Albacore continued

[greenman407]

In this picture you can see a flat strip on the port side of the turtleback and extending down almost to the props. I emailed Jim Wakefield who is in charge of maintanance on the museum Albacore. He told me that it is a early cover for a cable to an early form of towed array sonar. He suggested that I leave it off. I am thinking, however, that I should put it on. What do you think?

[greenman407]

While I am continuing to file and fuss over the rudder and sail, I took the opurtunity to map out the dive brakes and to mark and fill in the limbar holes that are not used on this last version of Albacore.
Also while Im at it, I marked out the large grill work on the sail. Im headed to the hobby store to find some plastic shapes to cut up and modify for the grill elements. Stay Tuned.

[greenman407]

Thanks Dave for keeping a watchful eye this way and that. I dont like dog-poo, especially when I take a lot of upclose shots. Some of the delay is due to going too far with the sanding block or Dremel and then having to go back and re-do it. Also I have to moderate my activities to take care of my own sanity.:biggrin:

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

This rudder started out looking like dog-poo, but you're beating this thing into shape, Mark.

Com'on! Finish this thing!

David

[greenman407]

In this shot you can see the radiused look of the rudders attachment with the sail at the top. So I filled in the cut at the top of my rudder and using a round Dremel cutter I am cutting it out in a rounded fasion. Dont have a picture yet.

[greenman407]

Continuing to fine tune the shape of the top of the sails "Bump". It has a sharp rise in the middle now properly represented here. The rudder attachment and shape is now the direction of my present efforts.

[greenman407]

MAKE A MOLD???!!!!! Oh Man, youve got the wrong guy. I dont have near your patience or ability. No, I plan to cheat, Ill find something to put in there. In the meantime I purchased a large diameter brass tube from the hobby shop. After measuring and marking ,I cut out one of the bridge doors.

[Subculture]

Very tricky piece to make with those aerofoiled blades. However it looks like if you made a mould, you would only need to construct one third of the vent, as it repeats itself, and for the other side of the sail, you would only need to flip it 180 degrees.

[greenman407]

Yes, Im going to make it look as close as I can. If you look at those vents youll see that they are very complicated. I dont know if scribing will be enough. Ill probably have to cut out the full size of the grill area and try to fabricate some bars or louvers or something to insert in there. Notice the picture. On this side it looks like some repair welding has taken place. It also looks like the grill is divided into three seperate areas. Ive got an idea on how to do it. I probably wont try to reproduce the horizontal bar though. Forgive please.

[Subculture]

Looking good. Are you going to make the vents near the top right of the sail, they look like a major feature to me.

[greenman407]

Heres a teeny weeny update. Using this picture of the full size Albacore at the museum im carefully contouring my sail to look as close as I can. Were getting there.

[greenman407]

OH here we go again! Will you loan me your vacuform machine? Im a model builder on a budget ya know. Maybe I can find a piece of thin wall plastic pipe somewhere and cut them out of it.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Noooooo!

That stuff will spring back on a hot day. What's wrong with you?!.....

Heat/vacuform those doors damit.

David

[greenman407]

I managed to get some filler on the sail and rough cut some doors for the bridge. First I took some thin sheet plastic and rolled it around a pipe nipple to acheive some curvature.

[greenman407]

Yes it was raining a little that day. Do you think that the white metal props would be damaged by paint stripper?