Albacore continued

[greenman407]

OK......Todays progress. I needed, of course, to remove the old sail. I kept flexing it until it poped off. Thankfully, I didnt put a whole lot of CA on it last time so it came off fairly easy. At this point I realized how much smaller the new sail is compared to the kit supplied one. The new sail will literally fit up inside the old one. At anyrate, the "bump" or raised portion on the deck that helps you locate and secure the old sail would have to go. So with Dremel in hand I cut it out and sanded down the remnants.
Now to fill it in. I have some thick plastic sheet so I laid it over the hole and marked it from underneath. I cut it out and lightly tacked it in place flush with the top of the deck. Some good green masking tape over that, I then poured in some two part epoxy from beneath.

[greenman407]

[greenman407]

Both deck hatches sat flush with the deck during phase-1. The forward hatch was recessed into the superstructure during phase-2 yard period. The after hatch always remained flush with the deck.

The anchor and stern lights are on the two above water stern control surfaces. I think you're looking at the aft capstain in this shot, Mark.

M

OH.................Yeah.....................I got one of those from you but I didnt know what it was. Problem solved.

[greenman407]

As far as the light on the fins is concerned it must be the one on the starboard side as the pictures show the port side as being without one(unless its been removed), at least on the museum ship.

[greenman407]

Now that I know what Im looking for and at................its time to commence. Using the picture of Daves Albacore, I started by marking out the front hatches location. Then I drilled it out somewhat to make removal of the affected area easier before I cut it out with a Dremel end mill. Then using needle files I filed it to the lines.
I then made a lower piece and put a recessed area in it to locate the wheel. Tomorrow I will look at putting it in place and then making the sail rudder mechanism

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

[greenman407]

Well I definitely cant compete with that................but then again, I am the guy looking over your shoulder from 1,200 miles away................and my vision aint that good neither.

[greenman407]

So here we go with todays meager offing. Got the forward hatch installed and the sail mounted and sail rudder fiddled with so that it works without binding. I put a small washer above and below the rudder to keep it from rubbing and also the one on the bottom also for establishing the hole in just the right place and for keeping the hole from wallowing out over time. This boats got to last for 500 years ya know.
I filled in some cracks caused by collisions in the past from encounters with Rogue Chinese and Russian submarines and the occasional.........uncharted under sea Mountain. Also, the seam where the nosecone attaches. About every time I redo something I have to redo it. The Evercoat seems to shrink over time.
At anyrate, tomorrow Im taking the Seaview to Clearwater for the long deferred test runs. Video should be in the offing. The next step on this thing is to slather on some paint and get to the Subdriver mods.

[greenman407]

On to the Subdriver mods. Its very cramped back there. I need all the room I can get. Here we have the 3&1/2" motor bulkhead. First thing we need to do is shorten the output shafts to save space. So I took it apart and marked the shafts did the surgery and put it back together. With that done, we can properly mark and measure.

[greenman407]

Todays meaningless meanderings. By saying that space is limited, I mean that I dont want to move the Subdriver forward to create space because the front to rear balance is good as far as the location of the ballast tank. So to maximize what I have left we shortened up the output shafts and now Im going to shorten up the drive shafts to gain real estate for the motor bulkhead/engine room internals. In the first two pictures you can see the beginning lengths and then the shortened lengths. By the way, normally I make new shafts of the proper length. In this case I decided that I could just redo these. I used a soldering iron to heat one end of the shaft and melt CA and holding on to the dumas coupler with a pair of plyers , pulled it apart, cut the brass tube to its new length and re-install the coupler and then using the same pin and the same hole.....re-pinned it. Then New CA.....of course. HA!
Once that was done I could now hold the bulkhead in place using the drive shafts to determine its new position. Everything else was measured from there. I then deduced the length of the new 3&1/2" clear tube and cut it at 5 &11/16". Here she is
Now we are free to make a new Subdriver support bulkhead and move that rearmost wood 3" bulkhead forward to support the 3" part of the old Subdriver. It looks like the original Factory plastic bulkhead to the rear will be useful to help hold the 3&1/2" portion of the Subdriver add on. WHEW!!!!
As you can see I didnt want the angle of the starboard drive shaft to become too great, otherwise I would have shortened them some more, but enough can be too much.

[greenman407]

Today, I did a little bit. I removed the wood bulkhead that supported the 3" Subdriver toward the rear. It was glued in good................for all eternity. So I employed my Dremel Multi-max and "Lickitysplit" out it came. So I made two new bulkheads and installed the forward most one and reinstalled this same wood bulkhead to it. We are coming along.

[greenman407]

I spent some of the day doing this. I needed another bulkhead to help hold the 3&1/2" WTC. Using the driveshafts to locate it front to rear, I fabricated the new bulkhead out of two thicknesses of plastic. I kept slowly trimming it down until I got it just a little too low. Then I cut a narrow piece of bicycle tube rubber and CAed it to the surface that the WTC would sit on to bring it right up where it needed to be. I also added a couple of hooks for the rubber bands to hold it in place.
VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED for the next segment. It was time to cut down the old venerable D&E Subdriver that has been in this boat for many a year. Women and children might better go into the other room. Now that there is no one left but us OLD Grizzled Salts........we can proceed. Dave supplied me a while back with a 3" endcap. I will use this to cap the Subdriver right behind the rear most Ballast tank bulkhead. So I marked the clear tube 7/16" behind that bulkhead. Using my diamond blade on the Dremel, I carefully cut to the line. Because I put the ESC as well as the APC in the forward battery box, there are many wires that run thru the conduit , therefore those wires have to go thru the new bulkheads.
From inside the 3&1/2" endcap I had drilled numerous holes so that later I could drip thin CA into them like plug welds for additional strength. After rubber banding them down I applied gap filling CA to the joints and allowed it to flow around the perimeter of the joint. So after curing I can move on to the motor bulkhead equipment setup.

[greenman407]

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

The horror! ....the HORROR!!!!!

M

[greenman407]

Due to practical considerations, Ill have to change my plans a little bit. It was my intention to run her on 3s power. Unfortunately, the little 3" Subdrivers front battery compartment is too cramped for that. What with the battery and the equipment shelf on top of it which houses the APC as well as the ESC and associated wiring going back thru the conduit. After this phase of upgrades are finished, perhaps I can buy a 3&1/2" Subdriver and use that to give me the additional space needed for 3s power. We will see.
At anyrate, today I spent time reconfiguring the front compartments equipment shelf and wrapping everything there with Sorbothane. I also put in some battery locating rails to keep the battery from moving around and stabilizing everything in the front compartment.