77" Type IX U-Boat

[Davjacva]

Got this about 15 years ago and it needed some TLC. Hull was warped, so last summer I set it outside and let the sun do it's work. I previously had put brass 'stiffening' brackets on the side in order to assist getting it back together. About a month ago I had a big shock, as I was watching the old Sub-regattas in New London, this one being the 1993 (part 1). So I'm marveling at the Ray Mason Nautilus, I guess that's when Ray introduced it as he won 3 awards for it, but what I was shocked about was this guy carrying my U-Boat, and it's seen about 5 times in the video, and Ray's narrating and names the guy who owns it, and it's Charley Cleveland. This is funny as I knew the previous owner before whom I got it from and he had said it was built by someone else. I was talking to Bob M. via e-mail and described this sub and he said it sounds like an Engle, and all the photos I'd seen of Engle's they didn't have torpedo tube shutters, a better 105mm, and the internals looked better. So this last weekend I had some down-time from Nautilus and dug into it, rather excavated it. The crap in the bottom looked like the bottom of a lake. Took out a time of lead, sinkers, and other odd bits, then got the ballast cylinders out. I told Merriman about it and he said 'gut that crap, and put a 3.5" WTC in it'. So proceeding forth. Gave it two baths with Simple Green, and the interior looks better than the deck now. After taking the ballas cylinders out, I took one apart and after some clean up, and replacing the 540 motors, it will be good to go to a new home. I'm not a fan of dry-hull at all though. This sucker weighed a ton, and it didn't even have water in it.

[Davjacva]

So after scrubbing the interior with a paint brush with Palmolive dish soap, which got most of it. I thought better and went and did the harder areas with Simple Green. I clean all my car engine bays out with it and it's a superb, yet friendly cleaner. Here's what it looks like squeeky-clean. This is a side project to the Nautilus on a not-to-interfere basis when I have dead time. So I'll be posting here time to time. Now that the hull is clean and all the junk removed. It will be converted over to WTC, but I'm going to concentrate now on overhauling the upper deck and sail.

[Davjacva]

Okay boys and girls, starting full-on with the Type IX build (re-build?) now that the Nautilus is in re-fit awaiting some corrections/ upgrades. Had Merriman over to assess/ confirm the work-direction and brought out the modeling tools that also double for the best implements of destruction in a great horror movie (sawzall-recipricating saw), as I found a 1/4" metal plate glued beneath the central access. Toughest part was getting the gearbox out, as all the fittings were corroded (hammer). Everything came out as desired, with absolutely no re-work involving overzealous technicians with aforementioned implements of horror movie destruction. Going to have to rewash everything out as there was still some automotive GP grease in there and a ton of other crap. Plan for the sail is to douse it repeatedly with EasyOff until all paint removed and rebuild/ repaint.

[Ken_NJ]

Ambitious project Jake. Nice beginning story. Good luck with it. Will be following.

You have a nice big shop setup. I like it!

[Davjacva]

I failed to mention the obvious, and for those who haven't figured it out...I'm converting this from a 'dry-hull' to 'wet' WTC.

[Davjacva]

Here's further results of slingin' a chain today. Right out of the box, with two cups of coffee. Didn't even brush my teeth yet. Grabbed the hammer, lineman pliers, Dremel, and went to town. Took out the remaining electronics, aft bulkhead (which was wood), and three of the brass fill-ports for the piston cylinders and something else. The 105mm main deck gun was removed, as they were all removed when these upgraded mega-wintergarten sails came out anyway as I recall. The one on this model wasn't even on par of being accurate, so I removed it. I took it off the stand and was shocked at how light the whole thing was I took a photo at arms length to illustrate this. Just a few pounds. I then took some measurements for a new stand and I'll cut the pieces this afternoon.

[Davjacva]

Had to make a more user-friendly stand for this big-ass hull. Cut the pieces and assembled one day, sanded it the next, painted it and put the feet on the next. The sub is so long that I can't transport it in any of my vehicles, except for locally as it's 77" long. It goes out half-way onto the tailgate on my truck. I probably won't make a box for it and just keep the existing stand for local transport...now that we once again have a local lake to run in.

