ISIRC10, your hovercraft is looking real impressive. I hope it all works out as planned. You have started me thinking about building one. Hope you have it running soon. Has Little Sis seen Ken since his operation? I hope she has a better sense of humor than my sisters did. Good luck with it and keep us posted. Dennis

Hope you used a general anesthetic during the amputation..I assure you air boat or not he misses them...hey what ya call a quad amputee in a pile of leaves????????RUSSELL
and the same guy swimming????? BOB..ok nuff stand up...the build looks great GOOD JOB....now you have me thinking about building one think ill have to nitro power it though couple tigre g90s should do fine......maybee a nitro ducted fan for forward propulsion anway nice thread and again good job

LOL, thanks for the comments everybody!
Yes, my sister was pretty shocked when she saw Ken, but then I explained that it was a necessary evil and that it wouldn't look so bad when he was actually moving. My mom is still unconvinced

Not much building this past weekend - just a lot of prepping and painting! Let me tell you, I am very pleased with the Krylon paints that I just bought. I usualy use Rust-Oleum, which are about eight-ten bucks a can, while these krylon cans only cost me 2 dollars each! Their spray nozzle is 100% better than the crap rust-oleum puts on their cans, and the paint dries in record time (about 15 mins compared to 45 for R.O.). I also like how smooth it lays down, even with an impatient painter like me who likes to spray two heavy coats instead of four light ones

On thing that I did build was a switch that controlled my lift motors. This is operated by the steering servo, which shuts off and turns on the fans at the extreme points in its rotation. If this gets annoying when I am running it, I can just take that switch and flip it so I can turn it on/off manualy. After testing my mechanism (it was successful and I am happy with it) I hooked up the forward motor and noticed a serious dropoff in the performance of the fans - DUH! I should have thought of this before but I never really got to it. The combined amp draw was more than the Nimh battery could provide so performance dropped.What was my solution? Drop in a lipo of course! After that treatment, there was no visible change in performance whether I was on or off throttle. Also, the craft is quite a bit lighter due to the removal of the Nimh brick... now it is slightly imbalanced as the back sags under the weight of the motor and the front raises and starts loosing air. To remedy this, I ended up moving the lipo as far forward as I could, and that helped a tad but not enough... I will see how I will solve this (add weight to the front, or make the back lighter) I did some test runs around the house and the craft can moveout fairly quickly and easily went over 1/2" obstacles (one of which happened to be my sleeping cat's tail - he was slightly perturbed). Smooth floors were the best ground to go over, yet the hovercraft could even master the coarse 1/2" carpet in the living room when it was at speed. Still no steering, so I did have a few crashes when I got trigger happy, but the craft is very strong and suffered no damage.

on a side note - when I painted the top of the hull white, I only masked the first inch of the skirt and tucked the rest under. That was a slight mistake as there is now a line of overspray on it and it is not coming off - however, I don't really mind as it looks kinda cool IMO. That is the one flaw of the weekend (aside from the time when I ran the propeller without the stand bolted down and added some black marks to the paint )

You Sir, are a modeling genius.

well, that may be a bit too far... LOL, I can't even drive yet!

I just have a lot of time on my hands (the one TV that we have in the house is constantly hogged by my sister and her silly "hannah montana" crap)
and I also have a workshop in the basement - a privelidge that not many kids have.

BTW, I am working on the seat for Ken right now... he seems to be complaining about a sore back lately

Wait until she finds "Secret life of the American teenager" YUK! my daughter HAS to watch it, or she'll just die! LOL

I second Crispyspa's statement. Your hovercraft is looking great. Can't wait for the video of it in operation. Are you sure Ken is complaining about his back and not his involuntary leg operation? Dennis

Ya dude wheres the video???? and no joke what you did to make those fans was impressive I dont care how old you are that was great work...you are working on skills that will serve you well as you go through life..and Im glad to see it so many people want the fast way out thats why we see so mnay RTR products now adays nobody wants to use there head and there hands anymore. and to see a young person like you do these things is incredible to me ...KEEP IT UP PLEASE...and please keep us informed on all youre projects even if it involves cutting the legs of your sisters ken doll[sm=omg_smile.gif]..I new a kid worked in the same shop with me he was like you always drawing cars and we worked in a hot rod shop well now he is a designer for GM.so who knows where the hovercraft project may take ya..and again great job....have funnn and take care

