Project X Build Log - Belated

[Kmot]

I first hinted about Project X here, when I posted these two teaser photos:

Link (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10199241&postcount=2130)

I had a leftover sheetboat hull and was wondering what to do with it. Then I thought it might be interesting to convert it into a powered boat.

Then an incident at Lake Balboa started the process of making a 'fantasy' boat that would be a "sheetboat hunter-killer".

Now that Project X is finished and has been revealed, I thought it might be interesting to some of you to see how it evolved from a Mini Soling sailboat into the monster boat known as Project X. Since some of you have encouraged me to do so I am happy to oblige. More pictures! :D

[Kmot]

I looked real hard at the keel, and how it was apparently installed. I then figured out it had two pieces of wood sandwiching another. So I was able to chisel those two outer pieces off and then remove the keel without damaging the hull.

The top of the keel looked as if the entire assembly was solidly filled with epoxy. NOT!!!

When I placed it on my bandsaw to cut the keel in half, out poured a bazillion trillion million micro lead balls all over my shop floor and out the door.... :censored:

[Kmot]

The next period entailed lots of filling and sanding of the hull to make it ship shape.

[Kmot]

The next phase was gluing the keel back into place and attempting to fair the keel to the hull. This was a learning phase for me, and I was learning that Bondo glazing putty is not good for anything other than the lightest touch-up spots. When applied thick it cracks badly. I eventually started using epoxy mixed with micro balloons.

[Kmot]

Continued hull prep. Moved over to using the epoxy/microballoon mix.

[Kmot]

The filling and sanding finally came to an end. The hull was sparyed with primer, and it was starting to look good again.

While working on the motors and gear train, I discovered the plastic Graupner used was very soft and brittle and it cracked under the stress of lightly snugging the screws. I glued it to reinforce the cracked areas.

You may recognize some of the photos as having been seen before. That is because the "Project X" teaser photos were all just crops of regular photos, with the color removed and a poster type finish applied to them. ;)

[AndyKunz]

Tom,

Jr. Branham sent me some green automotive putty a while ago that blows away Bondo. It would do what you needed - maybe on the next project. I forget the name but I'm sure you could ask him. It was a bit pricier than Bondo but well worth it.

Andy

[Aerominded]

Wow, Kmot! A lot of effort went in to getting it to that point! Nice work! :)

[Kmot]

The Graupner motor and geardrive combos have a slightly angled bottom to their bases. When bolted together, the propshafts were not aligned parallel. So I added a metal shim and then bolted them together.

I went to Wally World looking for a figurine and found the green guy. I now had a driver. :D

[Kmot]

Everything is an extremely tight fit in this boat. And when you have large stubby hands and fingers it ain't easy to work in tight spots! :rolleyes:

I installed the motor system into the hull, and using a syringe with a silicone tubing extension I reached waaaaay into the stern and poured the epoxy over the stuffing tubes. I used tie-wraps to secure the gearbox housings to the wood motor mount.

To install the rudder horn, I had to make a custom horn from a model airplane bellcrank, and then use a hemostat to reach in and secure it to the top of the rudder post.

I never expected I would ever have to pull a motor out of this thing. Both units were brand new in the box before I installed them in this hull.

Well guess what? In the first testing in the pool, one of the motors burned up. ALso, scored the prop shaft and stuffing tube. I discovered the motor was at fault due to a manufactuing defect. The armature was out of round. It was rubbing one of the magnets inside the can. The out of round condition caused the propshaft and stuffing tube to score and gall each other.

Did I say it was a tight fit? You should have seen how tight a squeeze it was to get a motor out of there without taking apart the entire assembly. But I did it. It was impossible to find another Graupner Speed 600 8.4V bushed motor anyhere at the online retailers. I put out a wanted ad and fortunately another RCG member had a NIB motor he sold me so I was back in business.

The next test in the water went well. Too well....... :p

[Kmot]

So, with both motors working as they should, the boat had power. Way too much power, because under full throttle the hull would rise up toward the sky, and then fall and roll over to the right. It was basically uncontrollable. Something had to be done, and I came up with the idea to use outriggers.

Nothing was available commercially, so I had to make them from scratch. I looked around my shop and saw a piece of styrofoam flotation that I had removed from my Atlantic tug hull. The edges of this piece of foam looked like they would work as outriggers! So I cut the edges off and started making my pontoons.

