norbique

Hi there!

A couple of weeks ago I posted a thread on Ezonemag about my latest work on this wooden boat, and just after coming here and seeing how much more traffic is going on RCU I decided to post my thread here also.

I wanted to post a thread on my latest works but never really had the time to do it.

I started building this electric race boat many years ago, before my Modeling club in town died. Than I took my tools and all other things home. I also took this boat home and put it on the top of the wardrobe in my room. It was sitting there for years and slowly getting covered with dust.

I don't know why but one day about a month ago I remembered it and took it off the wardrobe, blew the dust off and decided to finish it before the dust finishes it off.
As I found out the moisture in my room did some "great" job. As the boat is made of wood, the plywood absorbed the moisture and became beautifully wavy... something I have to correct for sure.

One other thing gave me motivation to continue working on this great boat was the following link: - http://www.vandamwoodcraft.com - that I found by chance. I am totally amazed of the beauty of these boats made by the Van Dam Wood Craft team. Simply the best crafted boats I have ever seen.

Here's a picture I took of the Thunder - that's the name of this quite simple, but great designed boat. The design was made by a friend of mine. He designed some other boats as well.

Next I'll post some pictures showing the process of building.

norbique

After I've discovered VanDamWoodCraft I've spent a lot of time looking at their web page, browsing the Production Photos section. I liked the way they are planking their Real-Life boats and decided to adopt the procedure with minor changes of course. I don't really need 3-4 layers of covering for the model boats, but this technique seemed to help me correct those wavy areas what the moisture created.

I used 1mm balsa wood to cut 20mm wide and 110mm long sheets and glued these sheets in 60 degrees on the original "wavy" sheeting. I used CA glue as it creates a non elastic bond -good for flattening weaves- and bonds in just a few seconds. After gluing I cut then sanded off the excess parts.

norbique

On the plan there were only 3 of these spacers drawn, but I decided to add 4 extra to make the boat more rigid.

The spacers are 3mm X 4mm balsa wood glued into the small gaps made in the plywood ribs.

norbique

Another pic showing all the spacers glued in place.

norbique

My next step was making the nose.
I was wondering about carving the nose out of one piece of pine wood as I did at my previous boat. But decided to make make it from balsa. I am using balsa wherever possible to make the boat as light as possible.

As I don't have as thick balsa as I needed, I glued some 3mm and 1mm balsa sheets together in 90 degrees correlating with each other. Like a 10 layer balsa plywood. I glued the balsa with CA glue to speed up the process.

After this was done I glued this balsa ply wood to the last (first counting form the front) rib of the boat with 30 min epoxy.

When the epoxy dried, I used a blade to cut off, carve most of the excess areas of the nose part. Than sanded the rest until the right form was achieved.

norbique

Here's how the boat looks now. I am trying to figure out where to place a service door on the top planking just over the gearbox for servicing. I have to design that before I can do the planking.

I haven't decided what gear ratio will I use.
The Prototype of the boat -made by the designer- uses 2:1 ratio with the Graupner Speed 500 Race 7,2V electric motor and 8 1800mAh NiCd Batteries and a 32mm 2 bladed racing carbon propeller.
This setup gives quite good speed -not measured- and about 13-15 minutes runtime. But the batteries get quite hot. Probably of the too high Amp draw. Maybe a slightly bigger gear ratio will help with this.

If anyone has a suggestion please write.

norbique

Unfortunately I can't post pictures about the process how I glued the ply wood 'cause I didn't have the camera at hand that time.
I used 2 layers of 0.8mm Mahogany and put 2mm balsa between them. Glued the layers with 20 minute epoxy and put some weight on it and let it cure.

After the gluing was done I've cut the pieces with a small saw (sorry don't know the English name).

Here's how it looks like:

norbique

The boat on the stander

norbique

I finished the planking of one side of the bottom of the boat, than measured it's weight again. Before planking it weighted about 190 grams. Now about 200.

Here's how it looks like now:

Doubledog

My Feedback: (48)

Thats the type of stuff I like to see.

Thank you very much for taking time to document your project & share it.

Motor: I'm pushing
BRUSHLESS

BRUSHLESS


(just messing with you)

norbique

Dear PHCM,

The Prototype of this boat made by it's designer a friend of mine used a Graupner SPEED 500 RACE 7,2V motor (the one with 21200 RPM @ 7,2V) with a 2:1 Gear reduction. Powered with one pack of 9,6V 1800mAh NiCd battery pack. The prop was a 2 bladed 32,5mm carbon racing propeller.

I plan to use the same motor but a bit higher gear ratio 2,5:1 as the original setup was a bit hard for the 500 motor to drive.
Of course these are just thoughts yet. I am not an expert nor have much experience, so If anyone has suggestions I would really appreciate it.
I have seen brushless setups and they are a the REAL THING for sure, but would not go into brushless as a brushless setup Motor + ESC are well over my budget.
The ESC I will use in this boat is a home made gadget I made a few years ago. I used it in another boat (the one on my avatar) with success. If someone is interested you can find the ESC construction details on the following page: http://toryu.netfirms.com/sc/

Doubledog

My Feedback: (48)

I notice it says you're in the Hungarian Plain...

I was in Taszar for a couple of months recently. Lots of snow & cold as could be but a fun assignment none the less. My wife & I have a friend that lives there also, so we're considering a small vacation this summer. Problem is, our baby is due in July but we still would like to see the country in the Summer. We hear its beautiful.

