Model Boat Mayhem

Please login or register.

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

Author Topic: Airfix King George V 1/400th  (Read 5632 times)

grantl

  • Guest
Airfix King George V 1/400th
« on: January 05, 2008, 09:34:41 pm »

I thought I'd share a pic of the first sailing of my recent efforts in plastic.

I'm not completely happy with the model for a few of reasons:

The decks are worryingly awash for much of the time, although the inside stays dry enough. Apparently the full size ship was fairly famous for this. It didn't help that I had my pessimistic brother in law with me repeatedly saying 'bring it back, you're going to lose it..' (Only joking Peter) I guess the very narrow bow means there's not a lot of buoyancy (took me three goes to spell that word) to bring the front up.

Another is that external aerial. I fitted it because I was initially having problems with interference on the rudder servo when the motor ran. I had put in an MFA 457-RE280. (The motor would have been too powerful anyway.) The problems only went away when I fitted a completely different motor. The MFA was fully suppressed and I tried a couple of them. I guess they're just not suitable for 27MHz or I had some bad ones. Once I had fitted the replacement motor the external aerial has no function except to accentuate the lean to Starb'd when the motor runs. I replaced the initial aerial wire with one of half the cross-section and the lean reduced greatly but it's still there.

Finally it's too small on the water, and has no presence when more than ten feet away.

So it's done and it works, but it's not great. :-\

To be fair, none of this is criticism of the original kit, it's about my adaptation of it for R/C. The kit was pretty for for £20, the only slightly duff moldings in my example were a couple of the ships's boats had inappropriate dimpling that needed a smear of filler. There certainly wasn't a lot of flash to trim away from the parts.

My biggest problem now is getting up the enthusiasm to finish of the little extras that I have not got around to, anchors, boats, a couple of the smaller guns etc.

Anyway, the bro' generously brought round a Lindberg Destroyer for me on Christmas day, so I guess the next effort will be a little bigger on the water.

Regards,

Grant.
Logged

barryfoote

  • Guest
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2008, 10:01:41 pm »

She is small but looks great. I have no idea how you got the radio and electrics into it. A credit to you Grant.

Barry
Logged

Shipmate60

  • Global Moderator
  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5,800
  • You bark - I will bite!!!
  • Location: Fareham
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2008, 10:15:05 pm »

As Footski said she looks good and sails well.

Bob
Logged
Officially a GOG.

grantl

  • Guest
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2008, 10:27:38 pm »

You're very kind. The radio fitted easily, I used a small servo and made up the battery pack from individual AAA cells, that way I could spread the cells around to get the boat balanced. I started with 6 cells including one at the bow, but the bow one went when I discovered that the model could run far too fast with it and was also a little nose heavy in the bath. The rearmost piece of superstructure is removeable for access to the on/off switch and a charging socket. The bridge superstructure is removeable and has a loadspeaker cable connector under it to allow the easy removal of the external aerial. The deck is stuck/sealed to the hull with grey silicon bath caulk. I'm going to have to remake the upper masts in something more forgiving as they've both snapped once now. The other thing  I need to rectify with the masts is to drill holes in the decks for the ends to physically locate in. The dimples in the original moulding don't give enough mechanical strength.

I'm also going to have to build a recovery tug to keep the bro' happy, just in case.

Regards,

Grant.
Logged

Stavros

  • Guest
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2008, 11:15:48 pm »

SPRINGER spring to mind O0 O0 O0 O0 O0 O0 O0 O0


Stavros
Logged

Bunkerbarge

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,510
  • Location: Halifax, UK
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2008, 12:57:40 am »

I know what you mean about presence on the water and I also have concerns with small converted plastic kits when they 'bob' about on the slightest ripple and look quite unrealistic.

However, if you get to the pond first thing on a nice quiet morning before there is any wind or other models to disturb the water and you keep the model close to you it can be surprisingly satisfying to watch it maneouvre and sail.  Your KGV looks very realistic and if you finish the detail and get a couple of photos of it in the right light you will be surprised at how good she comes out.

My Revel U-Boat is definately a fair weather model and it goes in before anyone else gets there and comes out as soon as the water gets chopped about but during that time when I have the pond to myself I'm really pleased with the way it performs and looks on the water.