While creating this fantasy boat, I had to keep in mind that it would have been built by a 'monster creature' and so would not have been built with exacting dimensions and precision. Uneven surfaces, non-symmetrical parts, etc would be the norm. Actually, this suits my building style to a "T" because I basically build like a dumb monster. :p

[Kmot]

I did some trimming of the epoxy around the tubes and then painted the ponoons in primer. I wanted to keep it light at the rear and used aluminum and carbon fiber tubes. I placed them where I thought would give then best advantage to control stern squat as well as rolling trendency. I taped them in place and tested the boat in the pool. It completely solved the problem of rising up and falling over. Instead it accelerated brutally and turned like a Formula 1 racer. I liked it! :D

[Kmot]

Jr. Branham sent me some green automotive putty a while ago that blows away Bondo.

Thanks Andy!

Wow, Kmot! A lot of effort went in to getting it to that point! Nice work!

Thanks Aero!

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

Tom,

Great build up shots.
Perfect launch timing for Halloween... :)

[Hoghappy]

You get a "A" for creativeness! :D

I will be very curious about how those pontoons work. I would l think they might work ok at slower speeds...but at high speeds if they catch a wave wrong?

Hey...you got any more info on the green putty? Does it smell better than bondo?

[Kmot]

Thank you Aimee.

Crash: The pontoons work fantastic, now. Initially, not so. More info in next postings.

[Kmot]

The outrigger pontoons had a problem. One or the other (the port side in particular) would drag its nose and then rotate upside down. This would cause tremendous drag and it would never right itself again. I tried limiting the ability to rotate by installing chains from the tip of the pontoon to the main hull. But the force of the pontoon wanting to rotate broke the chain. So my idea of free floating 360° rotating pontoons was a flop. And chaining them was a flop. I eventually solved the problem by drilling and pinning the pontoons to the carbon fiber rod. They still have some flexibility, a number of degrees fore and aft but basically they are fixed. I left the chains, because it looked sort of "monster'ish". Also, if the carbon fiber rod ever breaks (doubtful) or the hitch pin pops out, the chain will prevent the pontoon from being lost.

I felt the rear of the boat looked rather boring. I wanted to make it more interesting and the idea of adding an airplane fin/rudder came to mind. I then figured the pontoons should have matching fins as well. I looked on the internet for pictures of airplane rudders and found a nice one. I then resized the image to what I wanted and printed them out. Then I glued them to cardboard and trial fitted the various sizes to the boat parts until I was happy with it.

Once I had the sizes I wanted, I cut balsa wood pieces and made the fins. Then I sealed and fiberglassed them.

[Kmot]

I glued the fins to the pontoons and the main hull. I liked how it turned out.

I wanted the Hulk to be even more mean and menacing than he was already. I figured he needed a weapon. A big old fashioned medieval skull crusher would work, I thought. :p

So I glued some popsicle sticks together, making sure the wood color was different to get that laminated look. Then I "machined" it in my cordless drill using a Permagrit sanding bar.

BTW, sometime during this period I had removed the plastic sandwich bags stuffed with foam peanuts in the bow, through a small hole in the forward bulkead. I then filled the bow with NHP two part expanding foam. Thanks to woodybob for the tip on the NHP.

Looking at the project as it was so far, I was digging it. But the bow needed something to puncture sheetboats with.

Hmmm.........

[der kapitan]

Tom, that boat is ugly enough to haunt anybody's workshop---. :eek:

Umi is right about the launching date being timely, though---. ;)

[Kmot]

I searched the internet for a menacing looking bowsprit and found this awesome fantasy knife. But it was way too large for my boat so I did not buy it. I ended up making 'cutting blades' out of styrene using this fantasy knife as my inspiration. After making the horizontal blades I still felt it needed something extra. So I then made the vertical cutting blade.

[Tugboat Andy]

LOL - that looks like the bow of the Nautilus. Watching with interest KMOT. This looks like fun. :)

[Aerominded]

Me too! :)

[tsenecal]

it looks like a marine version of a "Mad Max - Road Warrior" vehicle...

