Topic: HMS Zulu build

[radio joe]

Thanks Frank, coming from a modeller such as yourself it means a lot, Still waiting for some ideal weather to do "sea" trials on Zulu, I tend to do trials on flat calm water with little or no wind so I can see what the boat's doing without in put from the weather, once I'm happy with the stability she can sail in slightly rougher conditions, the lake I use is home to the Gosport model yacht club and is ideal for them as there is nearly always wind there which is inclined to make the surface choppy and makes a 1:96 warship bounce rather unscaled like so I wait patiently. Joe

[acaetano]

Dear Joe
I'm writing from Portugal.
Many thanks for "teaching" me with my Zulu build. Zulu was my first scale project  after a all plastic Perkasa and I think I achieve a reasonable level of accuracy and finnaly I have a "nice"model.
I have one question concerning how can I secure the structures to the hull ? I'm afraid that with a bit more wind the structs fall off the deck !
Some are tight fit others a bit loose.
Thanks in advance for your help

[radio joe]

Hi, Acaetano,
There are several ways to hold structures down, but I always use a rubber band system in which a rubber band of a suitable size is attached to the underside of the deck hatch and with the aid of a wire hook is stretched over a peg in the bottom of the boat while the hatch is held to one side the elastic then holds the hatch firmly in place, if you look in my HMS Bramble log, page 5 there are some photos of how I do mine, hope this helps, it would be good to see some photos of your Zulu.  Joe.

[radio joe]

At last I felt the weather was good enough for sea trials this morning, got to the lake where the water was fairly flat and just an occasional breeze, lowered her in the water and she looked quite at home there, her performance was admirable, maneuverability was excellent, at full on rudder and a fair amount of power she almost pivots on the spot, I think being a single shaft/ single rudder has something to do with that as the prop has a direct effect on the rudder as oppose to a single rudder between two shafts, I did notice that when the breeze did blow it had the effect of tilting and pushing her sideways when she had no way under her, probably her high bridge and bedstead, although this was not enough to be alarming I felt if a gust was to catch her on a turn we might have another USS McNair incident, (sorry David I expect you would rather forget that) so I think it would be prudent to add a little more ballast to her bilges for the next sailing, I think there is enough boot topping showing to get away with it.  Joe.

[swiftdoc]

Hi Joe!

She looks really beautiful on the water. It was surely worth all the efforts you made. Congratulations from Germany

Kind regards - Arno

[radio joe]

Thanks for your kind comments Arno,
I Have now added another 8 ounces of lead to the bilge about amidships and tried her in the wet dock I got away without moving the boot topping again and I'm sure this will be better. Joe.

[Tanzy]

Looks fantastic in the water, good job Joe

[colin]

nice Job Joe..    looks very much at home... but the next photo must have the helicopter on her deck.. 

[radio joe]

Thanks Colin, the heli was on board stowed inside, I've just got to find a covert way of attaching it to the hanger deck so I don't loose it 

[radio joe]

OK Colin you inspired me to do one of the little finishing touches one tends to forget about keeping the heli in place, the solution was simple two stirrups to lift and slid the skids in, hardly noticed when painted, so next trial her helicopter will be in commission.

[kit]

Hi Joe

A great build, been using your experience as research for my own.  On question though - you have powered the 965 and the 978 and the rotation speeds should be about 12 and 25 RPM each.  There seem to be plenty of motors that can handle 25 rpm but did the one you used on the 965 get down to 12 rpm ish?

My hull was also convex - grrrr  .  Flat bottom hulls aren't that stable to start with and a convex shape just makes the problem a whole lot worse - maybe something for Ron to sort out at the moulding stage, hint hint  . 

Anyway, I didn't want to use ply to flatten out the hull as wood floats so ply would raise both the centre of gravity and the centre of bouyancy so I used brass which also allowed me to achieve a slight concave shape to the hull which has got to be an improvement.

Finally, I didn't think that there was any chance I'd be able to get my meathooks into the deck access holes so I'm modifying the design so I can lift out the whole of 01 deck and 1 deck aft of 01 deck so I have full access to everything.  I did this with a Rothesay a couple of years ago and it works well so more on this later.  In the meantime, here are a couple of photos on the build so far

Cheers

Kit 

[radio joe]

Hi Kit,
Good to see another type 81 build, I'll follow with interest, The 965 I've clocked at 11 rpm, which looks about right, the 978 is roughly twice the speed and again looks about right I could twink them a bit, but hardly worth the bother, they each have their own motor from Action Electronics as shown on page 8, I think, and are powered separately from the main batteries by two 1.5volt in parallel to give some endurance ,both run in tandem and are turned on or off from the TX. Joe.

[kit]

Thanks Joe

I saw the photos of the motor layout but missed the bit about gearing down the 965 down a bit further  using a tyre.

Cheers

Kit

[Horatio123]

Hi Joe .
      Pleased to hear that initial trials did not give any problems . Looks good on the water too .

[kit]

My own build continues with nothing further to add to Joe's excellent commentary - just a couple of heads up for potential pitfalls that others may encounter.  The kit has just been modded so my experience may be different to Joe's but three problems to watch out for - the first two are simple to spot, the third would result in the midships superstructure being built upside-down and a significant expansion in my wife's vocabulary if I hadn't spotted it early enough it......

1.  The location markings for the wasp lift cover on the hangar roof are in the wrong place - the fore & aft is fine but it should be amidships.

2.  The nav radar location on the bridge superstructure should be fore and aft, not port/starboard

3.  The biggy - the "this side down" marking on the midships superstructure former is wrong, it should read "this side UP"!!!! 

Cheers

Kit