Ray Mason Nautilus Build

[Davjacva]

Part of the Nautilus's re-work following last years two events, is a partial re-paint. These were areas that the spray foam crept out and went on mostly, but some dinged areas as well. No biggie, I wrote down all the mixes and processes. After Dave had correct the issue above with the rudder control, it became apparent that the current green foam stand that I had been using since the initial build was too topsy to keep going, so a new and proper stand needed to be made that lowered the cg and was less tipsy. Did one for the SSN-591 as well.

[Davjacva]

Today, I got with Merriman to address an on-going rudder issue we had on the Nautilus that started Friday while at Cohutta. We thought the issue was corrected, but it kept rearing it's ugly head and Dave had an idea to finally kill it, so today that happened. Dave made a new interface between the actuation of the servo to the rudder which incorporated a much larger magnet. The magnet was also shielded by a u-shaped piece of brass sheet. Before the rudder linkage was coming uncoupled from the magnet on the operating arm from the servo. This was very much high-lighted when running in reverse. I'm confident that this will be more than sufficient to adequately control the rudder. Still have to test it.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

The last time I ran subs with Merriman we went down to Mud Lake, I think it's really called City Park Lake. It's down in North Carolina right across the border from us. It's hosted by the 1/96 skimmer club, but this was an open event. The lake is pretty shallow and I made the mistake of diving with the Nautilus and the teeth on the bottom immediately get stuck in the mud on the bottom. Twice we thought I was going in, but it'd pop up after a few minutes. Switched over to drive the 1/96 Skipjack, and even with it's round hull it got stuck. So, diving was a PD only, or be a surface runner and test out the range check on the receiver...:} Any, through the dog and pony show of trying to launch the subs (arms length, on your belly), and all the other hoopla, we lost another blade on the Nautilus prop. So Dave said screw this and proceed to make a set out of white metal. At the same time I asked him to make me a new brass replacement blade and that I was going to use the resistance soldering unit this time, vice a flame. Well, the white metal blades needed to be filed back, so in this photo, I've filed the blades to their new shape and cleaned up all the props including the initial brass one. For photos of the work casting them and after they were painted and one mounted on the Nautilus, go to Merriman's page and it's all on page 132 to see all of that work (casting, resistance soldering, and after they were painted).

Notice that the 'new' white-metal propellers are left-handed pitch -- as per the studio drawings and full-scale propeller (seen in the 'repairing the rudder' sequence of the film) -- not right-handed as is the brass propeller I manufactured so many years ago (only those godless Commie's are into left-handed single screws on their submarines!).

Hey, Ray: I have two finished propellers sized to fit your NAUTILUS kits -- want 'em?

David

[Davjacva]

The last time I ran subs with Merriman we went down to Mud Lake, I think it's really called City Park Lake. It's down in North Carolina right across the border from us. It's hosted by the 1/96 skimmer club, but this was an open event. The lake is pretty shallow and I made the mistake of diving with the Nautilus and the teeth on the bottom immediately get stuck in the mud on the bottom. Twice we thought I was going in, but it'd pop up after a few minutes. Switched over to drive the 1/96 Skipjack, and even with it's round hull it got stuck. So, diving was a PD only, or be a surface runner and test out the range check on the receiver...:} Any, through the dog and pony show of trying to launch the subs (arms length, on your belly), and all the other hoopla, we lost another blade on the Nautilus prop. So Dave said screw this and proceed to make a set out of white metal. At the same time I asked him to make me a new brass replacement blade and that I was going to use the resistance soldering unit this time, vice a flame. Well, the white metal blades needed to be filed back, so in this photo, I've filed the blades to their new shape and cleaned up all the props including the initial brass one. For photos of the work casting them and after they were painted and one mounted on the Nautilus, go to Merriman's page and it's all on page 132 to see all of that work (casting, resistance soldering, and after they were painted).

