Week 5 - Assembly and Construction

 Hello Readers,

    As we approach the end of this blog, it's about time we think about actually putting this thing together. The hull has been printed, so it is time to put everything together. If you recall the hull design post, I had to print it in 4 sections front to back, as it was 1 meter long, and my printer has a maximum build size in the Z direction of 250mm. So, the 4 parts will have to be glued together. I'm intending to use cyanoacrylate (CA) glue, otherwise known as super glue. I picked this because it is strong, water-tight, and bonds very quickly. the alternative would be epoxy, but it's very messy and can take up to 24 hours to set. Ideally, the hull would be watertight after gluing, so it can be placed in water and look cool. It would also unlock the possibility of putting a motor in it to make it functional.

    One slight complication: The print is very large, and I forgot to swap the roll of filament on my printer, so it could very well be that I come home to a half-printed boat. However, this is an easy fix. By measuring the part which was printed, I can subtract that much from the height of the rest of the print, to print just the missing part, which I can then glue to the half-printed part. This allows me to salvage what I have rather than throwing away the messed up print and starting again from scratch, meaning less wasted material. 

    Once the hull is assembled, the other major components missing will be the gun turrets. I plan to place these so that they can be turned inside their turret wells. I plan to do this by simply fixing the tops of the turrets to a cylinder, and printing another, hollow cylinder for it to turn within, which I would then fix to the inside of the hull. As for the deck, I would simply cut it out of foam board, and perhaps cover it with a wood texture printed in color. 

    From there, it's just an issue of small details, which I could 3D print, or make by molding and fixing various plastic, foam, and wooden parts. I'm not quite sure about the specifics, and I think I'm just going to fill them in on the fly.