WW2 CA class destroyer

[Tribute]

To open this log I will start with a little of my background.
I am building a Radio Controlled CA class destroyer as she would have been fitted out in WW2.
This build is intended to be a tribute to my Father who served in the Royal Navy in 1944-45.
I have very little model building experience,what little there is, is mainly a limited number of plastic kits that I built as a kid.
Of those limited plastic kits many were not totally completed such as paint and decals.
I have no experience at all with radio controlled models.
At the moment I am converting a spare room that used to be filled with aquariums and fish related gear into a modelling room where I can work on the vessel, store the parts and materials and pin some of the 1/192 plans that have been enlarged and printed in 1/72 scale to the walls.

 

[Jimsky]

Welcome aboard SOS, Tribute. It is great to have you with us!

 

[Herman]

Hi Mark. Good to see you start your own build log. To build a model as a tribute to your father makes it extra special. I inherited the book "De 7 Provinciën" from my father what later inspired me to start modeling.
In your introduction you wrote it might be the only model you will build, but who knows.
I wish you lots of fun building this WW2 destroyer.

 

[swampdweller126]

Hello and welcome to the forum

 

[Tribute]

Thank you for the welcome.
At last I have a fairly decent computer back on line!
I have a couple of photos of where the hull is at now, I've just resin(ed) in the propeller tube supports,the tubes to hull and the rudder tube has had some reinforcing done to it.

 

[Tribute]

As the holes I made to take the supports and tubes were a little too big, I tried using plasticine to block up the holes on the underside to stop the resin falling through.
It seems to have worked,it's the yellow stuff in the photos.
I originally bought the hull from APS models here in Australia as a CA class hull,but after I started collecting photos of CA class destroyers I noticed a (very slight) curve in the bow, and also the anchor hawses were too far forward.
I tried to straighten the bow with Auto body putty (bondo?) but it wasn't very successful so that's a 'rework' area.
In the last photo is an idea i had to get some straightness into the bow,by using a strip of brass angle which I can then fill behind with AK putty which I believe is similar to Milliput.
Having the brass strip on the bow will also hopefully protect it from the 'dockside' when I take it for a sail.

 

[Tribute]

Some of the previous work I've done on the hull is the Bilge Keels.
These are part of the reason it's taken me so long to get to where I am now, I think I've done them at least 4 times, in different materials and reworks.
I've now accepted the fact that they are probably as good as I'm ever going to get them, also who's going to see them when they're underwater right?
The hull is 155cm in length.

 

[Bryian]

Thats a beauty, well done so far.

 

[Tribute]

For the last 6 weeks I have been putting the RC gear I bought back in 2017 together and started testing what I had. I bought a servo tester to test the rudder servo,wired that up and only managed to get a continuous buzzer noise and no movement from the servo. Well,it was a cheap tester...ordered another tester, connected that up and same thing. Ordered another tester and another servo and when they arrived,connected them up and no problem. So now I have 3 servo testers and a dead servo but the good news out of that was finding the dead servo before it went on the water. I think the 3 testers and new servo were actually cheaper combined than the old servo was!
The tiller post was a bit too short to cut a key way into, so I ordered another rudder which is lighter than the old one,has a longer shaft and has a tighter clearance to the rudder post support.
I've put on one quick coat of single pack primer and have started marking out the position for the repositioned anchor hawses. I couldn't really find any ready made hawse outlets so I am going to use water outIets which are a similar shape to the outlets. It was difficult to find photos of the actual outlets because in all of the photos the anchors are 'up' and obscuring the view of the outlets.
When I bought the servo testers the instructions said they could be used to test the ESCs as well, so after wiring up the motors via a 0-20 ammeter I ran the motors to get a no-load reading and found the Starboard motor running at 0.36A and the Port motor at 0.74A. The onIy data I could find for the motors quotes 1.83A in the water. I'm not sure having one motor running at twice the current draw is something I can ignore so a pair of new motors could be on the cards. If any RC guys would like to give an opinion on this, it would be much appreciated.