Plating Page 2

Created by James Tuxbury

This page is the present construction project, More to come as the hull progresses

This page will deal with the forward half of the hull which is the most difficult because of the compound curves.
Much smaller plates are used because the larger pieces will not conform. In the photo to the upper right you can see
where I am adding strakes to the vertical frames later I will come back and fair the lines with filler pieces of
balsa or plywood.

In the picture at left you can see my clamping techniques, I start by glueing the plate to the keel and after the
glue is dried I pull the plate in place and glue it while holding the plate in place. I use medium acting zap glue and spritz
with accelerator, then clamp to hold in place. Below you can see where I made a mistake and did not get the plywood close
enough to the frame so I added a thin piece of plywood to the area and feathered it in.

In the picture with the clamps I screwed a screw into the rib so that the clamps could have some place to clamp onto. This is a photo of Frigate 73.

In the last picture are the drive units that drive frigate 73. You can see the type of speed controls I use they are Tamaya mechanical
three speed controllers (LXKAL6 from Tower Hobbies) that come out of radio control cars. This is the speed control
I use in all of my ships and it can carry the load of three 12ah batteries. I have a 1ohm wirewound resistor
(the brown thing under the upper motor) that is switched in by two micro switchs one for each drive unit which gives me 3 lower
speeds, resulting in 6 speeds forward on each screw. There are also 6 speeds in reverse which is totally unecessary and never used.

James Tuxbury
450 So.Old Orchard Ave.
Webster Groves, Missouri 63119
jtuxbury@steeldecknavy.com

Steps in building your own screws.
Click on the image

This page is the present construction project, More to come as the hull progresses