Over a year ago, I decided the sprint cat 42 would make a good home for a couple of castle 1717's that I had spare. I wanted to get the hull from the factory with the carbon laid and the transom strengthened so I tried calling remmy every night for about 2 weeks (which for me being down here in OZ made many late nights), after a few post's on OSE, dasboata (thanks mate) helped me out and I had finally forked my cash over and was very excited. After waiting a while my hull arrived but there had been a mix up at the factory and I ended up with rails and no carbon, oh well, it's made the build more fun. I decided to leave the cross section and then removed the rails by cutting the along the joins and then breaking them away from the hull. After cleaning up the inside of the hull with the dremel and sand paper I was happy with my layout options.
I left the build for a while as I had also got a Mean Machine at the same time and I figured I'd rather get a little practice with a cheap cat build before I sunk my teeth into this one and I wanted to start the build with everything I need and I still need the flex shafts but I'm now sick of waiting for them so I'm into it and I've laid some heavy carbon cloth covering the inside of the hull from above the join on one side to across and above the other, as I was doing this I molded the cloth into the corners and up the transom, then I put another two layers across the transom. Then it was time for me to figure out the layout I was going to use, after a night or two reading and moving things around I decided I'd install the motor mount. I'm using a twin motor mount made by James Williams, he did a terrific job but I had to figure out how to mount it without adding any extra height as the mount is so wide that when the motors are at full tilt, the bolts at the top of the rear support touch the hatch right at the edges of the rise in the hatch. I decided to drill holes across the bottom of each side of the mount, then I cut left over 4-40 push rod into small lengths long enough to protrude out each side and ca glued them into place in every second hole to act as anchor points. I then mixed up some 30 minute epoxy with carbon fibre that was all the loose threads that I mulled up with scissors and fill the remaining holes in the bottom of the mount, put it in place and then pushed the carbon paste along the bottoms of the mount covering the rods. It's not the prettiest job I've seen but I can lift the hull by the mount.
I then proceeded mounting the hardware, after a hours of reading I asked a few questions in this thread http://forums.offshoreelectrics.com...t-distance.-How-close-is-too-close&highlight=
and come up with the way to mount the struts. After mounting the harware I looked into my water cooling options. I have a few under hull pick ups as well as the dual pick up rudder and was thinking to run a seperate line to each motor and esc but I figure I'll just use the rudder pick ups and run one line to each side and split the flow between motor and esc, this way I can have two water outlets on each side out of the hull. If I find the temps a little high, I'll always be able to add the under hull's at a later date as I'm not going to rush in painting this boat untill it's running great on the water.
As you could see from those pic's, another week or so past waiting for the flex's and I figured I'd mount the rudder servo and get that all fitted. I made a servo mount out of 50x50x3mm aluminium and then epoxied it in the same way I did the motor mount.
Since these layout pic's where taken, I've changed my mind and got 2x turnigy monster 240hv speedo's (these are the same as the Swordfish speedo's but in a different shrink wrap and cheaper) for the build. I started work on the electronics back when I was going to use the T180's and I borrowed one of "choppers" mods, it made them both fit on the tunnel nicely. I added three extra caps and 8mm bullet connectors to the esc's and was using M3 dual lock velcro to hold them in place, thats some strong stuff, the only negative I can find with that stuff is getting it to unlocked.
I made a battery tray and mount,s for the speedo's to hide up beside the motor's, I need to sand the carbon for refinishing after I've installed the stuffing tubes.
I've had plenty of reason's to stick this boat back in the corner for a few month's.
Oh the pain, :doh: battle scared without electronics, theres 2 sheets of 5g carbon cloth on the inside so I'll just bog it up, it won't effect the boat. Another good thing was nothing else broke or fell out on the fall
I'll run through my low tech backyard bushy's build.
The battery tray that sits up top will act as an achor point for 2 of the lipo's, with the batteries held in position the cog is around 29-30% and I'll be able to run the other lipos, one in each sponson allowing plenty of adjustment. I cut a piece of 50x3mm aluminium T section to length so it can be jb wielded along with the carbon trays to the deck, I then ground out a slice just under 3/16" in the center of aluminium, cut a length of 3/16 rod that'll be longh enough to come through the hatch and bashed it in place with a hammer, as the rod centered itself, the thread bit into the aluminium giving it a good hold. I taped the area off and applied some jb wield on each side and it come up pretty well, I pulled and pushed and it seems strong enough but I suppose a few good crashes will show it's truths. I still need to add a little more carbon reinforcement around a few area's and apply some sticky rubber strips along the aluminium and carbon to cusion the lipos and sand things back and apply a finishing coat of resin. I will run a velcro strap around the lot when running for piece of mind.
Back on the table. Today I managed to get most of the noisy jobs done within daylight hours, after three days on a bobcat I gave myself today off to get some work done on the cat.
New plan.....................
Just Kidding.
I managed to get most the dremel work done to clean up the hull before finishing it off and added some more water cooling to go to the esc's.
I got some more sanding done and knocked up a center hatch lock to help hold the lid on. The hatch bends up at around this point so I think it'll work well along with a couple of pins in the front and the rear battery tray/ bolt down point, I can't see my hatch flying off in a hurry.
ahhh why'd u have to ruin it with the bombers sticker lmao.
Looking good mate. Be good to get it wet. I wanna see a 1717 in action. I got 1 in a savage I made fit. Its a animal. Easily pulls off double back flips and front slips too.
I got a boat with a castle/neu motor but can't remember what motor it was now lol. Might have to have a look.
here's one 1717 in action pushing a 13kg poorly shaped rigger/hydro vessel. more power than needed in anything under 40" I recon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSgJRqtksRk
Two in a well built hull with a nice ride pad should be a lot of fun, I'm looking forward to driving it but have decided that I'll continue doing little bits at a time until it's finished the way I want it, I'm not going to rush and finish it after it being in the shed for so long, this one has to be finished properly.
If anyones interested in finishing this project please contact me via pm. Please remember this is not a cheap hull and has been reinforced with carbon fiber, all the electrical components are brand new, it has new installed Speedmaster and Aeromarine hardware, a james williams custom twin 1717 motor mount fitted, a set of Dasboata worked stainless steel 5017/3 props(b&s and cutt back to approx.47mm) and much more. The layout has been designed to maximize space and COG adjustment, it'll be a very fun and fast boat but I'm looking at larger scale. This build has cost over $2100au so far but I'll be willing to ship it anywhere in Australia for only $1700au, you'll save well over $400 for all my hard work, lol.
:loco: I couldn't help myself, my patients or should I say lack of has the losi 5ive arriving tomorrow and I'm yet to get a bid on this package. $1600au delivered anywhere in OZ and $1750au anywhere in the world.
After a long break and a few life changes, this boat is back on the building table. I have priotised my time better and can spend an hour or two in the afternoons (between customers) working on my builds. The cat now has the driveshafts fitted and over the next few days I plan on laying up the carbon/kevlar to pretty and strengthen the interior. There isn't a lot left to do but I'll only be doing what I can, when I can, I'll keep you posted.
Looking good mate, bout time you got it out and got some work done on it, it was looking sad sitting there on the bench half started Once its done we will have to organise a run day, theres a few more boats your way so will make it so me and a mate come to maryborough. Had my first mishap with the pirate on the weekend, i hit a buoy doing 95+kph only snapped the break away on the rudder, but launched the hull 10' in the air flipping and barrel rolling landing the right way up so i could slowly bring it back in. No other damage thankfully.
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