[Davjacva]

Puts some lighting in the Nautilus. Merriman put a power outlet out the front of the WTC, so I made a protection module for the LED lights. The first time around, even though I had it drawn with the resistors on the parallel side, I put them on the series side (the lights themselves were still parallel), so I was getting only half the amperage and if one light died, the other would blow. Anyway, I did the two types of circuits on a breadboard. The LED lights in parallel with the resistors on the series side are on the left of the photo, the ones with the LED's with the resistors with them in parallel are on the right. You can see the difference very well. The ones on the right have twice the current and well within spec. Both circuits have a voltage regulator, and 3 capacitors, so no matter what batter gets hooked up, the lights are protected.

[Das Boot]

Are you going to New London? I hate New London, but I'll suck it up.
BTW, my e-mail is davjacva@gmail.com.
Jake

I’d love to, but it’s too far, and the wife and I are taking a train to New Orleans about April or May.

[Davjacva]

A lot of it depends on the nominal angle you put on the pitch in "neutral". If they're aligned to the longitudinal axis of the boat, you'll get diving action under speed. If you angle them up slightly (which yours were by quite a bit), you can override that tendency. Like Dave's Seaview, a tiny bit of upward pitch will override the tendency to dive and keep you at neutral pitch under power.

Except for a couple of times during the event Thursday and Friday. I had neither planes or pitch control, but when I had them, holy smokes what a difference it made. Since I had neither, I both were in neutral, which didn't take any effort with the pitch as it just defaulted that way. This was the first time that we got to see what our efforts did as running at the pool previously was almost as bad as not running at all...and we now had a 4-blade, 5-bladed prop to boot. As a former COW/ DOOW, I wanted to see what this thing did, so I ran the snot out of it, both forward and reverse, surface and submerged. This was all straight-running with absolutely no rudder.
This was my testing:
Surface: Running forward it would run great until you gave it a flank bell, then there was fluid shift and it would run a nose-dive, and a prop-wash would start...so back down. A backing bell, had no problems at all and steerage was pretty good. After a surface trim loss after running flank, I'd start the LP blower and get back up to surface trim. Funny, this is what a real sub does surface-transiting every hour :)
Submerged: The submerged trim it turned out was slightly heavy, and this turned out to be advantageous. There were air pockets behind the 'gator eyes' and I could get rid of them, but doing a submerged backing bell which made the sub take a 45-deg dive rearward. Now with all air purged it was ready to go. I would only run rearward submerged to do this as it served no other benefit. Going forward from a dive, this was with no ability to shift planes or pitch, the sub would dive, but not fully. When you cleared the air, then the sub would dive when it had about a 1/3 bell or less. Any more thrust, and the sub would porpoise to the surface. So with a slow bell on, the sub would submerge, and you could maintain depth with speed, or surface, or just slow down and you'd sink. At a certain speed, you maintained depth perfectly. Not rocket science. It would act this way all the way to the bottom, and I could run it at depth this way, as long as I could see it (during the bright of day).
So to me, taking the simple 'planes, angle, speed' approach, it worked pretty well. I lost my rudder control three times, as the magnet on one side was repeated pulling the other out of the housing...even using JB Weld. Merriman was shocked, so suggested wiring it in place, which I did and that was that. One thing about the rudder control, we were surprised by how much response we had to the throw we had. It's not going to turn in a pool, but it sure beat Dave's Seawolf in the turning contest.
When I finally got pitch and plane control late Thursday, it was shocking how much each affected the performance of the sub. I didn't have to worry about clearing residual air...nothing. That sucker would dive like nobody's business using the pitch control only. Using the planes only, the sub would change depth noticeably. Not great, but it did. The servos were apparently a big problem. Dave thought it was something else and it just became apparent on Saturday, what the problem was.
After the fixes are to be made, won't be able to find out the theory to practice puzzle till next year. Thanks for the feedback Bob.

[Davjacva]

Hey dip****, answer my question.

