Topic: Bulldog/Bronnington

[Surge_et_vince]

I am planning to return to model ships after a few years in real ones.  I have some modeling experience (I built an HFM marine Oil Rig Supply Vessel from the kit, converted a 1/72 Revell Flower Class to r/c, and made a small balsa tugboat from a free plan) although my skills are rusty.  My interest is in scale (or scale-ish) warships, but I don't want to start with anything too large, expensive or complicated.  I have my eye on the Dean's Marine HMS Bulldog or HMS Bronnington.  

My questions are:

(1) Would either of these kits be suitable for a "second-beginner"?

(2) I understand they have fibreglass (GRP) hulls.  I have worked with ABS, plastic and balsa hulls before, but not with fibreglass.  Is fibreglass hard to work with?  How much finishing, drilling, cutting etc needs to be done?

(3) Other than knife, sandpaper, drill and airbrush, will I need any special or expensive tools to complete such a kit?

(4) How complete are the kits?  Do I need to buy a separate fittings pack?

(5) Will standard size r/c gear fit, or do I need mirco r/c?

(6) What sort of motors, props and batteries are required?  

I'm sure other questions will pop up as I go along.

Thanks.

[colin]

Hello Surge

1. i would say yes they are suitable for someone with resonable/beginner modeling skills
2. the inside of the hull needs to be sanded down to a smooth finish so as the deck supports can be glued in firmly, but this is standard with any GRP hull. other than that i would say they are not hard to work with.
3. probably a good pair of sisors, mini files, and a good multi perpose minitool like Dremel or Proxon
(not to sure whats available in the UK)
4. everything is in the Kit that you need to build it, apart from Glue, Paint and Radio
5. Standard size will fit, but if you use micro RC you will have more room for balast or battery power
6. in the instructions there is normaly a sugestion page for Motor, etc.  i always feel its a thing for the individual, motors can be recomended from all over the place with low or high drain, lots of RPM but not always the right one for the Kit. the Bulldog or Bronnington are reasonably small kits, so there would be no requirements for big motors.
An old servo motor is a good start, or the speed 400 range from graupner, or the Black sieris from Deansmarine
with the batteries ist a case of how long would you like to be on the water, the higher the amper the longer the time on the water, also the weight increases.

i hope this might have helped a little

[Surge_et_vince]

Thank you, that is very useful.

Incidentally, I saw an amazing example at this address, which has inspired me:

http://jsyrovat.d2.cz/models/004_HMSBulldog/HMSBulldog.html

(But I won't be as ambitious as that - no smoke generators, internal lights etc - just keep it nice and simple).

[Mike43sw]

I recognise that many people have a much greater knowledge than me at building boats generally and in particular the Deans range.  However dare I suggest that to fit a couple of Graupner Speed 400s to Bulldog or Bronnington is a little overkill?  I have a single 400 in a graupner SAR boat and it is virtually fast electric. Two of these and well take off isnt the right word!!  Two servo motors from Hunter systems would be ideal really instead. 

[colin]

@ Mike
there are several versions of the Speed 400
for example there is one for 4,8 volts one for 6 Volts and one for 7,2 these motors do not have to be driven at those volts for example the 7,2 can be driven at 4,8 volts that way you would have about 8000 Rpm on the prop
insted of 16000 Rpm

i gues you did read my first choice of motor: "An old servo motor is a good start"

and i also mentioned that its a sorta pick your own, i Personaly use Buhler Motors which have a Low Drain, Low Rpm, but high Tourque and they come in all sorts of sizes

with regards

[Belgium Crazy Team]

I did build a Bronnington once... and a colleague built also one.
We both fitted different motors.
I fitted small 12 volt motors that have a range from 4v to 14v.  These run very slow and the model is easy to control. (props are 20 mm)
My colleague used 2 graupner speed 280 motors on the Bronnington.
The problem with these 2 motors is that at "very" high speed the hull lifts out of the water and the boat becomes unstable. He used props of 16mm (from a German shop but I don't recall the name...).  To solve the speed problem he adjusted the ESC to 60% of maximum capacity.
So when I want to power small models I always try to search for small motors in the range of the speed 280 and run them on 4.8v.

The advantage of the speed 280 against the speed 400 is the weight.  The 280 weight is less and in small boats this becomes a more important issue than the power the motor can produce.