V U casemate height?

What is the Casemate height of a VU in 144 scale?
I have a Pink VU that is very detailed but I think that the casmates are way to tall.
I don't know who made it and I bought it from someone who didn't know either, any help
would be nice. I wouldn't want to field a VU with any obvious scaling errors, thanks boys,
Carlo

 

After carefully looking at the quality of the molding and the details in the final
boat, it sure looks like a Canadian product. Very thick FG and the details of the
Casemates gives it away I think? Any of the Canadians know of any PINK VU's
being made up there?
Carlo

 

I had Ione of the first of these and the casements are too tall (1" in stead of 3/4"). I sold mine to Filmire and he was going to fix it. i told the Canadians about it several years ago.

Marty

 

Your pink boat sounds adorable.

 

I bet it is but with Carlos Driving it’s cute like a gremlin just don’t feed it after midnight and what ever you do don’t get it wet

 

yes I'm thinking keep it away from water..........:cry:

 

According to my plans, the casemate deck is roughly 3/4" tall. from deck to deck.

 

thanks, 3/4" is what I had too, now how could it be fixed?
It's about 1" now so I could cut the top down or fill the casemates with resin and chopped cloth to
about 1/4". Which way is better?
Carlo

 

Depends on what format you're building for, and what your club's specific rules are. In a Big Gun club, you'll need every bit of internal height you can get, so cutting the top down is a really, really bad idea. I'm building a VU myself for Big Gun, and height is one of the big limiting factors.

In Fast Gun, you need to be concerned about penetrability, stringers, and other rules like that. I'm not an expert on those rules, so someone else will have to answer for the different Fast Gun versions. You could also find out about waivers, margins of error, or other ways to pardon a minor mistake like that.

 

I will plate the floors of the casemate deck with 1/4" 7 ply birch and then
sand the outside to match the hull and coat with West System. That should
provide a good base to cut the windows out and not change the strength of the
hull too much.

 

I'm pretty sure the hull in question must have been made by Ralph Coles, the only Canadian who's made a VU mold. Some guys in the IRCWCC made a mold years ago but made only a few hulls, one of which was used for the VU Marty Hayes brought to Cannats.
I don't think adding a wood embrasure deck will work because only 1/8" is allowed for the embrasure stringer. You'd have to cut away the bottom half of your 1/4" wooden embrasure deck and what's left wouldn't be securely attached to the hull.
Fixing the error is going to be difficult. You can build up the embrasure deck height 1/4" with resin and chopped matt as previously suggested, then trim it to a 1/8" stringer, but you may have difficulty getting it to look good.
if you're good with fiberglass you could cut off the embrasure decks and glass them on 1/4" higher, then cut off the excess casemate height below them and reglass the resulting gaps in the hull sides before cutting out the ribs.
The easiest solution would be to leave the casemate height as is but cut away the excess 1/4" of impenetrable area. Stokomoto built a VU from one of Ralph's hulls last year. Ask him what he did.
Bob

 

Thanks boys I'll keep you posted as to what method I use to fix it. But it looks like I'm going to try using wood to build up the floor,
Carlo

 

My thought when I had the hull was to slot the hull and put a sheet of fiberglass (1/8") at the correct highth. This would form the new casement deck. But... I got lazy and sold the hull.

Marty