First, not sure if this is the right board as not a Dean's kit - Deans hull, plans, motors, propshafts, rudders, bofors, boats, squid launcher and assorted fittings so hopefully that's enough to qualify....
Anyway, over the last six months I have been having fun building a Daring. I plumped for Decoy. No particular reason, just I had some BECC letters and some 3mm letters - Decoy was the only one that I could make up with what I had left from other builds!
Main guns and fire control radar from Robin, torpedo tubes from Battlecraft, davits from John Haynes - just about everything else scratchbuilt. And I have found lots of new uses for plumbing pipes - funnels, CRBF directors, anything else round....
On the way through I had the same problems with the hull as I did with Zulu - bent inwards in the middle at the bottom. I corrected this by pushing the hull back more or less into the right shape and glueing it down with epoxy and aluminium strip. Once it had dried I added a couple of layers of fibreglass to reinforce the bottom of the hull. Didn't get it quite right but got it more or less there with some filler putty then blew it over with Halfords spray putty and wet & dry to finish.
Trouble was that then bent in the top of the hull so I had to push it back out again with the wooden framework - wish I'd read the thread on straightening hulls with a hairdryer first....
But then that's half the fun.
So what else works? All the main turrets train 90 degrees either way (stuck on top of a servo but using resistors instead of a servomorph), radar rotates but a bit too fast (I need to choke that back a bit), nav lights and whooper.
On the whooper I finally found a place to put the speaker with direct access to the outside but without chopping holes in the superstructure - I cut a hole in the deck under the funnel so the sound goes straight up the funnel.
Batteries - most people that I talk to use a ready made battery pack which is fine but I make up my own battery boxes so I can use NiMH AA's. The advantages are that each cell has a capacity of 2,000 MaH plus so the total capacity of a six cell pack is 12,000 - 15,000 MaH per battery pack as opposed to the 4,000 odd on a ready made pack. I use two in parallel so 24,000 - 30,000 MaH in the boat. Never had a flat battery...
Also, its generally one cell that fails so on a ready made battery pack that will kill the whole thing. Making up your own holder means that you just replace the defective cell and carry on using the others.
Plenty of finishing off to do, especially replacing the aircraft wheel on the foremast with a huff duff, but having fun playing in the meantime - and I've burbled away for far too long.
So if anyone else fancies a crack at a Daring and has come across a problem drop me a line - I might be able to help
Cheers
Kit
