SA Valour Class Frigate

[Joburg Sailor]

Hi Guys
It's been an awfully long time since I tagged along with Stefan's build of his Castle Class Corvette...and much was learned from him in the process. My "Castle" still draws some interest from passers by and club members.

I have subsequently moved on to my next scratch build project that has taken up much of the last two + years. I had hoped to maintain my fleet to a 1/72 scale but the new boat would not have fitted in my car so I had to reduce her a little to 1/80 scale.
She is the South African Navy Frigate "Spioenkop" that was built by Blomm & Voss in Hamburg and was launched in 2005. With twin screws and a (homemade) jet drive, she has been a huge step up for me as being only my second scratch build.
I have just realized that I have not saved a pic for attaching to this post...so I will have to do that now. My apologies.
Regards
Tertius
(Joburg sailor)

[gms]

Beautiful model. Congratulations!

[Guest]

Hear she is...all 1.5 metres of her!
I managed to find a dockyard drawing so had the hull bulkhead lines with rear and front views to work from and then only the starboard side elevation so a huge amount of research had to follow. The drawing I had was also "as proposed" so the ship "as launched" differed in some detail (particularly the fwd mast).
On "maiden voyage" I found that the scale rudders were not doing a very good job and I had to go about 30% overscale when I remade the rudders. She still has a pretty wide turning circle but now much better than she was.
Main motors are Mtroniks 600's running on a Hobbywing 860 twin screw ESP on 6v. 5 bladed Props are to scale taken from the drawing and homemade as are the prop tubes.
Her homemade jet drive was only tested several weeks later and it performed well. Think that the (nondescript) motor is also about a 550 running on it own Hobbywing 1060 ESP on 12v.
Radar arrays revolve. Hangar door is motorised as is the helicopter movement from the hangar. This is supposed to be sequentially wired so door up/helicopter out (it moves on a screw below the helideck with magnets on the screw carriage and under the chopper) /helicopter back into hangar/ hangar door closes....but this is proving to be beyond my limited electronics ability...any suggestions would be welcomed (I only have one channel left on my TX.)
Should there be any further interest in this model then I could post more pics.
Cheers
Tertius

[K494]

Top Notch Castle Class

Spioenkop is a sleek beauty,Tertius.

Scott