Deans Marine
General Discussion => Customers Builds => Topic started by: The Unknown Sailor on 04 January 2009, 19:25:52
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Here's my first attempt at a Deans Marine kit (fiberglass / styrene). Colour scheme is of my own choosing, and obviously not to anything approaching original spec's. I went for a selection of grays, to get better contrast, and when all is said and done, this is a scale model of a boat which hasn't existed in nearly 60 years, so in affect, an exercise in fantasy, so I ran with the artistic license ::)
The boat runs exceptionally well on the water...at a very good scale speed, though I did have to add about 4 lbs of lead ballast, distributed around the hull, to get her to sit right in the water.
I spent quite a bit of time on the interior / machinery spaces, and have to say, it was time well spent. The 2 6 pounder turrets rotate, courtesy of some scrounged parts out of a Meccano set..hey, they were laying about and therefore free
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Here is another
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And the business end
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Just took a couple of shots on the water...hope you enjoy.
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Here's # 2
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WOW...from an able seaman to a petty officer in one day...I should try this in real life :o
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...the "Engine room", or at least part of it.
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And finally..... the gas tank
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Further to my conversation with Jonathan at Deans Marine, a most helpful individual I might add, is a brief description of "What's in there" pertaining to the last picture posted above...
Image shows the boat, where the left hand side of the photo is looking forward towards the foredeck where the foredeck 6 pounder is mounted. what you can see in the picture, immediately in front of the batteries are the 2 fuse holders, one for each speed controller and their corresponding pair of motors - They are set with 25 amp mini blade auto type fuses, which seem to be quite adequate for the load from the motors.
The prop shafts are mounted with 40mm three blade props, giving a reasonable turn of speed for about 25 minutes of battery life. Even after that time running, the motors, while warm to the touch, are not so hot as to induce one to recoil away from touching.
Interestingly, when testing the motors in the pool, with an amprobe, and with 35mm props mounted, at low speed, the amperage draw was 5.8 amps for the port pair and 5.1 amps for the starboard pair, however, when turned up to flank speed the combined 4 motors barely topped 1.5 amps. My theory is that as the model was held stationary - in order to get an amperage reading, that as the speed of the prop rotation increased, the load on the shafts decreased, as the water was unable to fill the void created by the the back thrust of the props in motion. Anyway, this means that I don't really know what the actual running load is, whatever, it is obviously very comfortably under 25 amps, my next trick being to change the fuses to 20 amp max, which will probably be fine, and so give the speed controllers and motors a greater safety margin.
OK, Back to your question...what's in there. Just in front of all the wiring is the switching mechanism for the turret mount motors for the 2 6 pounder guns. It is a stand cannibalized from an old Meccano set, with a piece of 1mm styrene for the mounting board for the two servos, which are connected to 2 DPDT switches, actually the switches are centre off type. These in turn are connected to their corresponding actuator motors, which turn the reduction gears, rotating the turrets at a fairly reasonable slow rate. One partial set of reduction gears/drive linkage can be seen at the extreme top left corner of the picture. The actuator motors are from a Maerklin Metal set. Bulky, a little noisy in the workshop, but almost silent out on the water, but functional, and the best part, totally free, as all the parts have been laying about the house in boxes for years now.
The battery pack (of 4 AA type) to the right of the main 6v battery, is the power source for these 2 actuator motors, and are the only disposable batteries in the boat. Given the amount of use and amperage draw from these motors, the battery life expectancy is quite a few months, as obviously the boat isn't in the water all the time. The switch mounted above the batteries is dedicated to to those batteries and insures that there can be no chance of one of the DPDT switches being left in a closed circuit condition when the boat's electrics get shut down after use.
The shelf just visible on the port side (bottom edge) is for all the radio gear, which at the moment is just the receiver. It is high up, and out of the way, so any water shipped through the prop shafts, (which is not much), presents absolutely no danger to the radio.
The radio gear is a "Robbe" F-14 marine version, with the dual throttle sticks. I plan on installing a sound system with various noises...money permitting, in the future. With this in mind, I made a deck, between the prop shafts and the rudder assembly, where there is plenty of room to mount everything, as well as the drive mechanism for the aft 6 pounder. With engines roaring, guns blazing, machine guns chattering, and alarms screaming, it will be sure to terrorize the duck population on the lake where we run the boat, let alone what it might do to the local joggers . ::)
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Hello Unknown Sailor.
