all of them!

What I have in there is a bar of lead/tin ( ratio 60-40) 1 inch wide, 1inch high and 16 inches long. I'll leave you all to work out the weight.

Can't find Carol Vorderman when you want her.........

Daryl

[dougal99]

Lead is much denser than tin (which is quite expensive). If it is tin sell it and buy a new boat

Cheers

Doug

[Daryl]

Firm I work for was chucking out a flow solder machine and I had the left over bars, which would have ended up at the reclamation centre. As you can see from the photo it works fine.

Daryl

[malcolmfrary]

Nice one, Daryl
I "ballasted" mine with a 12v 3AH battery as far back as I could in the forecastle.  This wasn't quite as far back s I would have preferred as the local model shop didn't have a prop shaft shorter than 10", so I wound up putting about 8oz of lead in the stern to trim it.  You are right about the paint job - the pale western approaches job does have a habit of vanishing in overcast conditions with a bit of a dapple on the water, especially if it is not leaving an obvious wake.

[Daryl]

Hi Malcolm,

Did you have a problem with the deck stringers? I went by the instructions and found the deck was 6mm to wide. I ended up trimming the deck as by this time I had lined the hull with grp tissue. It appears that in my kit the stringers are to short, a friend of mine who built the Matchbox version did not have this problem so I wonder what have Revell done to muck it up? A rather puzzeling.

I had to do the same as yourself as I glassed in the solder bar to far forward and ended up putting some lead sheeting left over from a roof replacement to balance the thing.

Daryl

[malcolmfrary]

Hi Daryl
The deck beams on mine all fitted easily.  Thats on the 6 year old one.  The new one had one a bit long, but it was just a few strokes of sandpaper.  I never felt the need to line with GRP - the plastic is strong enough.

[Daryl]

I lined mine with grp as when I put it in the bath I had a small leak from one of the side joins. So with the traditionial use a sledgehammer to crack a nut idea, I lined all of it with grp and the used it to fix the solder bar in.

Good kit, I used John Lamberts excellent book to detail mine, well worth getting.

Daryl

[shark bait]

I have seen lots of variations in the camuflage schemes used on these corvettes. Has anyone got an idea where can i get a guide as to what was used in various theatres and by which ships. My model is HMS Bluebell if that helps. I would like to get it authentic but without blatently copying another modellers creation.

Any ideas or pointers would be welcome.

PS The guy who had the corvette at the Northern Boat Show had a wonderful boat. It looked great and got me thinking i could improve on mine.

thanks