YZFMattayo

Alan,
Don't doubt your abilities. If you don't rush and take your time, I'm sure you're NW would turn out fine. The First NW I built took about four hours, and it showed. The second NW has taken about 2 months and still isn't done!

bobslr,
Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you, but life has been happening. The stickers on my Livestrong NW are the rub-on vynal type. I had them made at the local sign store for about 8 bucks. They made me a couple extra stickers too just in case I screwed up. Not a bad price if you ask me. I'm still waiting on the sail material to make my own sails, and I hope I can go get it this week sometime. I mounted the stock sails becuase I couldn't wait anymore and I had to sail it. She sailed very well with just a touch of weather helm. I moved the mast forward a bit and she was off. I've had it out two days in a row now. Luckily for me my office has boat docks, and I head out during lunch or after work to get a quick sail in. Anyway, I'll post pics of the new sails as soon as I make them.

[alan k]

all right YZFMattayo,
appreciate the insight
ill order this weekend
im ready!

bobslr

Hi Alan
Matt's right about taking your time,Over the year's I've built a lot of scale electric model's but the NW was my first sail boat.
I had no idea how any of it was supposed to work and no one to ask,the LHS guy's are all in to airplane's and about all they knew was that it was supposed to float.
One idea for building stuff (sail arm radio box) might be your school shop's, explain to the teacher what your trying to do I'm sure that they would help.
Bob

[alan k]

ok guys,
I ordered the kit last night. I read the forum one again and they said theres some problems with the order of some of the steps in the plans?? I know there were some other things that the plans were missing but i cant remember them. Can you guys clarify this a little for me (in laymans terms) ha ha.
THANKS A MILLION,
Alan

[alan k]

the boat came in friday and it looks good! i was wondering what kind of paint to use on the hull and deck hardware?? just a can of testors spray? but i do have an airbrush so i can use bottle paint too. thanks,
alan

YZFMattayo

Alan,
I don't have an airbrush, so I used Krylon Fusion paint. The Krylon worked well and I was surprised at how "hard" dried. I wouldn't recommend gloss black as it shows up every flaw in the hull. I sanded mine with 600 grit and then painted with four to five coats. The top of the hull needs to be cut out for access to the radio compartment, and I used the cut out as my test piece for painting and it worked out well. I would recommend installing your radio gear before you start to paint so you don't scratch or smudge your finish later. I didn't like the NW with all the hand rails, winch drums, and helm, so I used white putty to fill all the holes and sanded flat for a cleaner look. I would also recommend fabricating your own servo tray. I made mine out of 1/4" plywood. There are plenty of post in this forum to give you some ideas on how to build one. Good luck and post some pics when you start to get the paint on.

Matt

[alan k]

Thanks for the heads up matt,
Krylon Fusion paint is a spray can?? and where can i find it??
I believe i will but on the winchdrums but leave out the handrails. when you puttied the holes in the deck and sanded them did you just leave it or did you do some kind of finish work?
thanks again,
Alan

YZFMattayo

Alan,
I got the Krylon paint from ACE hardware. I think walmart carries it too. I would put a coat on every 40 minutes, and then let it sit for at least five days before I touching it. bobslr is right when he says to let the paint cure. It's really soft and easy to scratch before it's fully dried. That was the hardest part for me: waiting for it to dry. As far as the filling went, I filled the holes with white squadron putty (from tower hobbies), waited a day for it to dry, and then rough sanded it with 200 grit, and finish sanding with 600 grit and a sanding block. Make sure you use a sanding block because the putty is softer then the hull and will sand away much quicker leaving and indent. Good luck and post some pics when you get the paint on. Also, I highly recommend glassing the keel bulb so it doesn't move around.

bobslr

Hi Alan
I'm with Matt as far as the "Kyrlon Fusion" goes,It give's you a hard durable finish and has a nice glossy appearance.
On the keel of my boat I airbrush on Testor's turquoise and it has a bunch of scratch's in it now
(2 year's)the Krylon does'nt have a mark on it.
Also if you make no other modification to the boat,Fiberglass the keel it is very weak at the joint.
If you put the keel together and hold it out parallel to the ground you can see the bulb droop,If it breaks off while your sailing the boat will capsize and sink.
Bob

Mr. Wolf

Hi Bob, Fishy, Schmism, Matt and Alan

Was out sailing this past weekend with Gibli and had lots of comments on her. Several where amazed that she goes so fast with only sail. Had a fun time sailing against a nitro boat at the lake. I was out for over a hour and a half. He had to refuel several times. Talked to him for awhile about rc sailboats and the pluses of not having to come in all the time to refuel and sailing while the lake is choppy. While his boat dosnt do well in that kind of conditions all but the K-32Vs love it. Did fall into the lake taking her out, but didn't hurt the boat. It was a long cold drive home then [X(]