[Davjacva]

This is an Engel's Type IX, from at least the late-80's. It's not as old as the one that Bob brought to Subfest-23 and sold to Steve though, so this must've been the next generation. Engel's current Type IX is a 77" hull and it's described as a Type IXD2 which is pretty funny, as they were about 40' longer than what I have (Type IXC). So did some digging and a Type IXC was 77-meters long, so that was easy to scale out (1 inch per meter), and I got a hold of Merrimans' Revell Type IXC kit and it came out to 44", so that's scales to 253' which is correct. Mine scales out to 1/39.5 at 77" which looks very much the part. Engels doesn't show very many pictures of their D2, but the ones they do show that it looks way too short for a D2. 40' in front of the sail is hard not to notice.

[Davjacva]

I had phone issues, so I'm playing catch-up today. The upper hull and sail had a date with a can of Easy-Off, which removed all the layers of old paint, old crappy glue, Coronavirus, debt collectors, zombies, etc. From this we can establish a firm foundation to build upon. The resulting gooo, is some nasty-ass ****. Use a scraper to get the most of it off, and it comes off very well, but you'll have to hose it all down, then use a cleaner like Simple Green to get it down right. Prior to painting, you'll want to use something like Prep-Sol to ensure a nice and clean base. Don't take it for granted that you'll get it just by spraying, you'll need to scrub. I had this happen when I was base-coating the Nautilus, in that I thought the surface was clean, and sent it primered over to Merriman who showed me areas that we relieving paint. So it goes. You'll notice that the decking is made of wood, which is not a great idea at all, as there's always some nicks and cracks that'll get through the paint and rot it. This stuff had been buckling. I'm replacing it with Evergreen styrene strips (yeah, about 15 packages of the stuff).

[Davjacva]

For the lower hull, the new saddles were installed. Got some direction from Merriman and went at it. The saddles were cut on the band saw entirely and only lightly cleaned up with a Dremel tool. Initially laid in place with JB Weld, this was followed up with West System resin/ microballoon mix to cement them in. Yeah, the saddles look weird in that the have 3 sections with two different diameters. It all came out aligned very well.

[Davjacva]

The photos start in Merriman's shop and then for the rest of the week switch over to mine. I lost some photos here, but you'll get the idea.
The upper hull, which is made out of fiberglass and reinforced with a coat of (gel-coat?) had a ton of week areas around the superstructure drains and where each section was interfaced with another section. Merriman set me up for success with showing me how to insert graphite/CA into the hull to reinforce and strengthen it. It worked very well, and I've been working on it all week. The trick at this circus is to cut across the area to be reinforced, then insert graphite fiber into it and CA it down. You can use your CA spray if you want, but almost all the time it was unneeded as the graphite reacted pretty quickly and it set. Use some tape on the back to hold it all in, then twist the graphite fiber in your hands and then insert it into the cut portion and slowly draw it back until even with the top of the hull cut. Glue that down and proceed to the other end and cut that with some scissors and it'll be flush. Glue that all down and proceed to the next one. When they're all done, sand/ file them all down until flush. You're going to have holes, so go back over these and fill with baking soda, wipe the excess off, then CA that. This will leave you with little to clean up. Now go over the whole area with a body glaze like NitroStan and let that dry. Now it's time to wet-sand. Do that and repeat with additional layers of NitroStan until done.

[Davjacva]

More joyous wine, women, and song grinding the snot out of the upper hull pieces and filling with carbon fiber, CA, and baking soda...oh my!!!

[Davjacva]

My Apple fruit-loop phone had an upgrade this last Fall which results in a total ***** at getting photos loaded now. You have to go in and save each photo, then you have to go to your computer and change the format it saved it in. Took over an hour to get what I got.

I'm going back to using a DSLR for now on. Anyway, this is some WTC and prop shaft work that's going on. Got these really nice universal shafts, that are solid stainless steel and they fit great. This WTC is 34" long. It's about as long as the dry compartment I gutted out of the thing.

[Davjacva]

Mounted the WTC within the hull, cleaned up the fitment between hull pieces, and started fitting in the drive shaft universals. Going to start appendage control linkages.

[Davjacva]

The forward end of the WTC is pretty tight up against the overhead portion of GRP that was left in place to keep structural integrity when I gutted the dry-hull out. In it's place was added a piece of G-10 with some GRP laid over to keep the strength there, but give some additional room for the forward end of the WTC. Dave machined some new bearings made of oilite on the TAIG lathe for the new stainless steel shafts and these were all installed.