RC India

Started a new project for building a PT Boat based on the EeZeBilt plan scaled up to 200%. Primary material being used if 3mm PVC Foam Board (Sunboard).

Cut out the deck pieces today.

As usual this will be a slow build.

Any progress ashok sir

@gaurag1972
Yes. Attached the bulkheads but further progress held up for want of a stuffing tube and power system which needs to be installed before moving ahead. Unable to identy suitable parts for this boat on hobbyking as not much experienced with boats. Can anybody help me in selecting one viz motor.stuffing tube drive shaft, couplers drivedog and prop.

A lesson in craftsmanship!
I wonder why some of the youngsters build really rough looking models, when a schoolboy like Param can build a fine model like his F18.
For more examples of quality work, see ashok baijal's last year's sweepstakes entries.

@Iyer
Thanks for the compliment.

Looking real good. You call this slow?  :giggle: :giggle:

@Sanjayji
Both my boat projects are stuck for the respective drive chain.

Got my stuffing tube, teflon liner, flexi shaft, drive dog and prop from Rcboatbitz, Australia after a long wait. However forgot to order the motor mount. :banghead: Still learning boat building. Stuff at Rcboatbitz is good quality but at pretty high rates.

Now another wait as this time I will try to get the motor mount and rudder from HK. Still shows most boat parts on backorder. >:(

Yes! Its the "Princess" just arrived from HK. Took advantage of the free shiping flash sale at HK. Further build and run pictures of the Princess will come from GForce1980

@ashok baijal,
You bought a 2bhp boat costing 15k or more?
Wow!
Where will you run it?
(BTW, what is Gforce1980?)

@Iyer
There are many lakes in Bangalore. The only problem is that they are being encroached and getting polluted day by day. There is a lake near my flat but the road leading to it is encroached upon. The only way is to walk as people have built structures on the path leading to it. You would have read that a lake in Bangalore caught fire from the methane coming out of its polluted waters.
Gforce1980 is a forum member who I want to get interested in RC. He is fascinated by speed. So this is a gift to him.

Some progress

Made machine guns using 3mm cycle spokes, balsa and light ply. Gun pits made of two plastic glasses cut to size. Picture shows dry fit of the machine guns. Final installation only after painting.

Very nice  :thumbsup:  Was wondering yesterday what the plastic cups were for  ;D

Made the 20mm Oerlikon guns using three pieces, starting with s dowel piece and two progressively thinner carbon fibre tubes. The guns were mounted on a gun mount made out from a 1in aluminum U shaped channel cut to shape. The gun mount was attahed to a gun pedestal made out of an empty cyno bottle cap. The shoulder mounts were made out of 3mm steel wire bent and cut into two semi circles. The gun shield was made of 2mm ply.

The gun will be fixed in the aft section of the deck after painting. Pictures of the dry fit.

In the next few days, we may even get to see torpedos, depth charges and onboard helicopter gunship!

The stern gun made out of a dowel and piece of plastic square tube. Pedestal made out of laminated foamboard.

Modified bow gun pedestal. Used a "Goodnight" liquid cap. Prepared amo crates by partially cutting some rectangular plastic bottles and placing them near the two guns.Made the smoke generator with an empty liquid soap bottle and some scrap plastic pieces.

Added support rings to the machinegun turrets. Made from two cycle spokes.

Partially made a torpedo but realised that the boat should have torpedo launch tubes and not bare torpedoes! !!

No, no.
Tubes would hide the torpedos, defeating the entire purpose (the tubes could even be empty!)
Better to have torpedos that can be just rolled overboard like depth charges.
Can be stored loose, so that to release the right one, just turn hard left...
Simple desi tech is best.
Remember that even a gnat could kill a tiger toothed sabre  ;D

@Iyer. Yes, I agree that having torpedo tubes would be quite drab but the original Pt109 had tubes! The eezebilt plan that I am using also has torpedoes and not tubes. So will wait for few days for comments on the forum and then decideTUBES or TORPEDOES

Made a dinghy. Cut out two oval shaped pieces of 6mm biofoam and stuck them together. Rounded the oval piece to the shape of an inflatable.Attached a piece of foamboard to serve as the base of the boat

No response regarding torpedo or torpedo tube! Completed one torpedo and drop rack today.
Torpedo made out of five 6mm laminated pieces of biofoam and sanded to a round shape. Placed a wire runnig lenthwise while laminating. Tried turning it on an improvised lathe but found sanding by hand easier.  The front end of the wire covered with a small piece of pvc extracted out of an electric wire to serve as the detonator. The two counter rotating props were cut out of a plastic book cover and spaced on the wire emanating out of the aft end of the torpedo. Spaced the two props using two pieces of wire outer pvc covering. The fins were made of 2mm pvc foamboard.
The rack was cut out of 3mm foamboard and drop handle made out of a piece of cycle spoke.

