Inside the HMS Lion

A Class 4 Battle Cruiser with 4.5 battle units.

Built By Ron Horbl

Here we can see the two bow sidemounts of Ron’s Lion. Both are coil magazine guns. They take up more room in a ship and really only work for single guns. You can see here how they just fit in-between the bottle and radio box. Ron has quick disconnects (White) on his hoses so he can take the top deck off easily. Sticking out of the radio box are the popit vales used to fire the guns. The front part of the top deck slides under the permanently mounted deck at the bow holding it in place. You can see the slide in the top right corner.

With the deck out of the way you can see the bottle tucked into the front of the ship. Ron is using a standard regulator (Hidden in the bow). You can see the main hose coming from the regulator to the first popit valve where it is split off to the other valves. Ron has yellow and green zip strips holding the hoses on the barbs. Not the recommended clipard clamp but will work in a pinch. Note that the hose coming from the gun on the right has a piece of tape on it. This keeps Ron from cross connecting his guns and firing the wrong side during battle. For interior armor he is using shower pan liner. Ron has “engraved” the deck planks into the wood, along with hatches and other deck items.

The radio box is cast plastic by Battler’s connection, a very nice box. Ron has used four screws to keep the cover from popping off is he were to sink in deep water. There are four servos in the box along with the receiver. The top right servo fires both bow sidemounts. The center servo is the throttle. The bottom right is the pump. The top left servo fires the stern gun and also pushes a button for the lights. This button is mechanically help on so Ron can fire all his guns with the lights on or off. Under the glare from the camera is the receiver. The servos are mounted to ¼” square wood rails. These rest on small rails cast into the sides of the box. If you install a ¼” rail under the servo mounting rails (In this photo at the top and bottom of the box) the servos will be held off of the floor of the box. This makes running the wires easier because you can go under the servos. It also gives a little room for water to leak into the box before it gets the servos wet.

Here you can see the water channeling on either side of the main channel. There is a battery tray for two 12 amp hour batteries in the center of the ship. The water channeling here is very thin to keep the battery weight as low in the ship as possible. The wiring is kept a little neater inside of the plastic tube. Ron has two Deans Ultra Connectors for his main batteries and several other styles of connectors for other items. Deans Connectors are the best connectors to use in your ship. They hold up to corrosion very well and are sized to take the high current of pumps and drive motors. They also push together and come apart easily.

The pump is partly hidden by the cross brace. You can see the screening at the left of the brace and the piece of wood holding the pump down at the right. It is very important for you pump to be securely mounted in your ship. You also want to be able to easily take it out to check for weeds, bbs and other gunk under the in-between every sortie. The connectors he is using for the drive motors and pump are a lot harder to get apart then the Deans Connectors. They also corrode easily and cause a higher resistance in the wiring. Ron’s drive motors use the older style gear box from Battler’s Connection. The motors are held in place with zip strips. A U joint and dog bone connect the motors to the shafts. At the top of the photo you can see the 75 round stern gun magazine. Note the black plastic wrap protecting it from bb dings. Ron did not have this wrap on his guns until he found a ding big enough to stop the bbs from rolling down the magazine. Always protect your guns. The hole in the deck is where the pump hose comes out of the ship. The top deck of the Lion sits on top of the lower deck holding it in place.

The stern of the Lion is very narrow. Ron has had trouble with getting rammed in the rudders and having them damaged. The rudder servo is in the small black box and uses two push rods connected to the large gear that turns the small gear to turn to the rudders. If you look closely you can see a gasket cut into Ron’s subdeck. This help keep the water out on windy days and when backing up long distances.