Hold ya horses there mates! I know im on the home stretch but shes not done yet!
looks like we have another member here building a hovercraft - I must be doing something right then eh? Well, here is all I got done so far, which may not look like a lot but things are getting very tedious at this stage. For all of you Ken lovers/sympathizers... he is completely happy now that he has a chair - not only that, he has purple oakleys and a seatbelt. Ken is officialy a PIMP! The hatch that he is glued to is held shut by a pair of strong magnets on one end and Ken's legs on the other. Right behind that I have started making the rear fan cover. This one is going to have every ounce of weight shaved off in order to help with the ballancing issues. As you can see, I have sanded off much of the pine supports and am now waiting to skin it and add vents. Other than that, I have to paint the center section and the outside of the forward thrust duct. Then there is the whole tripple rudder setup that has to be done... oh well... there is a Russian proverb that my mom always tells me, "eyes may be intimidated, while hands chip away" Time to start working! Expect another update soon.

I told that other guy starting a hovercraft to come check out your build because you have answered all his questions here..anyway yep I thought you were done with it im glad I get to see more but I also know your ready to get it out and have some fun..
Well take care and im looking forward to seeing more

Yeah, thanks srw1960! I saw that in his thread... hopefully he goes through with his build as these vehicles are quite curious contraptions!
about getting the hovercraft done... I am inadvertedly stalling the building of the rudders. I don't know why, I guess I am a bit aprehensive about them, or maybe I just don't want to undertake a job that will take more than a day (I want to make them all at once so they are all identical)
Meanwhile, I have not been sitting on my laurels, doing some painting. Instead of making the vents in the shape of slots in the rear cover I went with a mesh type covering. It is aluminum with a thin rubber coating. Now that I have painted the center section, I guess that there can be no more delaying of the inevitable... time to make those rudders that I have avoided.

I can almost feel it now... 27 days ago, she was a bunch of measurements on an index card, and now she is a working (almost) hovercraft! What shall I name her????? Ken's Wheelchair? I don't know... any suggestions?
I am getting excited just thinking about running it! I have a brushless system ready as well - but I may want to stick to scale speeds right now

Looks great, can't wait to see it on the water.

Don, your comment was actually VERY important!

Thank you so much for reminding me... I had completely forgotten to do any "tub tests" with the hovercraft in earlier stages of the build and now I reealized that I had to test it NOW for me to be able to adjust anything. I filled the tub and plopped her in, without the skirt inflated she settled with about an inch to spare (that is a 3/4" draft). then I fired up the lift fans with a flick of the rudders (which still don't exist) and to my great relief she rose and settled as if she was on land! going forward, she does seem to push a fairly large bow wake, but I did not have enough room to get her out on plane (Hovercraft get on plane when they overcome the depression that the air cussion makes in the surface of the water). This is also known as "getting over the hump". I took her out of the tub after about five minutes of hovering and checked for leaks. The bottom of the skirt seemed to have absorbed a bit of water, but this was not critical. There also seems to be a minute leak in one of my fan ducts, but I may just jeave that alone - it would be critical only if the craft lost power and floated around for about two hours... I will make damn sure that such a situation never becomes reality

one step closer to completion... another test out of the way! What a great feeling!

Easy there!!! wheel chair is a 4 letter word to me.....Im glad the float test was sucesfull..and why so afraid of the rudders???? just rough cut the wood stack all the wood and put the piece with the cut outline on it on top and get busy..that way all of them match

These are what im using on my ducted fan build and they were easy to do ...well keep up the good work..

yeah... I'm not very good at naming the stuff that I built... my predator outrigger is currently called the "lobster boat"... not because it sinks...

about the rudders... it's not about the actual cuts... I have two shorter rudders and a tall center one. For me, the problems usualy start when I make the hinges and connecting rods... I can never get those distances right...

well, I am going to the Delaware river today (again) with family and friends... Guess I will have to bring one of my functioning boats with me (the lobster boat). I will get started on the rudders tomorow. I promise.

