Seaview

[alad61]

Sometimes things will jump up and bite us. I started to put the lexan tubes together using CA. It was going well and I was sealing up all the seams inside and out. I left it alone to cure. When I came back there were all these stress cracks thru the new tube. Apparently the tube couldnt stand the stress.

Mark the cracking isn't from stress so much as it is from heat. You've got to remember that ca works by chemical polymization and most chemical reactions cause heat. The more ca you put down in one setting the more residual heat you'll get as a result. That reaction on certain products eg your clear tube will give you the crazing and cracking. Maybe a bit of ca as a spot weld with a stronger more flexible glue/sealer applied after the ca has set.

[greenman407]

Thanks Guys, Thanks Dave. I wont need to glue anything now, except the two endcaps back to back. I worked on the twin motor bulkhead today, machining out motor holes and drilling pushrod holes and stuff. More later.

[greenman407]

Here it is. The hole saws worked great and the Forestner bits tidied it up. We can go from there.

[crazygary]

Nice!!

Way to go!!

[greenman407]

Alright! I got another 3&1/2" tube in the mail today. Also the motors are mounted but Im spending some extra time to get good alignment for the 1/8" shaft seals. I bought a small vice as well to help me bend and construct the custom equipment trays that the Seaview and the Albacore and the type 23 are going to need.

[greenman407]

Todays activities were centered around moving the WTC supports to their new locations. While I was at it, I shaved their height down by 1/8"-3/16" to get the WTC/Subdriver to sit lower in the sub. Im hoping that this will translate into a little more freeboard. I cant move it down too low as then there would be no room for the lead weight. Any weight that I had double stacked had to be reconfigured and spread out. I need to make two more WTC supports for the rear portion of the WTC that is 3&1/2" in diameter.
While I was at this juncture of cutting the new piece of tube for the WTC, I thought, nows the time to Maximize this thing for maximum freeboard. Lets stuff all the lexan tube in here that we can. There is some empty space between the Battery WTC and the Subdriver. I thought about moving the whole thing forward and filling up all the space to the rear with a lengthened subdriver for the greatest floatation. I thought about it and then decided not to proceed. For one reason, if I moved the ballast tank forward, it would throw off the balance front to rear. After measuring it , its already 2" further forward than I would normally put it. I originally put it there because of the large internal volume of the huge nose and also because I was using a 6 cell NIMH up front without a WTC to hold it. The second reason is that the more floatation that you have, the more lead weight and coresponding foam that you need. Im out of room for any more of that.

[greenman407]

The extra space up front that I could have utilized by putting in a longer Subdriver, but decided not to. The black box looking thing is the AA Battery box and foam to counteract its weight. It powers the sail marker LEDS. The Subdriver holders. Wood blocks carefully shaped to fit the shape of the bottom inside of the hull. I cut these down to a lower height. I also replaced the old rubber band hooks with new ones.

[greenman407]

Then on to the twin motor bulkhead. As you recall, the decision to go direct drive was made and modifications had commenced. Here it is with motors installed and a fancy 1/8" shaft seal that is spring loaded installed. Kinda pricey. We will see how she does. The positive and negative threaded connections are in place but in an unusual location as I wanted to free up space for the equipment tray mounting area. Also in place are the 1/8" pushrod seals. These are 12 volt motors but they dont come factory suppressed. Ill have to obtain some capacitors and solder them in place.

[greenman407]

The brass dog bone drive couplers are not shown in the picture, due to the fact that I dont have any. The shafts are 1/8". I ordered some from Caswell. If I use the 3/16" ones ,then I would have to bush them, too much trouble for so little return. Also, it might not spin perfectly, therefore setting up additional vibrations, that I dont want.
Also I am now free to start cutting the alluminum sheet into equipment trays, now that I know how long my rear portion of the Subdriver will be.......7&5/8" long. That will keep the overall length where it was. Only the Diameter of the rear section will change.

[greenman407]

You can see the ny rod that I ran all the way thru the bulkhead for the antenna wire.Then I started attaching some of the componants, BEC,SL-8 and APC.Heres a closeup on the BEC and the ny rod that I used to insulate the feedwires where they run thru the tray for hookup on the otherside.

[greenman407]

Here are the two new pine Subdriver holders for the rear section. Very thin to get the driver right down as low as I can. With this, space for lead weight is limited, therefore the following picture shows my Ace in the hole. This mountain of foam was needed to keep the stern up. Now that we have more floatation(larger diameter WTC section) but less room for weight, all we have to do is remove some of this foam.

[greenman407]

Todays Ramblings! Next thing to do was to take the pine WTC holders and thoroughly coat them with Polyurethane and after dry, install some brass hooks on the side of them. Using "GOOP", they were promptly affixed in there proper places. After dry then I could take the 3" endcap and the 3&1/2" endcap and prepare them to be joined. I sanded them real good and drilled some holes in the smaller one so that the CA would be able to penetrate out to the middle in a plug weld fassion. Since I wanted perfect alignment, the only way to do that was to take and strap down front and rear sections, push them together and wherever they touch, thats it. I hit her with a little CA and allowed it to set up. Then I pulled it out of the boat for a proper Adhesion session.

[greenman407]

As far as the equipment tray is concerned, I needed to add another piece to it. A section that would help hold up the thin aluminum sheet. So after marking, hacking, trimming , swearing, drilling, screwing , and finally re trimming, I think that it will do for now.

[greenman407]

Itll be another 2 weeks before the two speed controls get here. Once they are in this thing will be answering the call. I can still install the servos and pushrods after I get some supplys from "Phils Hobby" shop on Monday.

[greenman407]

In between work on my Moms house(patio stones) I got a little bit done. Im building a stress member that will attach to the servos and the equipment tray to stiffen everything up. I salvaged some motor capacitors from a garage sale WTC. Ill attach them next. I was going to wait and hopefully get some new ones on there but, I need to get that out of the way so that I can continue because its all in that area fighting for room. Pictures soon.