Jake's SSN-591

[Davjacva]

Merriman e-mailed me a few weeks ago telling me that something arrived for me in his mail from our buddy Fred Freketic up in Massachusetts and he said that I'd flip out when I saw what it was. I couldn't get over during the week, so had to hold my breath until Saturday. Fred packaged the sub to our industry's standards...double-boxed and more bubble wrap to hog-tie a herd of cattle. So much so, that I still had no clue when I was unwrapping it. When I saw the WTC first, then I knew it was something great and saw the 1/96 SSN-591 in all it's glory in pristine shape. This had been built by Dave for Fred over 20 years ago. I had met Fred when he came down here to pick it up and had seen it then. I saw it again last year, and Dave had re-done the WTC as well, so when I saw it all this was going through my head. Once again, thanks a million Fred. And much thanks to Dave for the assistance with it. After driving Dave's 1/72 Skipjack, which is my favorite sub of his to drive. I've been doing the 'range-checks' for Dave ever since, and still not lost it. One time had it about 1/2 mile away. It has working fairwater planes and really is a joy to drive. I'm not a fan of the 688's or Seawolf, as they're too 'stiff', kind of like driving a brick through the water, or as I say, more like driving a MOPAR, 'real fast, built tough, but turns like ****'. I didn't say anything, but I think Dave was reading my mind and that was the first thing Dave installed, as the WTC already was configured for fairwaters. The other issue was that somehow the hull 'shrank' some in areas leaving large gaps between the upper and lower hull pieces. I asked Dave about it, and it'd been over 20 years since he laid up the hull, and he's made a-zillion of these (see them on most videos all the time), and he concurred. It's painted in Dave's meticulously excellent, yet very personal paint scheme, so we then proceeded for with this and should be done today doing so. It needs different interface tabs to get the old fiberglass to align well. This is just nit-picking as it's really an incredible model.

[Davjacva]

initial photos.

[Davjacva]

Here's the work installing the fairwater operating interface linkages. This was all-Dave. He didn't something here I haven't seen before. He made the bushings, that would hold the operating shaft to help transmit force, out of large heat-shrink that he heated up around the linkage rod, then sliced open and glued down. Stupid-easy, and fast. The only hold up was getting the rear of the operating shaft past the back end of the WTC, as it's a very tight clearance with the upper hull. Of course Dave grabbed the 'Modeler's Favorite Chainsaw' (a Dremel with cut-off wheel) and attacked the back end of the WTC until it came into compliance...and still had watertight integrity.

[Davjacva]

Working on filling the gaps. On one side they were pretty substantantial. The plan is with the two hull pieces joined, to mark the outside with tape at the height of the offending gap, remove the upper hull, then install a corresponding piece of tape on the inside of the lower hull, thus creating a dam. Within the dam, layer incrementally a layer of baking soda and CA glue until the gap is filled. Re-fit the hull, then sand down the areas where the gap is too high, and mark and fill the lower areas. I finished both sides in a few hours. The outside and inside of the newly created areas created with baking soda/ CA had to be sanded down as well. Once this is accomplished, new tabs that will interface and interlock the upper and lower hulls will be installed. That is supposed to happen today, so I'll post that work later. After all this work, the sub will need to have it's trim re-set, as a lot of material was added and some of the existing foam removed. Cake walk.

[Davjacva]

After the fun, fun, fun time of applying CA/ baking soda, CA/ baking soda...grind, sand, grind, more baking soda, it's time to put in more alignment tabs in order to straighten the hull in the areas that need either 'push' or 'press'. You get the picture. After these tabs were put in, they are a hindrance to an extent in fitting the hull until they appear to wear in some. Which they are doing. Method to the madness, and not always as the crow flies, but sometimes as the meandering drunk always making it home

[Davjacva]

Now for some serious fun. It's time to bondo over the previous two efforts (CA/ Baking Soda, alignment tabs) at the hull interface seam in order to make it...clean. So after I laid down guide tape, I gooped on a wee little bit of bondo, well, I did adequately cover it. Next time I get to file/grind/sand it all down. Lastly, I went over all the now sanded bondo with CA in order to seal and strengthen the bondo.

