There is so much to do on this kit, every time I look at it I think of something else!!
A couple days ago I plugged up all the holes in the deck with the kit parts that I’m not going to use. It saved me from having to get various size styrene rods to do the job. After the glue dried I cut the parts off and sanded the deck, then I glued the I Beam to my removable deck section. The I-Beam idea is working great; they keep the removable section flat and even with the rest of the deck.
I thought I was just about ready to glue on the deck, and I decided that instead of using the kit rudders I’m going to make my own. I originally intended to use the kit rudders but I decided against it for three reasons. First, if I need to remove the prop shafts I would have to remove the motors and then I could slide the prop shafts into the hull to remove them. Second, if there was a single rudder the prop shafts can be removed from the stern which would be much easier. Third, the kit rudders and control arms are very cheap and if something happened to them I would have to cut open the deck above them for repairs.
Here are some photos of what I have been doing the last few days. I made a cradle for my ESC. All the wires come out the same side so this gets it off the hull and the power cables can go under it to connect with the battery.
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I even cut the kit battery holder down and glued it back together to properly hold a 7.2volt battery pack.
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Next I made a wedge shaped sort of box and filled it with epoxy and glued it between the kit rudder positions. Then I glued five 1/16 thick pieces on top of it, when the glue dries I'll drill a hole through it for my new rudder. I thought of using a piece of brass tubing and then settled on this instead since I have the plastic on hand.
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I'm going to make the rudder shaft out of a 1/4" stainless steel bolt and I have a shaft collar that will hold the rudder in and I will drill and tap into it’s top edge to attach the arm for the servo to steer the rudder.
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