Was looking at the pictures of your boat Matt and they look great. I noticed you went the way of carbon fiber masts and boom, but looks like you used the plastic mast hardward to consturct the whole mast assembly. I went the way of buying the brass goose neck from victor sails because of what I've heard about the assembly that comes with the kite warping and breaking. I do like the eye bolts on your boat and may go that way as the parts on my Northwind wear out. But your paint sceam reminds me of my H.S. riveals across the city.[>:]

Alan you have to pick Bob's mind for all he's tips and re-read this entier post if not just copy down and print out everything he says. He has lots of good suggestions and excellent ideas. Like the wraping the keel bulb in fiber glass and filling inside the hull around where the keel fits in with appoxy to streathen it. Also he posted some great pics back on page two of his setup of his boats servo cradle and placing a pull/push post on and off swich. I do have the plans that I drew up for the servo cradle and battery cradle I made modeling after his. If you havn't gotten that fare ask and I'll email them to you. I cut them out on my band saw here out of bass wood for the cradles and fiberglass board from the hobby shop. Some sanding, drilling, gluing and varnishing I was done in two nights.
I take it you're in school still so you can probly ask your teachers in shop classes to use the band saws to cut any wood and creat your own servo arms out of alumiunm or fiber glass board. If not maybe your dad or your friends dads have the proper tools you can use. If you are in any art class you can ask for help in airburshing, xeroxing some books tips on the subject out of the school libary and off the web. I used testors spray paint from the hobby shop here and thier paints for the air brush designs on both of my North Winds. If you dont have the airbursh and compressor maybe one of your friends would allow you to use thiers.
I suggest you use the Victoria Tigers design for putting the sails controle lines through. The plastic post thingy will just get riped out the first strong breeze you sail in. I can send pics of mine or you can look at Schmis posted that I took the idea from. Not sure about Matt's idea of the line coming up through the hatch cover. Was wondering if it interfers with access to the interior. How the lines are run inside from the hole in the hatch and the servo arms. Did you put in a second line for the jib sails Matt? Im would be concered that the line would pull the hatch cover off in a hard wind with the boat tilting hard over and filling with water to quick to save.
Alan I found it helpful to cut and past the ideas and suggestions as I read them through this post when I started. Cuse I would remember reading something and finding it again took awhile. But was worth copying them down so I didnt have to look for them a third time and have them on hand while I was building both Gibli and Santa Anna. Hell I'd copy all of Schmism's and Bobs post if I had to do it again.

YZFMattayo

Mr. Wolf,
The fairlead on the hatch cover was bobslr's idea, and it works great. The only drawback is taking the cover completely off. I fixed this by using snap hooks at the end of the main sheet so I can disconnect it and pull it through to remove the cover completely. I've had no problem with water intrusion after knock downs which are frequent here in Northern Michigan due to strong winds. In fact, I've had no water enter the boat yet and I've been sailing it quite a bit. My father's NW is stock, and needs to be turned upside down after a sail to drain the water. I think most of the water comes in through rudder push-rod hole and the sheet hole. I took bobslr's idea on that one too, and made a push-pull system with guides for the cables made out of antena tube protruding through the hull at a 25-30 degree angle so no water can get down. Works great and I must say bobslr is a wealth of knowledge about all these things. I did run a second sheet for the jib. I have one sheet coming off each side of my servo arm. It works very well, and I can adjust the sails independantly allowing me to go "wing to wing". I made my servo arm out of graphite, purchased at the hobby shop for 4 dollars and used my drummel tool to cut it. I can't believe how riigid and light it turned out. If you'd like, I'll post some pictures of the radio tray and servo arm set up. I'd post them now, but my boat is on my desk at work as a display piece. My wife keeps telling my I need to send a picture of it underway to the Livestrong foundation because it came out much better then she expected. I must say thanks to you as well, I stole some of your ideas after looking at pictures of your boat in the yahoo group. Thanks again to yourself and bobslr for providing instruction on how to make the NW better!

Matt

Mr. Wolf

Matt

Glade the hear the pics and posts earlier helped with your project. I'd love to see your servo lay out. Always looking for new ideas. The doule lines on the sail servo works great and would have probly used it if I had buildt the Victor sailboats first, but didn't. So ended up using the lay out discribed in the insturctions. It races great down wind wing to wing just as the Victor's. The ruders servo arm I made out of graphic bar and works great. The little hightech servo is attached to the rudder and is so much quicker then the S3801 sail servo. They snap the boats 180 degrees then when I had the S3800's I had in first. But the sail servo is fiberglass bar and probly as strong as aluminum and just as light. They have pulleys on the ends rather then feed through a drill hole.
I do get some leakage from the rudders controle rods and the sails controle line hole. I looked for months for a push rod sealent package. The smallest I could find where about the size of a dime. While I needed something about the size as the O on the computer key board. But servo and battery cradles keep keep the controls high and dry from what little does get in. Its not like I sail her in stormy weather. That I save for my Victor Tahoe II.