I used some neat little plastic hinges used on airplanes they offset the rudders enough so that I didnt have to cut the leading edges of the rudders....easy to install I put the rudders up against the mounts on the back of the cowl pencil marked where the hinges needed to be and drilled 3/32 holes and just push them in.ill snap a pic of em tomorrow and post them for ya..

ahhh... see, the nearest hobby store doesn't have any of that stuff, its a car place with a bit of helis.... I could order them from tower but I figure I will just make them myself. I may have come up with a suitable name:

HoverKen

or I guess I should just finish it and see what people's first take on it is... yeah, I'll do that!

Do you have any antenna tube or pushrod tubing?
Works grate for making your own hinges with a bit of push rod or stiff wire
- Just cut to length then cut each end off
- fasten the ends to craft and attach the middle to rudder
- put wire or push rod down the tubes
- bend or secure the end so it won’t slide out
If you are worried about weight you could use foam rudders taped to the tube, it’s not vary durable but vary simple to fix and vary light.

OK email me your addy and ill drop a few of these in the mail to ya..dont spend all day trying to make hinges..there was a bunch of em in the package and I wont use all of em and id rather see em get used instead of colecting dust....lobster boat???cause its red perhaps??? good lookin rigger hows it run?? well have funnn and take care

Thank you all for your kind suggestions and offers. srw1960 - I think that you better save those hinges for your upcoming hovercraft project... you are gonna need them!
I was not able to post my progress today because I had a lot of stuff on my hands... and I pulled my hamstring muscle a bit during the weekend. However, I was able to make the rudders on Sunday, and boy did they turn out great! (IMHO) They are very smooth and easy to turn yet they don't woble at all. They have 160 degrees of rotation before any binding occurs and I don't think that I even need that much. They are all removeable and can be fixed easily, and weigh slightly less than an ounce all together. I will add pictures and a description of the build process in the next post - my camera battery needs to charge.There is a minor down side to the new rudder instalation - I have to change my lift fan switch location, but I foresaw that problem and only tacked the switch on with a bit of CA when I installed it. I guess I will have to make a clever linkage for this one.

about the lobster boat - my friends call it the lobster boat because with its "unique" cover and sponsons, she resembles a lobster... and she used to be a slow one at that. That was before I put a BL and Lipo in it. On Saturday I brought her to the river with me and drove around. I still need to sort out my COG and turn fin, as she is slightly unbalanced, but even with that, she Gps'd at 32 mph in a calm pool. If you like, you can see the thread in the electrics section (predator outrigger build)

Well, this is the second time I am posting this... stinkin proxy server timed out!

Attached are the pictures that I promised. The rudders are made out of 1/8" plastic (cut from a sign that my Dad brought from his work) and they are connected buy a pushrod out of the same material. These rudders are attached to the craft by hinges made out of 1/4" square pine blocks that are epoxied to the three supports that I installed previously. I used old aluminum bicycle spokes as they allready have threads on one end to hold everything together. I carefully drilled holes into the rudders and screwed the spokes in until theey were in all the way. Then I trimmed and bent them into an elbow so I would be eable to remove then if I ever needed to with ease. The rudder to servo linkage is also a spoke, however I used the other end, which is bent at a 90 degree angle that stops it from falling out of the arm. I make the arm out of aluminum angle, whith varying mounting holes if I ever needed more or less deflection. After that, it was time for testing.

It had been pouring outside all day so I was limited to indoor running. The speed was more than I needed in an enclosed space, so I think I may need to add a rubber bumper too keep the walls in my room intact. Every turn was a power slide until I pegged the throtle and countersteered, but soon I got the hang of it. This thing is so fun to drive once you get used to it. Now I need to stop messing around with it and get back to work. Ken still needs a way to control his hovercraft, and the OCD in me is pestering me about the section of deck that has still not been painted. Once it stops raining, I will go outside and take some video. So far, the top speed is about 10mph, but I am happy with it. This thing rocks! you guys don't know how satisfied/relieved I am that it works as I expected it to.

BTW, I have a name for her... Electric Slide! (its an electric and every turn is a slide )

Looks good guess you didnt need em after all...thats ok betcha I use em on somethin..

Pretty impressive build ISIRC10. It is hard to beat the feeling you get when you design and build your own project. Looking forward to the video. Dennis

Does your little brother know you swiped the spokes from his bike?

Great job on the build.

I'm looking forward to thise videos as well.