Don't forget as well just how easy they are to carry around!
Logged
"Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days"

thomas

  • Guest
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2008, 12:21:13 am »

I have a 400 scale ( I think, the box has long gone) Missur??, the American battleship that took the Japanese surrender.  I fitted four Orion motors and four prop-shop props.  Two ACTion speed controllers, one ACTion mixer, and a standard hi-tec 2ch. receiver.  Twin rudders ( the ones from the kit extended by about 5mm) driven with a hi-tec featherweight servo.  Power from a 5cell aa flat pack.   The aerial is coiled up in the bow, my usual method with 'plastic magic' boats.  No need to have a vertical wire aerial.  You get all the range you can usefully handle  with the aerial coiled up.  If she gets too far away, you can't see what she is doing anyway!    With all that gear in, she still needs a bit of lead ballast.  and there is still enough room inside to hold a dance!!   
She was an easy kit to convert, but too many small fiddly guns that keep getting broken off.  Not ideal for a working model , but looks ok from a few feet.  Handles well on the water, but a bit wet in anything over about force three.  Not surprising, that scales up to at least a full gale!!!!
Logged

andrewh

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,072
  • Location: Melbourne, Australia
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2008, 10:08:09 am »

nice model!

My son has a Yamato - probably trumpeter, and the freeboard is also worrying. (So is the Gearbox!)

Before applying the foredeck I shaped a large pointy bloak of blue foam to completely fill the front, so that at least we will have a signpost at the point of unplanned deviation from mission profile

Shaped block in the stern too, with cutouts for tiller, linkage

andrew
Logged

grantl

  • Guest
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2008, 12:00:52 pm »

Hi Andrew,

I thought about adding foam but decided against it because I felt that if water gets in the foam in the hull will cause the water in the hull to rise to a higher level around the radio and increase the chances of an electrical failure. SO i built some inner baffles for the sensitive bits and went that way. In my case it was lucky that I did this because I forgot (doh!) to blank off the ports for the anchors. I got quite a lot of water in the model, but I could see that I had because the bows got lower. I think that if I had used foam I would have flooded the radio by this point.

I'm about to take the deck off again and route an internal aerial, this should make it look better and reduce the heel when underway. There will always be some, and I suspect I will always regret only fitting a single shaft. Ho hum it's all a learning experience I guess.

I look forward to hearing how the Yamato goes.

Grant.
Logged

maninthestreet

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 306
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2008, 09:59:42 am »

Grantl,

Do you have any close-up pics of the inside?


I have an un-built 1/350th scale Prince of Wales that I want to build as an RC model (when I get around to it!).

 
Logged

grantl

  • Guest
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2008, 08:30:34 pm »

I don't, but I'm about to reopen it to eliminate this stupid vertical aerial and I'll take one then.
(I just bought a new camera and I'm keen to try out the built in macro thing)

Regards,

Grant.
Logged

elmo

  • Guest
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #11 on: January 12, 2008, 06:33:25 am »

Anyway, the bro' generously brought round a Lindberg Destroyer for me on Christmas day, so I guess the next effort will be a little bigger on the water.

Grant...

check out the dedicated Lindy Fletcher Destroyer group here... may be useful.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lindyfletcher/  O0
Logged

andrewh

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3,072
  • Location: Melbourne, Australia
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #12 on: January 12, 2008, 09:33:52 am »

grant,

I read a view in the RCgroups that placing the Rx above deck level increased range unbelievably - it would also get it up out of the bilge!

Our Yamato - will attach some pics if they are not too big for the system, uses the supplied gearbox and running props, but I have replaced the kit motor with a 385 for more peace and less sparking.

Gearbox is 'orrible.  I have stripped, cleaned up the gears and lubricated it, but there are tooth problems and it "nibbles" badly. 

The whole shebang will be replaced by 4 direct mabuchis - 130 s or 180s depending on how fast we feel at the time

Couple of sailing pics attached - not finished and one during build with the original motor, gearbox, batteries being used for testing

BTW - £12.00 in a local pound shop - can't be too bad (Lutterworth)

andrew

Logged

grantl

  • Guest
Re: Airfix King George V 1/400th
« Reply #13 on: January 12, 2008, 10:14:15 pm »

As requested a photo of the inside. The motor is recycled from a foam model aeroplane that was a piece of unflyable junk. The steering servo has a pair of wires to the rudder as the wire is quite thin, the wires are insulated as they go past the motor. The servo is a cirrus-301 and quite tiny. The black blob at the front is three AAA cells.  the other two cells can be seen next to the servo. Looking at it it seems like all of the weight is at the front, but it balanced correctly in the bath tests. I think I will try moving the batteries backpast the receiver and clustering everything in the centre as much as possible. I think this should help by reducing the moment of inertia and allowing the boat to move up and down more with the waves. But then again, this could make it look silly, bobbing up and down. At least it looks authentic with water all over the foredeck. I sealed the inside by joining the two halves with regular solvent glue then ran epoxy resin all down the inside of the join. The epoxy can be peeled off the plastic if you try, but it's pretty hard to do, and seems watertight. My main regret is that now think that I should have glued a small block of balsa across the stern to provide support for the rudder tube. Ho hum , live and learn.

Regards,

Grant.

Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up
 

Page created in 0.098 seconds with 21 queries.