77" Type IX U-Boat

[Davjacva]

Got a backlog of photos to post, and since it's raining cats n' dogs outside, it's a good day to post some stuff. Meriman is making some new props for my Type IX that are much more accurate than the kit provided ones by Engels. The last photo I took yesterday while I'm getting 're-acquainted' with using a camera again (vice using the phone), anyway, I took this photo as I see Meriman do it all the time and it largely goes unnoticed. He almost always lays out his tools and supporting structures, etc in a manner that a surgeon lays out tools for going to business. It's almost always this way with about 90% of what he does. It's going to be a hand-drawing, and a lay-up of support to exact a method of getting the most of his abilities. Sometimes this is 75% of the job before touching what's to be constructed. At times it gets kind of frustrating to watch, as it's a seemingly easy task. Then you get the results and you see why. He's often grabbed something from me that I've spent a week shaping, and which I thought was 200% perfect, only to have him clean/ shape it further. Now, here's the warning, it's the other 10% of the time you have to watch out for as he's in 'wing-it' mode. This comes from someone who can put something back together or re-construct it at a seemlingly wave of the wand...but takes the rest of us a lot of time. So I learned to ask a lot of questions. He usually answers if it's not his model...'It's not MY MODEL!' I've learned a lot on both ends of those spectrums, but still amazed at times. This job on the props, I'd seen in bits and pieces before, but this is the first time in 20+ years that I've seen the whole thing, and it's got my full attention. He's made mistakes, some, mortals would never notice, others were hilarious, but he does and it's back to the bench to get it exactly right.

[Davjacva]

While the prop work is being done, I've been continuing work on correcting all the upper/ lower hull issues. Reinforcing the inside and where stress-points are in the GRP with carbon fiber. Additionally, had to cut out a portion of the athwartship support and glass-in a portion of G10 to give some room to the topside of long-ass WTC which slides under it. It was almost an interference-fit, and that would probably be a problem when immersing it in a cold body of water.

[Davjacva]

This is what my workspace looks like when I'm working on something.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

While the prop work is being done, I've been continuing work on correcting all the upper/ lower hull issues. Reinforcing the inside and where stress-points are in the GRP with carbon fiber. Additionally, had to cut out a portion of the athwartship support and glass-in a portion of G10 to give some room to the topside of long-ass WTC which slides under it. It was almost an interference-fit, and that would probably be a problem when immersing it in a cold body of water.

You idiot!! You do know that that nuclear-powered, whiz-bank, deep-sea wonder SLR wonder-camera of your is equipped with a (gasp!) flash... Don't cha?

Use it, moron!

David
Who should be charging you rent

[Davjacva]

Finally got the decking re-done, so on to the tower. I had to re-create most of the wintergarten, as mostly only the top railings for the upper and lower sections were all that were left. Engles created a brass wintergarten...but they didn't solder it. It was all glued together...really. It had been coming apart, and after I used Easy-Off oven cleaner to strip the paint, pretty much the rest of it came apart. Luckily, I had photos along the way, so I could re-create what was. I'm just about done actually, and need to take some more photos of that. These photos are when I'm starting. I'm using a resistance soldering unit, and using the tweezers vice the probe and clamp. Doing it in-place sucks, as it would be infinitely better to do it off-hull. Doing it on the hull, you have to be really creative with how you're going to hold it. I used thread, wooden brace, Blue-Tac, and a clamp in order to keep the pieces straight while you hold solder in one hand, the tweezers in the other and using a foot switch. I really need to go the Zaphod Beeblebrox route and get a 3rd arm attached right? :) First I got all the vertical supports done, then the horizontals were done. The latter took much longer as you constantly have to figure out how to hold it in place. You also have to figure out how not to un-solder adjacent work. I use strips of aluminum foil to act as heat sinks, it works most of the time. Afterward, the joints have to be cleaned up, and I do this with jeweler's files and metal impregnated rubber wheels on the Dremel which gets most of it.

[Davjacva]

This is part of the on-going shaft work that is going on. Here more oilite bearings are being machined. Dave caught that the starboard shaft was not centered in the stuffing tube and steady bearing support, so he machined an off-set bearing for the latter. The stainless steel shafts on the WTC are machined to accept the universals here. I need to take some updated shaft photos as it's all about done. We had a big delay this last weekend trying to get a Corona receiver to talk to the radio. Finally figured it out. This is almost all the work left on the lower hull besides cosmetic and getting the upper hull pieces to lock down.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Would it kill you to focus that god-damned camera of yours?????!!!!!......

[Davjacva]

Finishing up with re-creating the wintergarten for the sub's tower with my resistance soldering rig. Still need to clean up with files and rotary metal-impregnated rubber disks. Additionally, got the drive shafts working with the WTC. Dave made all new bushings for the existing steady bearings, as well as completely new props. Hooked it all up with the new interfacing 1/12 scale truck universals and...whack-a-whack-a-whack!! Lot's of alignment noise. Something was fishy and I kind of blanked out about it, but I knew from my days at automotive school there was something about the drive shaft that I wasn't getting right. Called my buddy Willy Loewer of CUSTOMRCMODELS to bounce it at, and he was out of town. Luckily, my predicament was far from foreign to trucks and cars. If fact, it's pretty much in about every rc truck and car instruction sheet regarding installation. The drive shaft has to be 'in phase', and ours was 'out of phase'. It goes like this, the leading and trailing connecting universals have to be in alignment, and the middle section has to be in alignment. This is because of the shifting weights involved. If they are 'out of phase', the different sections rotate at different speeds (dramatically) and the difference in shifting weights create the noise. The more the angle changes, the more the noise if it's 'out of phase'. The noise creates vibrations which will increase degradation of the drive shaft seals within the WTC and possibly other issues. Anyway, worked through that, hope this helps.
Jake

