1/200 Bismarck rc conversion

[funky technician]

She sits at the scale water line when fully armed and bottle charged, which is actually not where I have the draft line painted in black, from the pictures of the actual ship, she apears to sit with equal distance above the armor belt as there is to the water, which is where mine sits, but my markings are set at a lower waterline, so the black line is completely submerged, but when her bottles empty and all amo depleted, she sits on her black line I painted, ill show either a pic or a short vid of her in the tub tomorrow, she just fits lol im also just about finished her forward bilge pump, the aft bilge pump is completely installed and works perfectly, ill post a video of its function also

[funky technician]

https://youtu.be/qAaxcJuTGbU

hears a video of her in the tub, her bottle is full and shes carrying a full compliment of 400 bb's, so this is max weight

[funky technician]

https://youtu.be/boSstWBdkcE
quick vid of the after turrets pounding an old tom cat model still tweekin the guns, im slowly upping the pressure each test to see what their operational max is, but my flex line to each turret was secured using a mjni zip tie which snapped off and the line expanded off the barb td, so I ordered mini metal hose clamps, should be in in a few weeks, which sucks, I want to take her out I could dial the psi back so the hose doesnt come off under pressure, but thats no fun lol

[funky technician]

So slight set back with sea trials, my forward bilge system has a defective controler, I tested it in the tub and it starts to pump when the water hits the bilge sensor leads as designed, but then doesnt shut off unless I poke the controler, so that sucks, I have a new controler on its way but it will take a few weeks to come in, which sucks cause im anxious to get her on the water, all other systems have been tested and work well, but I dont want to risk running her unless shes 100% funtional (unlike the real ship which was sent out hastily, and we know how that ended :s) so im using this down time to add the railings and a few other details I left till the end of the build so they wouldn't get smashed off messing around with fine tuning, I really want to add weathering but am holding off and studying your guys build since im inexperienced with weathering techniques, and dont want to make it look stupid if I mess it up ( same goes for my u boat)

[funky technician]

quick pic of the railings, man their a pain to put on :s

[funky technician]

took some pics in the dark with her all powered up, this is how it will look on the water, sorry my camera sucks, it looked much cooler in person lol

[funky technician]

maiden voyage! It was hard video taping and driving at the same time so the video is short, everything worked perfectly except my rudder controls were backward lol, no biggy though, im uploading the fpv footage now

[funky technician]

fpv from forward rangefinder, sorry its glitchy, my fpv googles and reciever were lying on the ground with the antenna underneath it and I didnt notice so reception was understandably reduced :s

[funky technician]

aft range finder view

[funky technician]

https://youtu.be/qKR2pSmQJkM
another vid, it was way too windy to take it out really, it was getting tossed around pretty good, plus you cant see my shell splashes due to the "sea state" lol, but it was a good test of the ballast pumps since I herd them coming in and off during the trip, which is good, but id like to have a nice calm day to fire the guns and putt around but every day I have off is super windy

[funky technician]

Sea trials continue...... 3 out of 4 servos died in the turrets due to me packing them full of dielectric, apearently this was a bad idea since I think it got into the pots, they simply stopped working, I packed them after loosing 2 servos to water getting inside their case due to their location on the bottom of the hull, thinking it would work, so now im going to try "corrosion x " which apearently works well when sprayed into the servo housing, then ill seal the servo with plastidip. Im waiting for it in the mail now, I also added a castle creations BEC to run the reciever and servos so I can bring it up to 6v, which increases the speed of the auto list control by almost twice as much but other then that, its pretty fun to sail, and I cant wait till I get the turrets fixed to take er back out, and the bildge pumps make her unsinkable (risky statement) since having it in ridiculous sea states already and waves crashing over the superstructure, the pumps effortlessly pump her dry in seconds

[funky technician]

So the corrosion x and plastimdip plus adding an o-ring under the servo horn seems to be the way to go,, I disabled the bildge, pumps and filled the hull and ran the servos under water and they work perfectly so no more loosing servo due to water ingress, I still have to replace d turrets servo which has finally stopped working like the other 3 dielectric packed servos did, so the replacement will be getting the same rebuild to waterproof it more videos to come, going to head to the lake tm early so hopefully it will be calm

[funky technician]

https://youtu.be/SsYewzn1hEA
https://youtu.be/iP4uPY0Hy2w
couple of videos of a great sail on the lake, emptied all the magazines

[funky technician]

https://youtu.be/22E1GvXA7tE

couple broadside firing trials, still tweeking aft turrets since they didnt have as much snap as anton and bruno

[funky technician]

So ive recently upgraded the motors to brushless which occupy a lot less space internally, which not only weighed less, but made enough room to increase my co2 tank size from 3.5oz to 5oz so that will give me about enough to empty all the magazines on one bottle