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Work on Tucson continues slowly. Scraping ,sanding and filling on the hull to rid of epoxy that didn't cure. A real mess. Then my wife fell and fractured her femur so that's my priority for awhile.
Work on Tucson continues slowly. Scraping ,sanding and filling on the hull to rid of epoxy that didn't cure. A real mess. Then my wife fell and fractured her femur so that's my priority for awhile.
***WARNING-NOT A SUB*** You have a few choices once you've made that master, which is looking awesome. I love working in foam, as it's so fast to work up a form. I use autobody fillers, which partially dissolves your master while you go, but it builds back pretty fast, as enough of it is left to move forward. I use styrene as rough templates, then keep drawing grid work on it and fill and sand to shape. Dave talked me into casting this work, and roto-cast some in Alumulite, then we laid up one in GRP which I used that one. Did the mantlet the same way, but just cast that piece conventionally. The gun was machined in three parts, then cast. Sorry, I don't have photos of the casting process. This work actually made it into some Cabal reports back in '06-07. The ones on here only go back to about 2008. Your sail work looks great, that's a showcase by itself for detail.
***WARNING-NOT A SUB*** You have a few choices once you've made that master, which is looking awesome. I love working in foam, as it's so fast to work up a form. I use autobody fillers, which partially dissolves your master while you go, but it builds back pretty fast, as enough of it is left to move forward. I use styrene as rough templates, then keep drawing grid work on it and fill and sand to shape. Dave talked me into casting this work, and roto-cast some in Alumulite, then we laid up one in GRP which I used that one. Did the mantlet the same way, but just cast that piece conventionally. The gun was machined in three parts, then cast. Sorry, I don't have photos of the casting process. This work actually made it into some Cabal reports back in '06-07. The ones on here only go back to about 2008. Your sail work looks great, that's a showcase by itself for detail.
This is just some of the work Dave and I got into to produce a stout, yet light weight gun barrel part for his tracked bang-bang machine.
After several months I'm back at work on the Tucson model. Recall the problems I had with the epoxy that didn't cure. In addition the exothermic reaction of the epoxy melted some of the pink foam and made an even worse mess. It reminded me of the picture below.
So I started over turning the bow and stern sections from wood covered in Evercoat. My drill press became my lathe. A tool bit I made in metal shop over 50 years ago was put to work again. The dowel on the bottom of my tool rests against the guide for an accurate contour.
For future reference, painting the foam board part with 4-5 coats of interior latex paint will seal the foam from the effects of polyester resin which granted has its issues but is typically much less expensive than epoxy resin. Either way, keep at it.
Some recent work. Before priming I established upper and lower hull centerlines. Then drilled 1/16" holes to hold upper and lower centerlines. These will be filled in after the scribing is finished. Primed, filled with glazing putty, and sanded where needed (several times). Also drilled 3/4" holes for mounting rods. Starting to lay out lines for scribing.
A question. I noticed drawings show main condenser intakes and discharge on P&S sides. Merchant ships I sailed on had the main condenser intake and discharge on one side only.
Not to confuse the model makers, but Tuscon is a Mod-25 boat, that is, it's a Flight-6, 688 ( I know everyone spews out about 3 flights, but that is very erroneous. Flight-3 for example is only comprised of 719 and 720). This gave is a lot of the Seawolf improvements to powerplant/ propulsion, much larger steam generators, and I think the main seawater grates were a different size than a standard S6G hull. Greenville, Charlotte, and one of the EB last hulls have this.
Some recent work. Before priming I established upper and lower hull centerlines. Then drilled 1/16" holes to hold upper and lower centerlines. These will be filled in after the scribing is finished. Primed, filled with glazing putty, and sanded where needed (several times). Also drilled 3/4" holes for mounting rods. Starting to lay out lines for scribing.
A question. I noticed drawings show main condenser intakes and discharge on P&S sides. Merchant ships I sailed on had the main condenser intake and discharge on one side only.
Redundancy, a hallmark of safe submarine operation! They are also relatively high up on the sides to remain clear of seabed material. Not good to clog things up in your condenser intakes!! That's helpful if doing a "bottoming" procedure, too.
I'm using K&S rectangular and square tubing to create the floods aft on the underside of Tucson. Evergreen plastic shapes would have been much easier to use but my local Ace Hardware did not stock them and Hobby Lobby was much farther away. I created a jig to cut the brass tubing since I need several. It's been a long time since I did any scribing so my first attempt wasn't worth keeping. I'll rework that after some more practice. I thought about modeling the SPM (the Outboard) as I did on my Will Rogers several years ago but at this scale that was not going to be practical.
I just started to work on the forward floods and will have more on that later.
A question looking for an answer. This is a photo from the drawing showing Tucson underside aft. I'm guessing one is the cover for a stern anchor and the other is for a secondary propulsion motor but I'm guessing. So, what are numbers 1, 2 and 3? Anybody have an answer?
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