Ha ha ha. Casey, you PM'd me from the forum and I answered you from the forum. Here's what I sent:

I was actually talking to Steve for a long time. It was getting dark and didn't want to drive in the dark like the night before, so I split. It looked like you all had a big pow-wow going on and I didn't want to interrupt. Figured it was for the night run. With Merriman gone with my stuff I had nothing but air to breathe. I had come over after dinner to help Merriman pack, but he and Fred F. were driving out. Had a blast buddy, I will definitely be coming again. Phenomenally great people, and I didn't have a boring conversation one. I had two other buddies coming to the event, but they cancelled due to conflicts. Are you going to New London? I hate New London, but I'll suck it up.
BTW, my e-mail is davjacva@gmail.com.
Jake

[Das Boot]

Hey dip****, answer my question.

[RCSubGuy]

A lot of it depends on the nominal angle you put on the pitch in "neutral". If they're aligned to the longitudinal axis of the boat, you'll get diving action under speed. If you angle them up slightly (which yours were by quite a bit), you can override that tendency. Like Dave's Seaview, a tiny bit of upward pitch will override the tendency to dive and keep you at neutral pitch under power.

[Davjacva]

Wow, this has been a Master Class in sub theory and painting! It was a pleasure to meet you at SubFest and my privilege to run the Nautilus Wednesday under Admiral Merriman's watchful eye. Gorgeous boat!

Steve, it was totally great to meet and spend time with you too. I was really overwhelmed with the level of craftsmanship vs what I was expecting at a typical sub event. Since I've been around Dave for over 20 years this says a lot about the everyone there. I was not bored one damn minute, and my only regret was not coming for Wednesday when the schedule changed. I will not make that mistake next time :) There were times that I was ready to run, but was busy watching something else (usually on the workbenches) that was more interesting. Being ready to run BTW, was like driving in the Lemans or Daytona 500 at times, as the 5th blade was lost before I got there and I ran it before Dave or I even knew, or heard from Bob about it being missing. I would have figure it would have vibrated to death...but it didn't, but it undoubtedly provided reduced output thrust (20%?). The dive planes went out towards the end of Thursday, and the pitch on the propeller was in/out for two days and finally went out fully Friday (Saturday I got out finally when it was raining with no planes or pitch, but finally had rudder which broke three times on Saturday (magnet kept coming out)). I did get to see what performance they gave independently as the planes were a theory Dave proposed for the build and we went forward with it. The sub did respond to the planes for depth control. The pitch over-rode the rakers up-pitch that made the submarine always thrust upward, and when it worked it was awesome. I listed these two in the 'after-action' report and Dave looked at them and believes they just aren't powerful enough and gave up the ghost. So figuring out the hydro-dynamics of the sub both going forward and reverse, while both surface and submerged, it was clear what the rakers were doing. If I had a problem going down, I could go in reverse and it would pitch at a 45-deg towards the bottom, then i could go forward and as long as my headway wasn't too much I'd keep depth. I asked Bob about the raker-deal as he's built and operated multiples of each one on the market, and he said just the opposite. That the sub was supposed to act that way, but his always acted in reverse and would dive vice rise. Anyway, it's all a science project right?

[Das Boot]

Had to pack up and get to bed -- Fred's flight was the next day at 4 AM and I had to drive him to the airport. From there, I went home.

David

I was speaking of your brother from Virginia Beach.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Where did you go Saturday night? One minute you’re there for dinner, the next you’re gone. You do the night run?

Had to pack up and get to bed -- Fred's flight was the next day at 4 AM and I had to drive him to the airport. From there, I went home.

David

[Das Boot]

Where did you go Saturday night? One minute you’re there for dinner, the next you’re gone. You do the night run?

[SubSteve]

Wow, this has been a Master Class in sub theory and painting! It was a pleasure to meet you at SubFest and my privilege to run the Nautilus Wednesday under Admiral Merriman's watchful eye. Gorgeous boat!