My first RC sub... The Moebius Seaview

[alad61]

Hello all, I have been ghosting around these halls for a while now reading, researching and generally being amazed. I had been looking at the hobby/sport of rc submarines since I stumbled on a you-tube video some years back. At the time though I was heavily involved in other sporting adventures that precluded the funds to enter this hobby. However a sporting injury which forced me to readjust my life as I had known it opened up the opportunity for a new venture. Also my wife has pretty much dis-avowed the return to my former extreme sports... So being a 50 year old Sci-Fi fan I just had to start off with the Seaview kit complete from Caswells with the D&E Miniatures parts required. Now I may be new to the RC Sub world but I have been building models of various mediums for just over 40 years so I'm not completely unfamiliar with a modeling bench.

So after receiving the kit from Mike & the crew at Caswells, thanks again guys, I checked it all over to ensure it was all there and then spent the better part of the next five week nights watching the DVDs at least four times before I began on the build. From the DVDs I stated making notes and drawing in a journal I keep for projects that will be more than straight from the box. At first I was feeling more than a tad daunted about tackling this project but the DVDs, my notes and a desire to fill a childhood dream have pretty much hit those daemons for a six. In keeping with the DVDs I tackled the sail assembly first. I should mention also that I have already build one of the first seaviews released as a static diorama and scored a third place in a state expo/exhibition with it in 2009. However with this one, apart from being an rc version I will be making up the 17 foot version and adding additional detail such as the photo etched parts from Paragrafix and some extra lighting that wasn't on the static model. I don't plan to use all the control room pieces just the forward observation section. The rest I hope to add to the movie version out later. As for the diving bell and mini sub, they will go into the bits box and the flying sub I will mod up to represent those from The City Beneath The Sea.

After the sail I worked on the thruster and rear hull sub assemblies after another DVD review and more notes followed by a deep breath and moto tool in hand began work on them over the next couple of nights before I worked on the rear hull assembly. Once I had the thruster assemblies glued in place I worked on the seams and joins with combinations of ca liquid & gel, baking powder and two pack filler. When all the parts were glued, filled, sanded and dry I marked out the area to remove for the limber hole pieces from the pe set.

Where I am at now is having assembled all the major hull pieces and am now tackling the respective seams and joins. Sadly this kit has some alignment issues between left and right hull pieces especially the front ones and the window piece. They all snap fitted together well but the right side isn't as true as the left which isn't a big problem per sae just annoying as it will require more filling & sanding than I had with the first one. Oh well those are the quirks sometimes encounter with styrene kits I guess.

Cheers and a presumptive thanks at being allowed to be part bof the RC sub world.

Alec.

Reality is but a dream...
But to dream is a reality...

[greenman407]

Great to have you aboard alad61! I have not built the Moebius but I built a Rick Teskey 52" job and am loving it. If you havent seen it go all the way to the bottom of the forums first page under "2010 competition", 2nd competition catagory. Youll find mine under "Seaview". Looking forward to seeing more on your build.

[trout]

Welcome! Glad you are here and look forward to your build!

[greenman407]

Hey trout! Love your working Avatar! Howd you do that?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

(that is pretty slick)

[trout]

Mark,
Used photoshop and created a .gif A gif format can make moving icons. PM me and we can talk more.

[greenman407]

trout, I sent you a PM but cant tell if it went thru. I am sooo not good at this!

[alad61]

Yeah it is a cool avatar...

Well over the last week I have dug a bit deeper into the build. I managed to get the hull and window insert joins to a level I was happy with via several repeated actions of primer/filler, sanding and fillers.

I then marked out the rest of the area on the deck superstructure for removal, i.e the areas beneath the deck inserts and the pe limber holes pieces & filling the kit limber holes where the pe didn't cover. Then following the DVD's I scribed out the deck superstructure. After its removal from the hull I attacked it with a cut off wheel to remove the areas behind the pe limber holes and gluing in place the pe one section at a time. To make sure the pe held I roughed up the back of them to get a good key surface for the ca glue. because I had already annealed the pe it was easy to hold in place with small clamps and add the ca a bit at a a time. Once they where secure in place I went back and added more ca with backing soda to help give a stronger bond.

