Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

[JWLaRue]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

Jeff,

I'm bringing some fun stuff I've printed to the April meeting so you can look and touch.

e.

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Excellent! Show 'n Tell time!

-Jeff

[eckloss]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

I like show and tell. As long as you stay seated and use your inside voices.

e.

[eckloss]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

As much as I hate it, i went ahead and did one side of the upper hull. Not looking forward to the 64 or 68 on the lower hull



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[eckloss]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

Upper flood vents finished.



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[PaulC]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

Really looks great!

[eckloss]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

Thank you, Paul. Much appreciated.

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[salmon]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

What a thrill it is for me to see you "back in the saddle" again! Great work sir?

[eckloss]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

Well thank you, sir!

[eckloss]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

Did I mention I'm not a rivet-counter?

Time to do the flood vents on the lower hull. Now, I have a good idea of where they are located, shape, orientation, and number. But in all the fun runs and regattas I've been to, I've never once seen someone look at the underside of a boat. The stress, blistered fingers, anger and frustration that comes with digging out 64 holes for me does not outweigh the need to know they are there as they should be. With that frame of mind, I simply cut a series of holes in the lower hull. Good enough. Done. Took all of 10 minutes. So there



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[eckloss]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

Now it's time to get into the real meat and potatoes of this boat.

Step 1: cutting the upper hull.

The upper hull was cut a few inches forward of where the upper rudder begins. This tail section will be joined to the lower hull, and then the indexing lip can be installed. The cut doesn't have to be perfect.... I will fill in the ,material that was lost in cutting once the indexing lip is in place.



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[eckloss]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

Bonding the upper stern to the lower hull half:

First, the upper stern section was tack glued to the lower hull with CA.




Then the seam was covered with blue painter's tape, being careful to make sure there are no areas that could leak resin through.




Two strips of cloth tape were cut to bond the hull halves together.




Epoxy resin was mixed and the cloth tape was saturated.




When I do stern sections like this I always mix up some extra resin, and pour it into the very tail of the boat, and prop the boat up so it settles to the very stern. This gives me a nice solid mass to drill the prop shaft hole through and help keep the shaft aligned and straight.



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[eckloss]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

Making the WTC saddles:

As I said in the beginning, the hull has warped only 1/8 of an inch. The upper hull is wider than the lower hull by this amount. The easiest way to correct this is really killing two birds with one stone: use the WTC saddles to push out the lower hull 1/16" on each side.

I always use Garolite for my saddles. It is an epoxy glass sheet that is highly compressed. This stuff DOES NOT BEND. Which makes it perfect for applications in the hull that give structural rigidity.

I started by measuring the ID of the Akula: the nominal diameter is 6 7/8 inches. Using a compass sized to 3 7/16 inches (the radius of the desired size of the hull), I marked out on a sheet of Garolite four saddles, then marked in another radius for the WTC itself to sit in. In this case, I'm using an OTW cylinder, which has an outside diameter of 110mm.




The saddles were rough cut with a Dremel and a metal cutting wheel. This is tough stuff to cut through!




Finally, I sanded the edges into shape with a drum sander on a drill press.




Now you can see apx where the saddles will sit. Before I can bond them into the hull I need to attach the indexing strips.






After I looked at this setup for a bit it occurred to me that I didn't leave room for the battery compartment, which is its own 2.5" cylinder that will sit forward of the WTC. I'll be taking out the foremost saddle and replacing it with two saddles cut to seat the battery compartment.

more later

e.

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[eckloss]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

Is anybody actually reading this or am I boring everyone

[eckloss]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

Port and starboard indexing strips going on....



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[JWLaRue]

Re: Matt Thor 60" 1/72 Scale Akula II

Is anybody actually reading this or am I boring everyone

I'm keeping an eye on your progress!

-Jeff