I am currently in the planning stage for building a Fairmile D and was kindly directed to your forum topic by Jonathan at Deans Marine. His message indicated you might live in Australia - true? If so, anywhere near Melbourne?
FrankM
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Hi Frank
Looks like we logged in together
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As to your question ... afraid not, I live in the US, on the east coast ...Miami, to be exact.
If you have any questions about the model, feel free to ask. Hopefully my answers will be helpful. ;)
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Hello Unknown Sailor.
I am currently in the planning stage for building a Fairmile D and was kindly directed to your forum topic by Jonathan at Deans Marine. His message indicated you might live in Australia - true? If so, anywhere near Melbourne?
FrankM
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Hello Frank M,
I am about to start a Fairmile D build and live in melbourne.Perhaps we can get together to discuss building.Have built some PT boats in the last few years to 1/24 scale.
Regards
Grah.
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Hi Unknown Sailor,
Nice build! How long did it take you to build something like this? This was your first build of a Dean's kit. Did you find it difficult? Thanks for sharing!
Oliver
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Hi Oliver
Believe it or not, it took me slightly over 2 months to build this model. But then I did put quite a number of hours per day into the project...what with the economy the way it is, there isn't a lot of work out there to distract me right now, you know, work, otherwise known as earning a living, that inconvenience that regularly interrupts the more important pleasures of life. ::)
I didn't find the model particularly difficult to build; in fact my one complaint was the the rubbing strake, which was / is pre molded in the hull fabrication process by Deans, was extremely fragile, prone to cracking and chipping off, but even this was easily repairable.
I will admit to having a fairly comprehensive tool shop, as I tend to collect tools for all the various and sundry projects I get into, though Plasticard was a new medium for me...but in the end a sharp knife and a good straight edge was really all it took; oh, and a good tape measure. Take your time and enjoy the work. It took me a few too many years to understand, this simple fact...there is more joy in the actual work involved in the fabrication of such a project, than in the anticipation of a finished product; so don't be misled by that false promise of the finish line. While the above appears somewhat of a contradiction in view of the relatively short build time of this particular model, the hours put in were still quite numerous, and the effort was most enjoyable, many hours pleasantly spent.
I see that you are contemplating building a model of HMS Kelly, good luck; there really is a sense of accomplishment when completing one of these types of projects. Even if your time is limited, a few hours now and then, you'll eventually get there, though it has been my experience, that once you start to immerse yourself into a project like this, it sort of takes on a life of its own....or as Goethe, the German writer so eloquently said..."Waist not this day dallying, begin the thing, and let the magic take hold." Actually, that is a very bastardized version, but you get the drift, there is indeed a magic which springs forth when one undertakes a model project like this. Again, good luck, and happy building
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Hi Unknown Sailor,
Wow! Your statement so eloquently expressed is exactly how I feel --
"there is more joy in the actual work involved in the fabrication of such a project, than in the anticipation of a finished product; so don't be misled by that false promise of the finish line"
Oh, how I enjoy building rather sailing!
Thanks for sharing your work and thoughts! I really appreciated it.
Oliver
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Me too Oliver.
Truth is, I hardly ever take the model out on the lake any more, it sits on the shelf gathering dust, as I plan on the next project, which alas, for lack of funds, must languish sometime in the future :(
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I think that's the problem with a lot of modellers. The building is more fun than sailing the boat....
I usually test and occasionally sail a boat, but the most of the time I'm building something....
There are always to many project running in the same time. So I always have something to choose.
Kurt
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Hi Kurt,
Yes, I totally agree. By the way are you a "Team" or a single person? I've been hesitant to address you only because I didn't know whether you're a group or a person! :)
Have a great day!
Oliver
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Single person,
But every year we invade England with several people... (that's why the team).
We also have a small club stand at Ron's Open days.
With that team we build a naval diorama of WWII. Most of the ships on that diorama are (modified) kits of Deans marine.
Look at the customers models for some details:
http://www.deansmarine.co.uk/forum1/index.php?topic=78.0
http://www.deansmarine.co.uk/forum1/index.php?topic=94.0
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Hi Kurt,
Very nice! It must be quite expensive ( in money and time! ) to build a huge diorama like that. You guys do that every year?
Thanks for sharing,
Oliver
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There are 6 builders in the team who all build in 1/96 or 1/100.
That's why we have so many ships in the diorama.
When there are 2 the same, we try to build them on the same moment, that encourages each other.
We also scratch build some ships because we couldn't find them on the market.
At several exposition we show the diorama (one of the biggest is Dortmund in Germany)
Kurt