Ray Mason Nautilus Build

[Davjacva]

Merriman proposed to me an idea of making the planes in the rakers operable and the idea was sound, as it will affect depth changes but not angle. Kind of like only using your sail planes at slow speed. Its a viable theory...let's see. Anyway, I cut the existing ones out and made new ones with detail added. Popped them over to Dave's today and they'll be cast sometime this week. Coated the foam with Nitrostan, did the rivets with JB Weld, then after that dries, more Nitrostan for texturing and that's that.

[Davjacva]

Today had worked on tightening up the upper hull cut aft by the rudder. I was about 1/16", and got it down to where it would pass the wax paper I was using as a feeler gauge. I filled the gap with baking soda and CA and filed it to fit. Took a few hours, but got it pretty tight. Now just need to re-detail the area. The photo where you see the sub stand you can really see the previous gap.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Out with the old and in with the new. My 20-year old kit of automotive primer (Dupont 131s) finally gave me the family friendly middle finger and went to ghost...so I got to spend money on a new kit. Great stuff. I used it the next day.

If you have not yet tossed that 131s, bring over here, I will breath life into it... I AM ALL POWERFULL!!!!!

David

[Davjacva]

It's long-gone to recycling. That crap was as restorative as getting a carrion-rotted corpse to tap-dance. I put lacquer thinner in it and it just stayed like tar for three days. Okay, so next time (in 20 years) I'll bring the next one over and you can do your Diver-Dave Voodoo on it :) Hell, it'll probably be easier than that ant-infested hull from the Abyss movie you had out back that Brian's trying to bring back I guess. There was half a forest growing in it and I asked Ellie what the hell was that, and she said 'Its the thing from the movie.'

[Davjacva]

This last week was spent creating the saddles for the WTC, fixing and emplacing the screw shaft/gimble in the stern tube (photos to follow) and stiffening up the rear mounting tabs for the upper hull. This was new to me using JB Weld with micro-balloons as a thickening agent. It turned the solution into a very thick tar-like medium which was then placed against both sides of each saddle. This was to prevent the low-viscous nature of the JB Weld from oozing out of place. Worked great. Also used JB Weld with fiberglass to reinforce the mounting tabs at the rear of the hull. I've used a lot of mediums with fiberglass, but this was a first with JB Weld. Merriman assured me both methods would work...and who am I to second-guess that!! Anyway enjoy.

[Davjacva]

Playing catchup with a lot of photos just downloaded. First are the casting and tooling of the planes in Alumalite.

[Davjacva]

This is some of the stern, drivetrain, and pitch control work. It all works together very well, and Dave's design and construction lends itself also to it all being easily maintained. He had some after-action reservations about the drive linkage, but I explained how the it all met two passing criteria (not within a harmonic frequency band and good distribution of rotational force) as well as keeping the stern-end a solid structure. Kind of perplexes me why sub guys don't use sealed bearings, flanged of otherwise. Oilites may surfice are you operate in a wet environment, so there's probably little wear, but there is noise produced. Some of the gearboxes are funny too. Dave draws a lot of things out to get it into his head exactly what the mechanic layout is going to be. A lot of issues work themselves out here. Not all but it cuts away a lot of the chaff of designed a mouse trap that's been kind of built before, but maybe going into a larger hull (or smaller) where physical issues due to size and other variables may and will arise. Nowadays engineers use CAD programs when communicating new design, old school was paper and pencil. On Virginia Class, I designed many hydraulic jumper manifolds/ assemblies costing a few hundred smackers a piece with doing this, so they could be researched for parts, manufactured and used during construction. These RC subs intrigue us, because they are engineering mental puzzles on a few different levels.

[Davjacva]

This week, the planes are put in place and the control linkages are created and installed. So in typical Dave fashion, he'll do one, the say, 'I hope you took notes, do the rest', and leave the shop. My first thought is,
'We get to play with fire alone...' Anyway, the last shots are of the sub hulls together with the planes at neutral, and last ones with the planes in rise. Tomorrow we should get them connected and oriented for mating with the WTC.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

... You forget to mention that my poop don't stink!

[Davjacva]

The Skipilus (reached a stopping point and the mind wanders...).

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

The Skipilus (reached a stopping point and the mind wanders...).

I'm outta the shop for five-frig'n-minutes and you pull this ****!

David
I Send E'm to School, Buy E'm Books, and What Do They Do???... They Eat the Teacher!

[Davjacva]

Fun for today continues with the dive plane linkage work, and moving to the superstructure work (also known as the forthcoming crime scene).

The dive plane operators got their linkage tabs soldered on and the interlocking linkage today. There's a magnet with a threaded portion for fine adjustment on these rods. Pretty simple.

The upper superstructure was attached today with hardware and strong-backs in order to provide a solid base for the forth-coming work to correct the mating of the superstructure to the hull. Unlike other Nautilus's, where the upper superstructure is actually a part of the hull, here we get the joy of taking an imperfect superstructure and mating it to the upper hull, and you notice...there's a gap. Out of this whole project, this is the portion I've been dreading and kind of had a mental block on about it. So I took up my crosses up the hill to Merriman who has a plan. Nuke the entire planet from space and re-build...not quite, but I've been on this sheet of music before. Well, after getting it mounted, it all may not be as rough as all that. Yes, we're going to have to recreate a lot of detail, but it's getting 'old hat' and the sub is starting to look the part. I absolutely hat seeing screws exposed, and all of these will be buried into the substrate or hidden. If you look above with the Skipilus, the forthcoming work is revealed with the gap between the superstructure and upper hull, that is the next mountain to hurdle (lions, tigers, bears and mass destruction of detail, oh my!!!).

[Davjacva]

These week at the zombie-fest train-wreck. Hard to see but there's a big benefit afterward. The sides of the superstructure are concave, so here they are being corrected by being cut and pulled/positioned inward. Then they'll be glassed and size-fit to the hull via oil paint and a Dremel tool. Then the sides will be Bondo'd sanded, re-glassed, Nitro-Stan'd, then primered. Then this coming week they'll be re-sized positioned again, then the detail will be re-created.

[Davjacva]

First glassing after cutting and re-positioning.

[Davjacva]

Reshaping and re-glassing.