[Davjacva]

I haven't got much left on this sub to do, but I'm focusing work right now on SSN-591 getting the hull corrected and it's moving forward. On the other half of the week I'm finishing work on the Type IX...slowly. I removed the light housings on the sides of the sail and found via mistake and talking to Merriman that these can be machined quite a bit. So I machined the 5mm LED's to fit inside the brass housings. I'm using a 3mm LED for the stern light. Here I'm sacrificing blue LED's as I've got a gazzilion of them and don't have any need for them...yet. I've made a module with a voltage regulator and 3 capacitors to keep the voltage and current in check to protect the lights with the ever-changing battery sources.

[Davjacva]

My main work today was working on SSN-591, but I had to bring all the stuff I was working on at my shop over (sail work and LED lighting) and put it all together as it will once again be the focus when the 591 is completed, sometime in July. I also needed to get the full overall measurements so I can start working on the travel-box for it as well. I also need to make a temporary dunk-tank out of framing and sheet plastic, so we can trim this thing out. We were going to use my hot tub (would've had to let it cool down to get an accurate trim), but it was just shy too short at the diagonals.

[Schmitty1944]

This is a fabulous model and I'm enjoying watching your progress. I like the Engel piston tank system but I can understand why you would want to change it to a WTC, especially due to the weight. I've found the Type IX hard to get a WTC to fit into without a lot of it being above the water line. The shape of the hull is long and skinny and not very tall. The way it gradually tapers at both ends makes it tough too. You either have to use a small diameter cylinder or have a very large ballast tank to overcome all the buoyancy above the water line.

It sure looks like your hull is the same IXD2 that Engel still sells. I've not seen that they ever offered a different variation of type IX. It's the exact same length and looks to have the same details. The D2 variant is 40' longer than a IXc but all that extra length isn't in front of the conning tower. The tower is still proportionally about the same distance from the bow and stern so doesn't look obviously different at a glance. If it is a IXD2 at 77" (1.95m) that makes it 1/45 scale.

Thanks for posting all the photos. Keep up the good work!

Jason

[redboat219]

External rear dive plane control arm?

[Davjacva]

External rear dive plane control arm?

Why yes it is!!!!

[Davjacva]

This is a fabulous model and I'm enjoying watching your progress. I like the Engel piston tank system but I can understand why you would want to change it to a WTC, especially due to the weight. I've found the Type IX hard to get a WTC to fit into without a lot of it being above the water line. The shape of the hull is long and skinny and not very tall. The way it gradually tapers at both ends makes it tough too. You either have to use a small diameter cylinder or have a very large ballast tank to overcome all the buoyancy above the water line.

It sure looks like your hull is the same IXD2 that Engel still sells. I've not seen that they ever offered a different variation of type IX. It's the exact same length and looks to have the same details. The D2 variant is 40' longer than a IXc but all that extra length isn't in front of the conning tower. The tower is still proportionally about the same distance from the bow and stern so doesn't look obviously different at a glance. If it is a IXD2 at 77" (1.95m) that makes it 1/45 scale.

Thanks for posting all the photos. Keep up the good work!

Jason

Jason,
while the math works out in either scale for overall length. I've scaled this to the Revell 1/72 (U-505) and it's pretty close. There's also a great drawing of a D2 in Rossler's U-boat book in order to get some kind of dimensions. This is not a perfect 'as produced' model by any means, but it's not very far off from a IXC. Not at all near a IXD2. One of the dead give-aways is the stern. On mine is wide like a IXC. IXD2's were very noticeably narrower. The beam, draft, and overall height were much larger as well on a D2. Now, all that being said, I have yet to measure the current run of Engels. Mine has bow tubes, whereas the Engels does not. I was looking at Steve Hodges work on a Engels Type IXD2 that he did for a friend here on the forum. He used aftermarket Tower (T-IV) and a deck from some place over in Germany. Like everything Steve does it was superb work, and it very much looked the part. Bob did one too as I recall, can't remember if it was an Engles, but it was a IXD2. Anyway, I spent more time working on SSN-591 and only have a few working weeks to get the U-boat ready for SUBFEST-24. i was telling Merriman today that I'm going to finish what I can to get it into the water. Mechanically, Not so much, but the paint and finishing, I'm probably going to finish after SUBFEST-24. Forgot, those aftermarket parts are in 1/45 and the tower, though a different one, it still looks the part. This is kind of like a buddy of mine from Germany. We were at a model show displaying a lot of tank stuff. He took a 1/15 Panther turret from an old Verlinden kit and stuck it on a 1/16 King Tiger hull without the side skirts. At the time there wasn't a 1/16 Panther out and every tank wanted one. You couldn't imagine how many tanker modelers came up to inquire about it. 200 would be a very conservative number. We just laughed all about it later on. On mine, the detail is not steller, but I want to get it done. I'm normally a rivet counter, but this was a basket case when I got it. Should be a fun runner.

[Davjacva]

Time to make a coffin. The U-boat was over at Merriman's when I got the dimensions for the box, then later I had to bring it over to do all the foam dimensions. You never realize what something's going to look like, especially in size (81.5"). I really have nothing to complain about after seeing the Balao that Bob and Jason trailered to SUBFEST 23, but it still is a bit. After two weeks, it's done.