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I recently saw a photo of a interesting way to maintain hull half alignments, it looked like saw teeth. What did they use as the material for this? And does anyone have a photo of it for some study?
Most folks make those alignment teeth from sheet fiberglass strips.
These strips can be made quite easily with fiberglass cloth and resin. I believe that most folks lay the hull on its side and cover it with several layers of waxed paper. The cloth and resin is layed up onto of the wax paper....the idea here is that the curvature of the hull will serve as a form to create that fiberglass strip with a curve to match the hull.
Once the resin cures, pull up the fiberglass strip....trim to fit.
SubCommittee member Matt Spade did an article on this in the SubCommittee Report in the some-what recent past.....
The Scale Shipyard's nuclear subs come with these index strips included, they are made to match the radius and contour of the hull.
I find that the strips are superior to molding in an index lip into the hull, as these are just on the lower half of the hull, there isn't much to keep the top half of the hull from spreading some and sliding down over the bottom half.
This can happen with both Polyester and Epoxy fiberglass hulls.
The modeler just needs to cut the stips in several pieces and then attach these to both the top and bottom halves of the hull, alternating as you go along the length of the hull, you can adjust where you put these to suit your internal installations if required.
W.L. Upshaw
W.L. Upshaw
The Scale Shipyard - Maker of the largest selection of quality large scale fiberglass model ship hulls, fittings and running gear.
SUPPLYING YOUR HOBBY IS NOT OUR HOBBY
Lee's got a point about a 'hull lip' that's only on one half of the hull....however, experience also tells us that using the alternating "sawteeth" method is not a panacea for the problem of hull spread.
Depending on the hull and the material used in making the hull, it *may* be necessary to add some transverse reinforcement (e.g. bulkheads) to prevent the spread.
Alternatively, a method that I think of as the "tab & pocket" will solve the problem too. The "tab" would be the same as an individual sawtooth....but instead of allowing it to just slide up inside the other hull half, the tab/tooth engages in a slot (or pocket) that prevents the other hull half from spreading.
I'm trying to do this with a Rocky Moutain Type XXI and the top of the hull has already done the spread. I'm trying to wrangle it back into shape without having to re-engineer the whole top half.
Your hull was contructed from epoxy by RMSS. You can get your hull back into shape by gently heating it up to the point at where it is uncomfortable to hold and pulling or pushing it past the point at which it needs to be in relation to the lower half. Either hold it until it air cools or run it under cold water. This is called a demold post cure. Your hull will have to get heated up past this point in order to move again on you. As Jeff LaRue pointed out, most correctly above, indexing lips molded in work exceptionally well for some materials and not as well with others. This is a simple fix with an epoxy hull.
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