[der kapitan]

Tom, you may have started a fantasy craze here without realizing it---. ;)

Some of these guys are thinking some wierd and crazy thoughts already---. :eek:

And so am I---. :D

[Kmot]

Thanks Karl.

After a three week break from working on this boat, to take a vacation to Missouri and also ride a riverboat I got back to it. Only thing was, I had developed a vertigo problem while away on vacation. Called BPV, or Benign Positional Vertigo. It means I was getting dizzy without warning. I eventually got some medicine which helped, but it made me constantly tired and not so clear headed. So I got sloppy. Notice the epoxy job on the tube that mounts the sponsons. I just poured the epoxy all over it, because I was not clear headed. Oh well, I am sure that his how Mr Green would have done it... :rolleyes:

Anyways, after that I started putting things together, and just looking at it and trying to visualize if there was anything more I wanted to do to the boat.

[Kmot]

I sprayed the cutting plates with primer and then did another full coat on the entire hull.

While shopping at Lowes, I was looking at the color chips in the paint department. I know I wanted a darkish color, but was not sure what. I saw what I liked and had them make up a "sample can". 4 oz of paint for $3.99 in any color you want. Killer deal. The color is called "Black Raisin".

I figured the Hulkster and his cronies probably didn't have any spray equipment and would have brushed on the paint. So that is what I did. Gives it a more home made look to the finish.

I had a bunch of accessories that I had purchased a year ago, to add to the Kings Ransom pirate ship but never got around to it. So I added some of them to the SBHK. Specifically the stacked skulls, the pirate skeleton at the read of the boat, the snakes and the rats.

[Kmot]

So now Project X is complete. It has been a really fun build. And I want to thank you all for playing along and putting up with the teaser photos in the Hansen thread. :D

Here are all the various Project X teaser photos I made. Not all of them were posted.

[avidjeepr]

Project "X" needs a name, now that's it's been revealed. :cool:

[Predreadnut]

Kmot, I thought this might be of some interest to you.

[Kmot]

Uh..........

Yeah, that's pretty scary looking! lol... :p

[pkboo]

Tom thanx for keeping the kid in us boys (sorry Umi!) alive :D Now we want to see boardings and destruction Arrrgh. Boo

[pick013]

Hey Kmot, where'd ya get the awesome sharks teeth from? Or did you hand paint them?

I'm thinking I want a set of shark's teeth on the front end of my PT boat

[Kmot]

Thanks fella's!

Yes, the sharks mouth is hand painted. I took my inspiration from the sharks mouth on the P-40 airplane.

[pick013]

Well then.....awesome job all the way around. Cool project and very nice results. Looking back now I can see where I missed your note on the pic saying that it was hand painted.

Daryl

When are you available for teeth painting?

[Kmot]

Project X is for sale. Ready to run. I need more room in my shop.

If anyone is seriously interested in buying this unique model, please PM me with your offer.

Recap:

Mini Soling hull, heavily customized and modified.
Twin Graupner Speed 600 motors on 2:1 gearboxes.
RC Hydros ESC with BEC
2-stick Proboat radio and receiver
Ball bearing steering servo.
Pull-Pull linkage for rudder.
Custom made outriggers. Removable for transport/storage.
Monsters, ghouls, critters, etc.

Runs great. Has impressed everyone who has seen it. Has received tons of positive feedback on several forums and at the local pond.

[Kcal]

Well certainly a unique boat but it begs the question, you need the room for what? What’s next on the drawing board?

[woodybob]

What the....it doesn't even have a kill yet. :confused:

[Bilge_Snipe]

Woody, that can easily be accomplished this coming Thursday. Many unsuspecting Sheetboat Cap'ns are likely to show up at the pond, never knowing where or when Project-X is lurking? Ready to send them to the weedy bottom of our pond! Kill signs for Project-X is as easy as killing flies on a cow pie. :eek:

[Kmot]

Lots of things will be going up for sale, this is just one of them. ;)

[Kmot]

What the....it doesn't even have a kill yet. :confused:
Sure it does, it has 'scared' several to death lol!!!

[avidjeepr]

Sell the planes, not the boats.. :eek:

[Kmot]

Yeah, some of those too! ;)

[pick013]

To quote from the movie "Robocop"....."I'd buy that for a dollar"

[Kmot]

Not quite enough. :rolleyes: