S.M. U-1 (a new RC project)

[JHapprich]

As busy as you are, U-2 and U-3 would be good company to complete the 1st training group? If i remember correctly, from U-5 on they serial produced combat units, while U-4 was a copy of U-3.

Those early boats are still exciting, always loved visiting U 1 at the museum in Munich!

Great work, Dr.Schmidt!

Jörg

[DrSchmidt]

Well, the U1 never was a combat boat. It was originally designed to demonstrate that certain design specifications for a submarine could be met, so that the Kaiser would adopt submarines into his Navy. At that time (1906) Germany was building up its navy to counter the superior British Navy, and huge armored battle ships were thought to be the way to go. So U1 made the case pro submarines. But due to its little size, the petroleum motors and only one torpedo tube, it ended up as a training boat.

[redboat219]

"torpedo los".

[Albacore 569]

Beautiful work sir. I am interested in a hull copy from this mold.? (I know first things first...lol) Would these ever be available? More and more at the pond, our antics and fun remind me of the bravery and uncertainty of these new weapon the submarine from the Great War WW1 era. . And the effect all new technology had on the world since. Going out and wondering if we ever came up again...lol.

The Enemy Below (1957)
Curd Jürgens: Von Stolberg

• Von Stolberg : I am sick of this war. It's not a good war. You don't remember the first one. I was a Fähnrich in the U Boats. How proud I was! We went out in those little sardine tins, and if we submerged we couldn't always be sure we would come up again. Oh it was a good game we played! The Captain would look through his periscope and sight the target... and then he did arithmetic in his head! And said 'torpedo loose!' And you know something? Sometimes the torpedo wouldn't even leave the tube. And if it did, we were most lucky to hit something! And now... now I look in the periscope and it gives me the distance and the speed. I pass this information to the attack table, and machinery turns, and lights flash, and we get the answer. The torpedo runs to it's target, and there is no human error in this. They've taken human error out of war, heini. They've taken the human out of war. War was different then. It put iron in a country's backbone, gave them brave memories. And even in defeat it gave them honour. But there is no honour in this war. The memories will be ugly, even if we win. And if we die... we die without God. Do you know that, Heinie?
  
  'Heinie' Schwaffer : I listen to what you say, Herr Capitain.
  
  Von Stolberg : It's a bad war. It's reason is twisted. It's purpose is dark. It's not for a simple man.
• 

[DrSchmidt]

To reinforce the vertical parting plane, I installed some brackets made of chop board.......next are some holes for the indexing pins and then I'll have to seal the gap between hull and board.

[DrSchmidt]

I like the boat, because it had a very elegant shape. Many design flaws, like e.g. wrong positions of control planes, but it had a sleek look on the surface.

[redboat219]

Cut out the contour and made some fine adjustments. Worked out well...

From this angle it looks like a SSBN with a rather huge rudder.

[DrSchmidt]

Cut out the contour and made some fine adjustments. Worked out well...

[DrSchmidt]

The complicated thing about the U-1 is that I have to make a mold that is made of four quarters, mostly because the bow line is vertical, whereas the stern line is horizontal. So in addition to the horizontal parting plane I have to make a vertical one, too. I use 16 mm coated chipboard that I glued to two supports using hot glue and then I clamped it down to the horizontal plane so that it cannot move anymore. I glued a square wood block to a set square and use this tool to trace out the outline. I slowly move along the contour of the boat and mark little dots at the tip of the set square. finally I connect the dots to get the outline of the boat. Next is the padsaw....

[Das Boot]

You mean Donald Grant, (Robert Shaw), in “From Russia with Love”, wasn’t blonde? Color me shocked. :)

[DrSchmidt]

You mean the photo with the mask? Yes, that's me.....I actually had really blonde hair as a kid and I have blue grey eyes.

But to clarify a cliché: Germans never were blond and blue-eyed as a whole. That's Nazi propaganda. If you look back in the history of Germany, the population consisted of Celts, Germanic tribes, Romans, and then came the medieval migration period with the infiltration of Huns and other barbaric tribes. So there was always has been a big mixture of ethnic groups and body types.

Blond and blue-eyed....Sweden perhaps, definitely not Germany.

[Das Boot]

Is that really you? I’ve never seen you before. I thought you were a blonde blue-eyed German. I’m third generation German.

[DrSchmidt]

After allot of painting, grindig and polishing. I finally have a good master. Now it's time to set it up for making a mold. The master is screwed onto a plane, stiff, and level board.





Then I set up the parting plane and filled the gap between board an boat with camdle wax...

[JHapprich]

Ah, i see.thank you!

[DrSchmidt]

I used MIPA 2K Epoxy Primer -> rattle can

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B004AHH17O?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details