Hello everyone,
I've been a member of the forum for about 18 months now and have mostly just absorbed the information presented here. It is high time to start a build thread. I actually have one build going on already that I still need to start a thread for, but this build thread will focus on the construction of an Australian Armidale Class Patrol Boat. For those not familiar with the ship it is manufactured by Austal Austrailia. Ship particulars are 186' long with a 32' beam. It is a very attractive boat in my opinion and I have seen one done several times in 1:72, and one done at 1:50 by Steve Bactcheldor.
I have decided to go with something a bit larger at 1:24. At this scale she'll be 7'-9" x 16" overall, certainly a large boat. I am currently designing the boat in Autocad during my occasional free time. I have much of the superstructure done up and am working on hull lines now. With my 1:48 Laffey taking up space at home I decided that I will be doing this build at work.. Next weekend I will be getting the build board completed so I can bring it to the office. Since I eat lunch in my office each day I felt that time could be better spent doing something productive other than eating. Given 5 hours a week I feel I could make some decent progress on the hull initially. Not to mention the interest it will garner being visible to everyone. We have an annual picnic at a local park that has a nice lake so this would be a blast to take there.
I plan on doing this as a plank on frame hull since I never intend to build another one. Frames will be 1/4" plywood and sheeting will be 3/32" basswood sheet and strip. The hull will get covered in 2oz glass cloth and epoxy for a nice smooth and tough hull. Decking will either be 1/8" lexan or plywood, but I'm undecided on that at this point. All superstructure will be styrene of various thicknesses. Detail parts will be combination of scratch built and Shapeways parts. At this point I think the most difficult part of the build will be the RHIBs and davits for them since I have found very few detail photos of them. I'll likely tackle them last. The rest of the superstructure should be fairly straightforward. I plan on having the entire SS come off as a single piece to access the internals. Power will come from (3) 7ah AGM batteries.
If anyone has suggestions or comments I'm always open to suggestions.
_________________ John Martin Tega Cay, SC
Building: 1:48 USS Laffey (Sumner class DD-724) 1:24 HMAS Bundaberg ACPB 91 (Armidale Class Patrol Boat)
Last edited by johnndeanna on Wed Mar 07, 2018 1:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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