Good ship for R/C conversion

Well, I guess it depends on your budget, and of course, the size of the model you want in the end.

The Nichimo Yamato is a large model when completed, and has more than enough room to RC it. Same goes for the Lindbergh 'Blue Devil' destroyer, but it's a horrible looking model that requires hundreds of hours of work to make accurate.

Both of those models are large in size, the Yamato is about 4 feet long and the Blue Devil (actually a Fletcher) is about 3 feet.

From there, you can look at the Doyusha 1/250 scale Yamato and Shinano, but again, the quality is poor and they require some work.

Although not a battleship or DD, I would recommend the Matchbox/Airfix Flower Class Corvette in 1/72. Big tub of a hull, lots of room to work in, and the model isn't that bad.

From there, you could RC any of the larger 1/350 kits from Tamiya or Trumpeter with some minor modifications.

Jeff

there is also the 1/200 scale Sovremenny from Trumpeter and the 1/144 scale SeaWolf and Kilo also from Trumpeter.

Any thing can be made RC
The Tamiya kits work really well.

Here are some other kit examples

Revell North Sea Trawler
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=173262

Then New Revell Queen Mary II 1-400
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=317050

The Lindberg Fletcher was designed to convert to RC, but can be a little over weight.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319827
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=338744

Both the scales of the Lindberg PT boat have been converted to RC.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1743023&postcount=127

And also the Lindbergs 1/72nd scale harbor tug.

Here is the new Trumpeter LCM
http://www.geocities.com/patsmodels/lcm3/

The Revell 1:144 Sea Shadow
http://geocities.com/patsmodels/seashadow/

Tamiya 1-350 Musashi
http://www.geocities.com/patsmodels/musashi/

Pat's (Patmat) web site is a wealth of information actually...
http://geocities.com/y2patmat/
____________________________________________

The Tamiya PT-15
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=323203&postcount=3

Pat Tritle shows his RC Revell fire boat, Revell North Sea Trawler and Lindberg tug.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1474009&postcount=122


Here is another good "HOW TO" on modifying a servo for use as a drive motor and speed control for small models like the Lindberg tug.
http://www.mhsd.org/model/howto/servo.htm
http://www.boatnerd.com/model/tug/default.htm

I truly believe anything can be made RC, its just a matter of finding the right parts.

could try scratch building a rc model ship/boat. part way thru building 8 ships 1/144 scale from a tugboat to a battleship

I completely spaced the 1/700 scale New Jersey. RC of course.



Here is the 1/700 scale New Jersey sailing up to the stern of a 1/72nd scale Bismark.

holy cow i bet you Squids are a bit baffled how a small boat was allowed to park right up to a large Battleship. BTW both boats are still riding a tad bit high though.

Riding high is a good thing. It is relatively easy to add weight to a model. Getting weight off after building a ship too heavy is a real pain.

The Bismarck has two full size car batteries, and at least two 25lb weights that need to be brought along and set into the boat to get it down in the water.

And it should be noted that riding too low in the water is a bigger pain.
Here is a Oriani class DD after taking six .25 inch ball bearing rounds from a German Pocket battle ship.


It battled later in the day after drying out.

check out www.rc-submarines.com for subs and links.

With the advent of "park flyers" in the RC hobby has come a wealth of micro and sub-micor electronics that are affordable. Check out http://www.hobbypeople.net/gallery/443413.asp for an example. I am currently putting this system in a 1/350 scale Bismark. I have also RC'd the Lindberg PT109 and Blue Devil Destroyer. The latter is a trick to balance and keep the weight down. The PT 109 with twin water cooled 550 motors however is a really fun boat to run. Again though, a lot of modification needs to be done to keep the weight down.

Scott

I really like the Lindberg tug - you can have a lot of fun with it, it sails well (even better is you substitute the hull with a Microglass product, which has been flow to the prop), and is cheap to make - you can easily build one, with r/c for less than $ 100. Plus, the scale, which is pretty close to 1/96, allows you to use it with the most common full size r/c scale. The little lindeberg tugs can push in the stern of a 1/96 aircraft carrier to the pier in a very realistic manner.

Cordially,

Kurt

Many years ago, I got into the RC boat hobby the same way-- I combined plastic modeling and RC aircraft experience. My first model was a Lindberg Blue Devil. I know now that the kit is a poor scale model, but it looked good on the water to me. The big problem with the Lindberg kit is that id doesn't have a lot of displacement., so it can't carry a lot of weight.

