SJS Dev Blog
3/8/2024 -
Some people have asked what components I recommend for a warship build that I don't stock here on the store. Things like specific brushless motors, RC transmitters and receivers, etc.
The first recommendation is for brushless motors. I am a huge fan of these Tenshock 609 Brushless inrunner motors. They come in 3 kV ratings:
2400kv (Great pump at 3s and 4s)
1750kv (Potential pump option for higher voltages)
1250kv (Great drive motor at 3s lipo in geared applications. Great pump motor at 6s+)
These motors use super common and super cheap 625ZZ roller bearings that can be purchased for about $.05 a piece. My recommendation is to replace the bearings once a year and to fog the motor with WD40 after every event. When you do your first motor bearing swap, drill a hole in the motor top plate so you can oil the top bearing without disassembling the motor. Using the SJS V3 pump housing and a 2400kv Tenshock motor, you have an out-of-the-box 3 gallon per minute + pump setup.
For radio and receiver, I am a huge fan of these Flysky FS-i6 series radios. The i6 and the i6x are mechanically identical, the only change is in the firmware to support up to 10 channels on the i6x. The FS-i6b receiver is my preferred receiver, it has a hard plastic outer casing and is very easy to waterproof by simply filling the clamshell style case with E6000 and screwing it closed again.
1/4/2024-
SJS Development spreadsheet has been revamped and updated with a longer term projection of what we want to work on/offer. The spreadsheet below is what I consider our 24 month plan.
8/4/2023-
There have been some questions regarding what ships SJS is currently working on, and what ships are in our immediate project queue. This is our internal spreadsheet for keeping track of what we're working on, and when:
7/21/2023 -
Welcome to www.southjerseyshipyards.com! This has been a long time coming and I am so glad to finally be able to offer my kits to the wonderful hobby of Model Warship Combat as a whole. Keep an eye out on this page and others for potential updates and content.
So a question I get asked sometimes is why do I refer to my kits by "Version" numbers that might seem a little....made up? Well, the versions reflect major changes in the kits that set them apart from the last version of the same ship.
Suffren V1 was the original prototype plastic boat kit. It was printed on a Monoprice I3 clone out of PETG and was made up of ELEVEN sections! Over 40 bolts and nuts to assemble it! Since then, we've moved on to larger and better printers to get the number of hull sections down to 4-5.
Suffren V2 was the first "large chunks" version of the kit, and it included some small improvements like an experimental sliding rudder mount and some hull shape corrections. There are 6~ V2 kits out in the wild as of 2023!
Version 3 was an internal version that never actually saw production. A lot of upgrades and suggestions were incorporated into this version, including the now-standardized SJS sliding rudder system.
Suffren Version 4 is the currently offered kit on this website. V4 ties in all the suggestions and improvements from the previous versions along with a new CNC laser cut deck designed to fit easier and a whole new superstructure.
Going forward, all "versions" will be sold in batches based on the number of CNC laser cut deck kits we have on-hand for that hull. If we can update a ship kit while maintaining compatibility with the same wooden decks, the kit will be marked as (using Suffren as an example) "V4.1, 4.2, etc". When a major change requires a whole new wooden deck, we will update the main version number from 4 to 5. By doing it this way, we can maintain some level of compatibility between updates and help support our legacy customers using older version hulls. I am constantly trying to get new ships out in the world, and this manufacturing method is still very much in its infancy, so we are going to learn things (some painfully) together.