The radar mast was made using a dowel and radar dome was made using the plastic spoon from a detergent bag. The hydraulic lift tubes were made by bending a cycle spke to a V Shape and insertieng two pieces of tubing to look like the hydraulic cylinders.

Maybe there's a GPS under the radar dome...

very good sir :salute: :salute:

Thanks Gaurang.1972

The PT boats carried two depth charges. Made two using a piece of 1" conduit pipe, foamboard pieces and some washers. The sides of the rack were made with two pieces of laminated foamboard wich were offset to made the sliding rail. The release mechanism was made using the end of a cycle spoke and some thin insulated wire.

This completes the deck. Waiting for the motor mount.  Could be a few weeks before I get one from HK.

Something extraordinarily beautiful is taking shape :D

The PT boat looks amazing Ashok :) Hope to see it in person some day once its built completely :)

Ashok sir.....

theres just one word....


   :salute: :salute:         AWESOME   :salute: :salute:
   :bow: :bow:         AWESOME   :bow: :bow:
:hatsoff: :hatsoff:    AWESOME   :hatsoff: :hatsoff:

Thanks Sanjayji, HVP and Madaquif for your encouragement.

Have we got any pictures of the finished boat?


The PT-boats were sold as 'mosquitoes able to kill a much larger ship', but their story is really one of failure turned into success. Initially, the Americans intended to use them for jobs which they could not do - as Churchill said:

"You can trust the Americans to do the right thing - after they have tried everything else..."

Small torpedo boats were an Italian invention - they had some spectacular successes with raiding ports and sinking battleships during WW1. But, as a result, the world's navies started defending themselves against torpedo boats, with secondary guns and escort 'torpedo boat destroyers'

Torpedo boats were still useful for short-range ambushes and supporting coastal raids - but the USA had no enemy coastline anywhere near it, and could not see the need for coastal torpedo boats when any expected battle would be fought in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic between large battleships. They were eventually persuaded to build a few experimentally, and then WW2 started.

Since the US had lost many of its big battleships, small torpedo boats were shipped to the Far East to provide a naval presence. They had been sold as 'gnats able to sink big ships' but this proved to be untrue.

In the first half of the war, American torpedo boats went into action against a number of larger Japanese ships. They did not sink any. This was entirely due to their torpedo armament, which was by far the worst of any of the combatants. There were many basic things wrong, and 3 major design flaws.

The torps were too slow, and had too short a range. They had inadequate explosive charge, and the launching tubes could fail or catch fire when used. Worse, the torpedo designs did not work.

1 due to a design flaw, the torpedos ran much deeper than their settings, and would often run under a target
2 The torpedos had a magnetic detonator which was too sensitive - resulting in premature explosions about 50ft from the target
3 When the magnetic detonator was replaced with a contact detonator, this failed to explode if the torpedo had a good hit, and would only detonate with a glancing blow.

The net result of this was that early PT-boats reported engaging Japanese ships and scoring hits, while the Japanese ships never actually sunk.

Gradually these flaws were rectified, and by the end of the war the PT-boats had aircraft-type torpedoes which were reasonably reliable. However, by then, there were few Japanese major navy ships around, and radar had advanced to the point where engaging a battleship would be suicidal - their longer range guns would destroy a PT-boat long before it got into range. However, by then the PT-boats had found a much more useful role they could perform - disrupting Japanese sea supply routes. This was often called 'Barge-Busting' - shallow draught Japanese barges hugged the coastline, immune from torpedoes, keeping the occupied islands supplied. The PT boats engaged these with deck-mounted guns, and ended the war essentially armed as gunships - in some cases they discarded two of the torpedo mounts so as to be able to carry more cannon.

The Eezebilt plan shows one of the mid-war boats, with cannon fore and aft, but aircraft torpedoes rather than tubes.  If you want to do an early one, mount 4 torpedo tubes, but only a single cannon at the rear, and a mast with no radar.  A later one might have 3 cannon at the bow, and a pair of rocket launchers on either side...

excellent read - thanks for posting

Nice write-up.
I doubt that the handle 'Dodgy Geezer' describes the author well  ;D

Didn't know that Gnat vs Sabre was one of the top 5 dogfights in history!

http://www.defenceaviation.com/2010/10/top-5-dogfights-in-history.html

@ashok baijal,
No update last 6 months  ???

no mention of Battle of Britan Me109 & Fw190 vs Hurricane & Spitfire

@Dodgy Geezer.Sorry, all my hobby work is in limbo as all my time is used in taking care of my mother. She is 89 years and requires very close care.

Will resume the build once I get some free time.

Terrific boat.

Mothers are more important than boats...