The problem with warships is that long, narrow, low hulls do not have a lot of displacement, and often aren't very seaworthy. The big Tamiya warship kits can be RC'd, but they are really meant for calm waters.

The Lindberg tug is a great little project- I've built a few. (This is the 13.5 inch Diesel Tug kit- not the little Coast Guard tug.) The hardest part of the conversion is sometimes finding a decent little prop. The propshaft can be a brass rod in a matching tube. Powerplant /speed control is a disassembled servo. You can use a regular servo for the rudder. So, for the cost of a cheap 2 channel radio, and the cost of the kit, you have most of what you need. You'll want to convert the receiver battery to a rechargeable, of course. I recommend going with 6 volts instead of 4.8v-- the tug will have much more oomph. If you're already into RC, you may have an appropriate charger to go with a decent NiMH battery for the model. The model is surprrisinglyu seaworthy, too, especially if you make some improvements in that area.

If you want a little bigger model and project, you can't beat the 1/72 scale FLower class corvette. It is a big hull that can carry a lot of weight. I built mine with a 6 volt Dumas Pittman motor, using a Graupner prop and shaft from Hobby-Lobby. I used a 4.5 AH gell cell, which ran the model for hours. The model had good scale speed, and could handle rough waters. A cheap 2 channel radio is all you need here, too.

Hope this helps,
-Bill
(Currently working on a conversion of the Trumpeter LCM3 to 2CH RC. )

http://www.cbrnp.com/RNP/Flower/

Lots of great info on the Flower Class here.

Dave

Thankyou all so much for the info - plenty of food for thought here. I have a few hours work exploring all the links! Really much appreciated thanks again.
to you all.

hi! i am also thinking of making an rc tamiya battleship. what would be a good ship to buy? i'm looking unto the yamato/musashi, bismarck/tirpitz and the new jersey/missouri. how hard is it to build one of these ships? is it good for a somewhat beginner like me? (i have built some a car and the tamiya pt-15), but this one seems enormous.
and also, i need to pack in a 540 size motor and a big tamita esc/receiver plus a 7.2 nicd. will any of these be able to carry these?
thank you.

QUOTE: Originally posted by ernest2 hi! i am also thinking of making an rc tamiya battleship. what would be a good ship to buy? i'm looking unto the yamato/musashi, bismarck/tirpitz and the new jersey/missouri. how hard is it to build one of these ships? is it good for a somewhat beginner like me? (i have built some a car and the tamiya pt-15), but this one seems enormous. and also, i need to pack in a 540 size motor and a big tamita esc/receiver plus a 7.2 nicd. will any of these be able to carry these? thank you.

Far as skill level to build, the Tamiya 1/350 battleships are really good kits for fit. I would stay away from the cheaper clones. But as far as using your present 540 motor and Tamiya radio gear, I'm afraid they are too big and way too heavy.
Although they originally had a setup for a 9v motor and two D cell batteries, these
plastic model ships were never designed from the ground up to sail on ponds or swimming pools and go at the higher speeds that the modern micro brushless motors can obtain, so trying to maintain proper weight and ballast is very important when converting them to RC. Since the advent of "park flyers", there is a large amount of "micro" electronics out there. For these 1/350 ships, the best choices would be to get a micro scale radio set (make sure its for a surface frequency and not 72 mhz), a brushless motor, and a Lipol battery and charger. Many of the RC suppliers are carrying "intro" packages that make it much more cost effective to do these conversions. In the old days, we had to do a lot of tearing down of servo's and making trips to Radio Shack to make a small RC conversion. Today, there is a lot of Plug and Play radio and motor packages that makes it really easy for the beginner.

See my above post for the Hobby People link. Also, check Hobby-Lobby International, Tower Hobbies (Great Planes Dist), and Graupner.

Rightly or wrongly I have made my choice and bought a kit - Tamiya's 1:350 Tirpitz. If anyone has any specific links either to this kit or the full size I would love to hear of them either through this thread or to my E-mail. Wish me luck and I will try to post progress as I go though don't plan to start quite yet, I have a few projects to finish first.

Mate, have a look at this web site:-

http://www.taskforce72.org/

Thanks for the link Raverdave