Getting back to the subject.
You built your own speed control? Thats good stuff. I understand what you mean about brushless being a little pricey. I'm going to buy a ROAR motor for my Blast & see how she does in the next week or so.

Check out this forum. These guys are the cream of the crop for fast electrics. Good folks also.

http://www.rumrunnerracing.com/

Just under the skull & cross bones, there's the forums.

norbique

Hello PHCM,

Where have you been exactly on the Tisza?
You're welcome here anytime and If you come and visit here this summer you coul maybe bring one of your boats and we could make a small racing on the Tisza

Congrats on the baby, I wish you and your wife all the best!

Thanks for the link I submitted the tread there also. But it's the last place, I will not post it anywhere else . It's posted at 3 places already.
I'll add some more pics to the thread this weekend hopefully.

Doubledog

My Feedback: (48)

Thank you for the offer. However, I don't think it would be right for me to run in such company as yourself. It seems as though it might be next year before we get to do any real travel but it would be a pleasure to meet you & see your rig

Getting off the subject of boats, do these guys look familiar? While visiting down town Taszar there was a fest taking place & I took a few photos.

We'll talk again.
Jamie

Doubledog

My Feedback: (48)

One more

norbique

This is quite off topic but I'll post it anyways.

Yes these guys seem familiar. They re called the Buso.
This goes back to the time when the Turkish invaded Hungary. Around the 17th Century.
As the Turkish were very superstitious and the Hungarians dressed into these sheep skin dresses to look like demons and scare the hell out of the Turkish by night.

crrcboatz

My Feedback: (34)

Although you call yourself a first timer at boat building I hardly think so. I have enjoyed your work and the step by step process. It has inspired me to build a wood boat. Your ideas of angling and layering balsa will certainly be a part of my plan as well. Well done and good luck on the remainder of the project. Keep it coming so we can keep up with your project.

Curt

norbique

Hello Curt,

I am glad you found my thread enjoyable, and it's good to hear that it inspired someone to make his or her own boat.

I don't remember calling myself a first time builder, and I excuse if I confused you or others. I started modeling when I was 7 by making wooden boats. Although I have made some smaller sailplanes too. First I built smaller boats without RC stuff just the motor a propeller and a switch. Than my First RC equipped boat was the one shown on my Avatar called "Miami". That one is also made of wood using a bit more complex building technique than on this one the "Thunder". Maybe I'll post a thread on that one too. Just to show how it looks like.

By the way I am working on the Miami also. I don't feel right when doing only one thing at a time I've cut larger holes where the windows were. I'm planing to put larger capacity Batteries inside, and put it in front of the motor for better balance. If I have the time on the weekend maybe I'll post another thread on the Miami. But I don't promise anything yet.

Regards,
Norbert

norbique

Hi!

After a short break I'm back again.

Unfortunately I had no time to work on the boat cause I had to help my father working on our new house. We were laying down pipes, making the central heating all weekend. Although I've done some more balsa planking last weekend.

Here are the latest pictures:

norbique

Here's another pic I draw yesterday:

norbique

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the big delay. I had other things to work on last weekend and had no time for boat building, but here are some more pics of my work from yesterday.

I was wondering a lot lately how to make the service hole above the motor and the gear-drive. I wanted to make the hull the way it could be opened when necessary. Here's what I figured out:

First I glued a piece of 3mm balsa under the spacers, than cut out the hole shown on the picture. Than cut off and sanded the excess parts (shortened) of the spacers.

norbique

The next step was to somehow strengthen the 3mm balsa frame of the servicing hole and also make two teeth that would prevent the door from falling into the boat.

I glued a layer of 2mm balsa between two 3mm balsa sheets than sanded it to the appropriate shape and rasped the place for the door holder teeth. The teeth are made of some harder wood to make them stronger. One of these parts is shown on the upper (right) part of the attached picture. I glued these parts under the balsa door frame both at front and at the back.

For sealing the door I found this rubber-foam thermal insulator (lower left corner) made for sealing doors and windows. It is soft and will hopefully waterproof the door.

norbique

I wasn't satisfied with the rigidity of the ribs holding the service door frame and glued two extra parts to the outer side of the ribs.

norbique

Here's the door in place.

norbique

Hello Everyone,

I have to share my happiness with you Last week I received a Triton charger from Troy at www.b-p-p.com.

I was looking for a charger that would charge most battery types currently in use by modelers. I was reading reviews, reports, and of course the user's opinion from these threads of different Chargers and found the Triton to be the best for my needs.
I found the charger at Tower Hobbies, but could not buy it online because the lack of a Credit Card. For those in the US this may seem unbelievable, but here in my dusty homeland it is pretty hard to apply for one. As I don't have a job (still studying) I can't get one - this simple it is.

Finally I got in contact with Troy through Ezone and after sent him the money over Western Union. He sent the package UPS Secured and payed the shipping costs!

The charger came with alligator clips that came handy 'cause I used it from a car battery. I've been playing with the Triton last weekend and found it very easy to control. Cycled my cells all weekend and haven't worked on the Thunder - SORRY :disappoin

I don't have any relation to Troy or B-P-P of any kind, I just feel I have to say a HUGE Thanks to him over the forum.

Regards,
Norbert