[Davjacva]

Another week, another enchilada!! Slowly getting the hull to conform. It's really tight, but as things get more into spec, the more you notice things that aren't. The port side is like a running gunfight, but I think that battle is won. Had some of the CA/ baking soda break off, so that was the first thing to address, then we've loaded for bear and attacking the rear of where the upper hull mates down. Big gap on top, and an overhang on the portside. Need to pull out the big files. After CA/ Baking soda build-up, got to bondo early on. Don't know how this happened, but I used plenty of hardener, and mixed well, but it never hardened on the model. So get to clean that mess off, chemically strip it, re-tooth it and applied a new coat of bondo. 2 coats down and it's time to leave. Merriman marked out an offending area that will be addressed next time. Then, then forward underside interface will be addressed and that should be about it. This would all have been done if I had more time, but lately I can only dedicate a few hours, twice a week. It's not a lot of work, if you could sit down in a couple of sittings it'd all be done. Later.

[Das Boot]

Lucky Fu.k.

[Davjacva]

Lucky Fu.k.

Why am I a 'Lucky Fu.k' Casey? What am I missing? Please explain?

[Das Boot]

Why am I a 'Lucky Fu.k' Casey? What am I missing? Please explain?

You got you a good boat to work on.

[Davjacva]

Continuing on with getting the two hull halves corrected. Applying body filler for the big violations, followed by CA to seal, followed by Nitrostan, a ****-ton of sanding and checking mating in-between applications...Finally got it to the point where I got to spray a tell-tale layer of primer to check the work, and some minor areas need to be addressed, but it's almost there. Just tweaking it in. Only getting two days a week for a few hours each, so it's slow progress for this level of work. A third of that time is waiting for whatever application just applied to dry. Not that it wasn't an already great looking model, but it's going to look much better when completed. It sucks when you have to do this kind of work over an incredible paint job. I've been trying to preserve it the important areas. If it was a bare new model it'd be much easier. There's a photo of the Type XXI that Dave's working on the other table. Even though I've seen it done before, the tool/ mold/ casting of model production is just astounding to behold. He's doing a few newer things with this one that I hadn't seen before. Just crazy to think that there's so much strength in that little model as it's fiberglass, and has all this amazing detail. The master was 3D printed, but very frail of a structural item.

[Davjacva]

This is the last of the hull work. This week, corrected the rear athwartship upper seam, and the belly seam. It's a case of you correct one end, and it throws the other out to a degree. It's chasing your tail to a degree you feel sometimes, but in fact it's just tightening everything up. It's ready to trim out and paint, but I'm going on a trip, so won't be able to get back to it for about 4 weeks. Gotta finish up the Type IX which is almost ready to trim out and paint.

[Das Boot]

Excellent work.

[Davjacva]

Okay, after about a month, got back on to work on the Shark. Today is masking all the areas we want to keep that we made pains not to mess up with the hull work. Then spraying primer followed by Nitro-Stan to fill in all the scratches. One side near the bow had a ton of scrapes on the side, like it ran across the wall in a concrete pool. Then I did some more CA/ baking soda fill work on the forward and aft-most hull-breaks. Dave identified an area aft that needs some body filler. Problem with doing this work on a thin hull, is that often when you're doing work at one end, or in opposition, you affect something else, so you either wind up getting everything tighter, or...you wind up chasing your tail. The area that needs to be filled I already did twice and got it correct, but working something else put it out. After that, some wet sanding, primer, and then some real paint.

[Davjacva]

Now with the hull correction work complete, it's now time to paint. We got an 'Art lesson'. We've all seen Merriman countless times beat the drum on mixing his own paint colors and other voodoo stuff in order to create some not only eye-appealing models, but also very durable paint applications. So this week, I'm getting the full show and process, and it's been an education. Dave mixed up the first few then I got to color match and go at it myself. First, laying down anti-fouling red, then stippling a 'mung' texture-coat, the starting on the grass skirt at the waterline. Using the color wheel gets you into the ballpark, it still takes some finesse to dial in a match. Cohutta, is just a short time away.