Switching gears - ditching the Dumas PG-88 hull Options

[PaintChip]

Well I finally stopped the hectic life junk for a few hours last night and pulled my PG-88 hull down to work on it. I had managed to get the running hardware in and the RC gear setup and working. I figured I'd be relatively "safe" to epoxy the decks on since things were nice and neat.

I put the decks in place and let them dry (thank goodness for 5-minute epoxy) and put the hull on the temp stand I had crafted so that I could put the superstructure, turret, and 40mm mount on it to get an overview on how things looked. That's where things went from so-so to bad

The 40mm mount looked fine...level and nice. The superstructure looked so-so...it didn't "seat" quite right in the cutout of the deck...I figured I coild level it easy enough. Popped the turret into the hole I had drilled in the deck so that the shaft I put on the turret (so I can have it spin a bit off of a servo)...didn't look bad. Then I spun the model around so I could look down the beam from the bow to see how things lined up. My evil nemesis had returned! The first 8" or so of the bow were twisted up so that the starboard side of the bow was easily 3/4" higher than the port side. Once the deck got back to the point where the superstructure began it leveled off and was true.

So I started my search again for a premade fiberglass hull for the PG boats. The Scale Shipyard has one listed for $159..a 1:35 scale. I've got an e-mail inquiry in to get some ordering info. Looks like if they have them/can get them I'll scrap the Dumas hull and scavenge the RC gear and running hardware and start from scratch using the fiberglass hull. That way I can just worry about making decks and superstructures which should be easy

[PaintChip]

Got my wood order in...ordered it from National Balsa out of Mass. Came packaged really well

Last night I used some spray photo mount adhesive to fix my frame prints to stiff cardboard...cut the cardboard out to make templates. Used the templates to draw the frames on a few of the sheets of wood...I'll cut the frames out later this week

I am also building the model in 2 sections...from frame 0 to 111 and from frame 111 to 154. Frame 111 will be double-thickness but hopefully will allow me to get things just right...and if one section warps I don't have to rebuild the whole thing over again

I'm also not going for what I did the first round and try to have each plank fitted to the next...I'm going to start with some very thin strips of balsa (just wide enough to make it stable) and tack those to the frames to get the shape roughed in. Once I get the skeleton built then I'll fill in the plank "holes" with other strips to close the gaps but I'm not going to worry about trying to make the hull watertight just from the wood. Fiberglass will be the real shell and will smooth things out and make the hull watertight...hopefully...