Todaro - Italian 212

[HardRock]

Pushing on with the filling and filing. Drilled the two fairwater plane holes and (amazingly) they lined up just fine.


Fairwater planes installed and working.

The various bits have been added to the sail.


And its now tucked up for night.

[HardRock]

Photo strangeness. Once more:

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Pushing on with the filling and filing. Drilled the two fairwater plane holes and (amazingly) they lined up just fine.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]n113424[/ATTACH]

Fairwater planes installed and working.[ATTACH=CONFIG]n113425[/ATTACH]

The various bits have been added to the sail.[ATTACH=CONFIG]n113426[/ATTACH]


And its now tucked up for night. [ATTACH=CONFIG]n113427[/ATTACH]

I love it when you guys show off your shop. Is that an X-Y vice under that drill-press? Slick. And I so appreciate a guy who builds and uses transportation/storage boxes for his completed r/c submarines! Working sail-planes!?.... They call me anal!?

M

[HardRock]

Yep. X-Y vice on calibrated table; decent drill press, mill and small lathe on the table behind. If I actually knew how to use this stuff I could make watches! And you should appreciate those storage boxes - you made the one at the top left in the stack (1/96 Skipjack). I just copied the design. I have to go back to the bathroom now and watch the water in the tiolet swirling around in the CORRECT direction.

[HardRock]

Tiolet is the Australian word for toilet by the way.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Yep. X-Y vice on calibrated table; decent drill press, mill and small lathe on the table behind. If I actually knew how to use this stuff I could make watches! And you should appreciate those storage boxes - you made the one at the top left in the stack (1/96 Skipjack). I just copied the design. I have to go back to the bathroom now and watch the water in the tiolet swirling around in the CORRECT direction.

Good man! Protect those investments.

As a Torpedoman they taught us how to bias the steering gyro so keep a true heading no matter the latitude, one of the training films used the toilet water swirl as a practical demonstration of the coriolis effect.

M

[HardRock]

Filling in the digs.

[HardRock]

Making windows; and lights.

[HardRock]

Filling in the dings in the undercoat.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Filling in the dings in the undercoat.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]n113520[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]n113521[/ATTACH]

Looking good! You're going to find that this thing turns in about two boat-lengths underwater -- you won't need practical sail planes.

M

[HardRock]

I already have an existing 212 and its (as you say) very manouverable. My problem has been that the pitch controler sometimes makes the X tails less efficient on the surface, ie. if there is any angle on the boat at the surface the pitch control angles the planes up or down and reduces available rudder throw. On this one I'm thinking about running the pitch control through the sail planes so that the X tail is unaffected by changes in pitch.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I already have an existing 212 and its (as you say) very manouverable. My problem has been that the pitch controler sometimes makes the X tails less efficient on the surface, ie. if there is any angle on the boat at the surface the pitch control angles the planes up or down and reduces available rudder throw. On this one I'm thinking about running the pitch control through the sail planes so that the X tail is unaffected by changes in pitch.

That won't work at all: The sail planes are very tightly coupled to the center of gravity (center of rotation about yaw and pitch). Their placement makes the planes effective in vertical forces, not pitch forces. Put a switch on the angle-keeper and turn it off when you're surfaced.



And your observation about rudder effectiveness being degraded by pitch commands from the angle-keeper is right on -- I've experienced the same problem on my Type-212. I fix that by putting the transmitters pitch control on a knob -- I simply zero the pitch angle from the transmitter and I get full rudder effectiveness.



Good stuff, HardRock!

M

[HardRock]

Thanks. Good advice.

[HardRock]

Finished the fill, sand, fill, sand, swear, fill, just get over it cycle. Also fitted the SD and the linkages and made a start of the lower hull. There is so much detail on this thing that I can't (in good conscience) grunge it up too much. All of the photographs that I have show the Italian boats looking very clean in any case so I've just hit it with Grey/Black and highlighted the pannel lines with streight black. I'm still waiting for the top side paint to arrive from elsewhere. Also order a 5 mm silver star for the front - in fact I ordered 100 of them because that's the minimum number. Anyone needing 5 mm silver stars please PM me - I have some spare.

[HardRock]

It seems that those pesky Germans sold the Italians an export version of the 212 which is missing the two forward passive do-dad (technical submarine term) antennas on the nose. The Italian boats just have two square covers where the German boats have something more interesting going on. It also appears that they hold their submarine's casings together with screws. They are quite distinctive and stand out in every photograph that I have to a lesser or greater degree. Nothing for it but to drill a couple of thousand .5 mm holes. Fortunately I'm waiting on some paint so its no big deal.