Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Magnetic attraction


Not an exciting photo this one I'm afraid, but it is an important step towards completion of the speedboat.

I've been pondering for some time a method of holding the top down on the model. It fits into a recess in the deck, which is fine but there isn't an obvious method of making a waterproof fit short of using tape as I've done while testing.

High-strength magnets bought from eBay seemed a good idea but I wasn't sure how I'd use them. Magnets don't work on plastic so there would need to be some metal around and there isn't space between deck and top for this.

Trying things out over a few evenings, I came up with the following solution:
  • At the front of the boat, a "clip" slides under the deck. Simple and effective as long as the back end is secure. 
  • At the back, a screw fitted into the cover and hidden by the back of the cockpit, is grabbed by a magnet fitted under the deck. Drilling a hole in the deck allows the screw head to locate. 
  • At the sides, pushing magnets down the exhaust pipes and then glueing matching ones under the deck adds extra strength. It's important that these are aligned correctly (drop them in place and they do it automatically) for the strongest attraction. 
 Now the cover is just about held in place well enough to pick the model up by, but can easily be slid back and removed. I'll add a safety wire between the two just in case - bad enough if the cover comes off while sailing without it heading to the bottom of the lake!

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