Newbie no more - Building the Revell 1/72 Gato

[beeryboats]

Great! Thanks. I'll ask my techi wife if she can print it at a usable size for me. Keep the die as long as you wish. My use for it is over for now. But I would like it back so I can use/share it again.
Jay

[trout]

Jay, I did get the die and have not used it yet. BIG Thank you! I will be working on the shafts this weekend. Here is one pattern: <- it is there (white on white). Scott Trosper has worked on the pattern from several years ago (I believe he work on it with Crazy Ivan if I remember one thread I read correctly), I found his pattern on SubCommittee at Scott's members webpage and then another gentleman (Eric Moody) sent me the same pattern. When I looked through some of David's cabal reports, I saw this pattern in one of the pictures of David's build ( It looked like he used the pattern at one time) and David mentioned Scott's name in a post somewhere and that is what sent me searching for Scott's web page. Anyway that is the web of how I came to use it (oh and fueled by me trying to save a dollar). Maybe David or Scott could shed some light on the history of the patterns.

[beeryboats]

Tom,
Have you had a chance to use the prop shaft die I sent you? I posted on my build that I'm looking for a flood hole pattern. I've been crawling the web for two days now. Any chance you can share where you found your pattern? I had no idea Caswell has a stick on pattern either or I would have ordered it with the darn driver kit.
Jay

[trout]

David,
Thank you for the complement (especially being compared to Lee Staton)! No Wonderfest training, although I attended Wonderfest once in the early 90's. Most of my training was from trial and error, reading, talking to people, and anywhere else I can gather information. Sitting here doing the math, it has been about 45 years of building models and about the last 10 years a sabbatical. So jumping back in with this sub build has fired off all sorts of creative juices. You, oztruck, Manfred, Rick Palumbo, and many others are my inspiration today and set the goal I would like to reach for.
Peace,
Tom

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Hey! ... that's good stuff. You obviously know your way around an air-brush. And I see a seamless assembly there. That's Lee Staton quality work there, pal.

You a Wonderfest graduate or sumth'n?

David,

[trout]

Way back when, I use to do quite a bit of model building. Here is one of my builds:

I know, enough of the chit-chat, back to the build!

[trout]

One more: http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675075978_United-States-submarine_airplane-in-flight_watching-through-binoculars_men-aboard-tender
Video footage is cool especially when it goes to the tender. There you can see weathering and how some kept painting the hull.

[trout]

Color video for inspiration: http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675075979_United-States-submarine_submarine-underway_United-States-sailors_sailors-on-conning-tower
Video1
and http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65...ongside-tender

[trout]

Scott,
Thank you for your work creating the pattern! Yes, you may use any of my photos using your pattern! Scott, if you have the time, I would love to pick your brain offline.
Peace,
tom

[Scott T]

Glad to see someone use the flood hole drawing I helped make.
I feel like a published author.
I am going to save a few of your pictures of the flood hole pattern in use.

Scott T

[trout]

A little vinegar? Great tip!
Thanks.

[jlday1256]

The milk thing works even better with a little vinegar:http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howtos...uefrommilk.htm

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

LOL. A fun read. Especially the last bit.

Love the milk adhesive trick -- new one for my books. Thanks.

David,

[trout]

David has posted a picture of the wiring on another post. I will have one done with crayons and pictures (I have to work on my level of intelligence - lol). I am waiting on some hardware to come in as well.


I ran into a slight problem with the install of my propellor shaft. I did not angle it in enough to give me the clearance for the bearings. Until the new ones come in - Thank you David! - that part of the install is on hold.


So, it has been a busy week (Tina’s, my wife, birthday), not so much on the Gato. However some work was done, I began working on the flood holes.


Found a drawing of the flood holes here:
http://www.subcommittee.com/SubComm/...m?MemberID=154


or here is one:



I printed the plan to scale and marked my hull in sections and labeled the pattern the same, beginning at the bow.



Caswell sells stick-on pattern here:
http://www.caswellplating.com/models...templates.html


They are a different pattern than the ones I used. So go with which ever one you wish. I will say this, after doing the work I did, go with the stick-ons. I am not going crazy on accuracy here, so I do not know if one pattern is more appropriate for the Gato I am building or not. I am trying to save a dollar here and there, but the time it took to cleanup the glue, I think the few dollars the pattern costs is minimal. However, if you like to go the hard road (like I seem to do) well buckle up - you are in for a ride.


I use to do home brewing and bottle my own beer (there is a point to this digression). Then create labels for the bottles. One way of attaching the labels to the bottles is using milk. The reason for using milk is when you wash the bottles the label will separate easily and the stickiness of milk worked well as a adhesive. Do you know where I am going with this? Yep, Hey why not use it for the flood hole pattern?

I was tickled with myself, but that euphoric feeling quickly dissipated (or evaporated) by the time I got to the aft end. The bow pattern just lifted off - it was in the shape of my hull, but useless for what I wanted. It must work on glass because of the smooth surface or I have defective cow's milk.
My son had been doing his school work near by and I spotted white glue. That will work.



One section at a time, I glued and applied the pattern being careful to line up the seam on the keel with the pattern’s mid-line.



Not as euphoric, but glad it was done. Even that satisfaction did not last. These popped off as well! Now I am ticked (well mildly aggravated). Got the CA thin and glued these on. That worked!
I drilled a small hole as a pilot hole for a larger drill. Then followed up with a drill that was smaller than the diameter of the pattern, pick one any one. At this point I used CA and touched the edge of the hole and let the capillary action draw the adhesive between the pattern and the hull. If I was to do this again, I would try tacking the pattern down the keel only, drill a hole and glue at the hole. This might localize the adhesive to a local area.
I used a jewelers saw with a wide throat to cut out the bulk of the plastic. The blade I put on was a spiral wax blade. This blade is twisted with the idea that you can cut in any direction. It is designed cutting patterns and rings off of wax stock. Since plastic is really soft, this blade worked real well. It is a rougher cut so do not get too close the the edge, if at all possible.

The holes look ugly, but that was the whole idea of drilling smaller than the pattern, cutting with the twisted blade, and leaving room for finishing. I used half-round files to clean up the holes. Then came the time to remove the paper. What a BIG mess and a pain in my ....... you get the idea. I had CA release and applied that to a test area to make sure it did not melt the plastic, it did not. So I kept adding the CA solvent and s****ing, I will not repeat the same line over again, but 2 hours later, I got this much done. Still have the bow and aft to do.

Overall, not too bad. I will tackle the rest tomorrow. I also made a pattern with brass to clean up the holes and use to fill where needed.

Side note. I know in David's video he removes the weld lines. I have not yet. I like the weld lines, I do not know why. I like the older subs with rivets and weld lines too. So, I most likely will regret that decision as I will have to recreate the lines later (on the flip-side, I can always remove them). This submarine is becoming my classroom to learn new techniques, but still keep the primary focus - finish the submarine. In this classroom there is the humbling experience of making stupid mistakes and not following the advice of the sages. I can be a thick skulled.

[trout]

Thank you for the putty knife direction. I ordered my ESC and some misc. other stuff, will be working on designing the innards of the WTC.
I plan on having snort, LiPo, ADR, ESC, and I think I am forgetting something else. I will have the plans up soon for review.