Mr. Wolf

Midget

Well...
Just thought I would give ever one an update on how my north wind is going...
I took it out for a 6 hour sail, A nice cold swim, and a sun tan.
Every think performed nicely.
As you can see in the pics, Ive just finished painting it Mat Black (not gloss...Thought
I would try something different.
while going to the hobby shop to get some more paint, they got some more alloy pole
in, so i bought that, because Id been meaning to make new booms, as the ones i made
were to short
I finally thought of a way to Attach the sail to the boom, while looking around the
house, I found some of my old push car toys. So i took the rubber wheels of them and
They fitted on the boom. And because there a tight fit they don't move when there on a
angle, This allowing me to adjust the sails with ease....And they make it look alot neater.
thats all so far...I still havn't made the jib boom yet, should have it done tomorrow

Cheers

Midget

Here we go, Now shes a lot more unfriendly and a lot easier to work with, LMAO
Also i updated the Main and Jib sheets, to make it a little more unfriendly

Hope to take her out this weekend for a sail...

cheers

Midget

And............................................HER E we have "Land Yacht"
I was just experimenting with the sail settings (so much easer to change LMAO)
Oh...And i got some pics

Reaching-




Close hall-



Down wind, with a goose neck-



Cheers

Spdsk8er

My Feedback: (3)

That looks awsome! One question. I hope to build a Model of a G-class cat, And saw your Vang. It looks simple and efective. Where did you get the long turnbuckle thing?

Midget

Thanks for the comment.
The turnbuckle thing came with the kit...there was a nother bit of plastic, but
I replaced it with that rope.

Cheers

Mr. Wolf

Nice pait job Midget. Let us know how she handles this season down under.

Mr. Wolf

I know this really isn't a NW post, but wanted to remind everyone that the America's cup races are being held this year in Velincia, Spain. Here are two scheldules for the races.


[link=http://www.americascup.com/multimedia/docs/2006/10/calendar_2007_media.pdf]The 32nd America's Cup Adobe verison[/link]

[link=http://www.americascup.com/multimedia/images/img_traitees/2006/10/calendar-2007-media.gif]The 32nd America's Cup schedule page[/link]

pjesus

Hi guys.

Just heard of this thread from the Yahoo Group and came to see what was happening

I bought my NW36 about 5 ou 6 years ago, gave her a crappy paintjob and sailed every once in a while in all kinds of water (even salty one).

So some months ago I decided to give her a remake:
The electronics were given a new box (stiffer, more accessible).
New paintjob with custom decals
New handmade fittings
New lid closing system
...

Unfortunately in the re-inauguration I managed to break both the rudder and the keel, I'm in the process of building new ones in fiberglass.

Next to go (right after I finish the Micro Magic), new booms and probably sails.

Some pics...













Cheers,

Tiago

schmism

long time no visit

im still hear... still got my boat....

had many things change in the past year+ so i havnt had much time to sail her..... but tis winter slow time, with decent wind so ive been itching to get her back on the water.... figured id pop in and see how the old thread is doing....

mgmarty

You guys are nuts! [&:] I bought this boat 6 or 7 years ago for fun with my daughter. It has been a great boat, stock, right out of the box. I wouldnt change a thing about it. Then I broke my mast crane in a move, and I do a search to find a replacement part and run into you guys! [X(] Man, Midget and Pjesus have me running for my paint sprayer and masking tape, this boat could look really good! Let alone all the mods you guys have done to the radio box and etc... Wow, I will be back and I will post some pics when able. Just what I needed, another winter project!! [[X(]

pjesus

Something similar happened to me. Boat almost untouched until I saw what some guys were doing to theirs

Mr. Wolf

Great to see you again Schiem. Shake the dust off of you boat and great her out on the water again.
That paint job is alsome Pjeuse. It must get lots of complents around the lake.
Can't Wait to see your new pictures when you start the renavations on your boat Mgmarty. Winter is the best time to do these projects.

artrob40

Thank you, thank you all. I purchased a Northwind 36 - as my first RC sailboat. I used to sail real boats on the ocean many years ago and now that I am retired.. I decided to buy a RC boat and try my hand at a little sailing - retired style.

Thank you all for the great information. I read everything.. Looked closely at the plans. and hopefully everything will work ok.. once the water here converts from ice to something more normal for sailing.

I took advice and strengthened the radio box. I used 1/4" basswood and 1/8 inch basswood - appeared to work great. I also re-inforced the key sail parts ( main and jib boom) with fiberglass. Also the keel weight and keel with fiberglass.

I painted it nicely using advice from all.. So I hope it doesn't sink the first time out. Thanks again for everyone. Great information from schmism, dr2, bobslr, Mr. Wolf, Pecos45, fishy2k8 and many others.

artrob40