Ray Mason Nautilus Build

[Davjacva]

Wet-sanding, cleaning up parts, Nitro-Stan filling, again, again, wet-sand, primer paint, blah, blah, blah. This is where its at today. Getting really tight. This week will be spent getting the gaps filled, then re-creating the detail...then the sucker's going to get mounted. I'm enjoying every damn minute of this :)

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Wet-sanding, cleaning up parts, Nitro-Stan filling, again, again, wet-sand, primer paint, blah, blah, blah. This is where its at today. Getting really tight. This week will be spent getting the gaps filled, then re-creating the detail...then the sucker's going to get mounted. I'm enjoying every damn minute of this :)

Thanks for the visual. Now for a long lava-soap brain-scrub to get that out of my head!

[Davjacva]

Continuing work with getting the superstructure fitting correctly (52 steps back then one large Evel-Knievel leap for man-kind...something like that). Now that we've straightened out the sides, we can get the fit-up to the hull going. This is the 'wax on the hull, Bondo on the superstructure part' along with the CA glue/ baking soda to correct hull parts that all you sub people do in your sleep right? Anyway, making a mess.

[Davjacva]

This morning started at 8am and worked for 8 solid hours. I swear, an hour would go by and it seemed like 5 minutes. Anyway, today was spent correct the forward fit of the hull, then...we scaled the limber holes, drew them in, made tools, cut them out, sanded and painted over it all. Figured out where the panels are going to be, and cleaned up aft where the body filler wasn't supposed to be. Tomorrow, get to spend finalizing the fit so we can eventually glue the superstructure down. Still have to complete the detail on the forward sides though. Does anybody read this? Later.

[Davjacva]

Post mortem: Among the photos above is a photo of my TAIG lathe. Merriman gave this to me back about 2003. I recently rebuilt it and replaced the crossslide and put a DRO on it. I have another crosslide that has the taper fixture attached. I don't understand how people can get along without a lathe...sometimes even a mill. I've done a lot of projects with it, and it's saved projects that were missing or needed additional items. I've turned some 1/16 gun barrels and a ton of other stuff with it. I thought about getting something bigger, but for what we do, it really gets it.

[Davjacva]

This week's 'Flail-Ex'. Re-creating the limber holes and surface detail on the superstructure. Tomorrow hopefully this will be permanently glued down. Every meal is a banquet, every model is an adventure...:)

[Davjacva]

Bright and early this morning, went about gluing down the superstructure to the upper hull finally. This brings about the fruits of a solid two weeks of work pretty much daily to get here today. Pretty much normal model building after attaching all the external pieces. Haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to paint it. Every time I get to liking something, I get a different take on it and throwing that idea out the window. In the movie, the scene where Kirk is throwing the bottles overboard, the hull surrounding him is ideal. I'd have to use hairspray probably to recreate it. Little problems, it'll come.

[Davjacva]

Got this one from Bob yesterday right before a model meeting. Got to spend some time with it today. Looks awesome. This one's going to have a fully interior, bells, and whistles.

[Davjacva]

So for the 'Flail-Ex' today, I havent posted in a bit, so this covers getting the wheelhouse mounted, and filling some voids...AND getting almost all the raker work done. I used 'Bog-Glue' the rubberized CA, and the next morning Ray Mason was describing how he had mounted his...with JB Weld which was my original plan until someone told me CA would be fine. I went to Lowes to get more JB Weld as surprisingly I keep running out due to making rivets and what-not. So I get back and try to pull the rakers off and only the top set come off. SO!!! I proceeded for the next 6 hours filling gaps with baking soda/CA, then following that with Bondo. Today, I'm taking a break. Back at it tomorrow for some touch-ups on the rakers and this weekend going to start on on the screw-guard stuff. Oh yeah, I got my 1/48 scale Nautilus from Bob and Jason last week and did a size comparison. This one is intended to have all the bells and whistles for a display piece.

[Davjacva]

This weekend: the both fish eyes were fitted and glued; the screw guard was installed along with creating a brass one for the rudder control to pass through; the SAS head valve was installed (finished next week). Rudder work next week.

[Davjacva]

Installing rudder and finishing head valve work. Also got a Proxxon hot wire foam cutter in preps to make the carrying box for the sub. I'm getting paranoid with all the attachments on it each time I carry it around while traveling to Dave's and back. Part of this was that previously I've been pretty easy moving it around or if it got knocked over as this thing is made of some incredibly strong resin. Ray told me that it was a type they use on F-14's, and it's thick. Hope to get the wood cut this weekend.

[Davjacva]

Rudder control work.

[Davjacva]

Using an incandescent 1157 yellow car bulb for the lighting. I absolutely hate seeing the white LED lights and I asked Ray what he had used for the lighting of his. Haven't lit it yet, but should be great. Not sure about the heat problem, but I'm only running 7.2v so shouldn't get too hot.

[Davjacva]

Been making the travel/ storage box for the Nautilus. Weird, but it's taken over half my shop. 3 separate counters, a set of saw horses, another table for the Proxxon wire cutter. The Proxxon makes this job infinitely easier. The bottom is just about finished, and getting ready to move to the top. Weather's not been playing, so doing most of it inside, which really sucks with the urethane.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Look'n good!

David