When that was done I worked on the top Cadillac fins adding a micro led in each light housing and whilst they were drying I glued the missile deck and forward deck down on the superstructure. I still have a little more seam work on those pieces but I'm pretty happy with the snug fit I had gluing them in place. To be honest I was hoping to be at a stage farther ahead by now but when then I stop and reflect that just on 5 months ago after my accident and avoiding several worst case scenarios, I'm pretty lucky to be able to still do what I do. But I digress sorry about that... So where its at now is that the fins are glued in place the lights wired up and the superstructure just need some final detailing on the sail. I did however screw up on the port side with the angle of the scribing to separate the superstructure. I should have left it alone after doing the starboard side and left it for the following session... But no I convinced myself I wasn't tired and soldiered through. "Idiot" you say, yep you'd be right because now I've spent several hours working to correct the mistake. Not only did I get the angle a bit off but I heavy handed the file and left a gaping hole that needed to be fixed. So some thin plastic card strips , glue and putty I have been correcting it. I still need to add a bit more filler sanded to shape but it is looking way more respectable.

All things being equal and to plan I should be starting on the flying sub bay and forward dive plane assemblies before the ends of the week. However I do have one question regarding the dive planes. On the dvds David mentions mold release applied to the resin planes so the filler won't stick. I don't cast or work in mold making so is there another product or substitute I could use for a release agent on the tape?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Alec,

Coming along. No dead-line imposed from this end. Keep chugging away at whatever pace suits you.

What accident? .... let's have all the gory details!

I see problems with the PE (brass sheet married with an adhesive to polystyrene) in the very near future. Specifically: when you dunk the completed model into cool water, the different expansion/contraction rates of the two substrates will fracture at the edges where they meet. Not to worry -- you see the high-relief edges of the metal inserts on the effects miniatures, so you can call it 'scale'. Ask John Slater what he learned about models comprised of different substrates subjected to sun, then cold water -- he'll give you an ear-full!

Good clean, methodical work, Alec. Keep it up.

And when you near the end of this saga, and have gotten cataracts from too many viewing's of the DVD set, how about giving us a hard-hitting critique of the videos. No kiss-ass stuff, that tells me nothing ... I already know I'm wonderful; on the Vatican's saint-hood list; will soon be on the cover of Time, and all that happy horse-****. No. Tell me what should have been in that video that wasn't; what was there that could have been addressed better; and what was simply over-kill. Use the shape knife!

And that goes for the rest of you Bums: post critiques of our instructional screeds and videos in this forum -- that way Mike and I can deliver better product in the future.

David

[alad61]

Thanks David.

Struth... To honest I never thought about the effect on the pe with the differing temperatures... Doh!! I got hung up on getting a model that looks as good out of as well as in the water... Still live n learn I'll just keep an eye on it through the hotter months here in Queensland. I have finished gluing and filling the rear Cadillac fins, connected all the wires for the sail and fin lights to one connection point and drilled the hole for the mounting screw and set it aside with the superstructure fitted securely to help it conform a bit. Whilst I work on the next assembly, the flying sub bay and flood lights. Is there a rule of thumb regarding the painting and detailing of parts as you go? I only ask as I would like to have the FS bay painted and detailed before final installation.

As for the critique on the DVDs, ok, done deal and I will be as honest as I can for you but be forewarned, I am and have always been more a diplomat(an honest one though) than an autocrat...

Now as for my accident. I buggered up a landing whilst out skydiving with a mate. The jump & free fall was excellent! Pretty much one of our best but I lost concentration on my final approach. I performed a nice flat turn for set up and then had a brain snap... I realized to late that I was coming in to hot and had left my flair to late. I did land on my feet but my angle was wrong and they slid out from under me so I unceremoniously butt slammed the ground and around 10 knots. The impact tremor went up my spine and stopped at my L1 vertebrae which was jammed against the T12. The short of it was lots of deep tissue bruising, a fractured tail bone as well as the discs on either side of L1 being squashed and the L1 copping a 30% anterior compression with multiple micro fractures and one of the pieces of bone that surround the spinal colum had a vertical fracture about 80% through where it attaches to the vertebrae proper. I also badly bruised the nerve bundle at the tail bone as well. As it stands my ortho specialist reckons I got away away fairly lightly... The vertical fracture was stable and being a fairly fit bloke I had good muscle and tendon mass in my back that with careful management I got away with no surgery. Though the neurological and orthopedic surgeons debated for almost two days as to whether I should have the knife. In the end I told them that if they couldn't give me an answer either way I wouldn't be going on the table. They also told me I wouldn't be back at work, driving etc for at least 3-4 months. I was back at work within 9 weeks and driving the car by then too and I had pretty much given up on prescribed pain killers at around 14 weeks later. Skelatol wise the injury is pretty much healed I am just going through all the other crap that comes after as my 50 year old body does all the right and wrong things compensating the damage. But my mates and I are planning some backpacking and climbing trips by the end of the year and I plan to do the roller coasters at the big theme parks here for my 51st in June. You just can't keep a good mongrel down.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Alec,

Mongrel's kick-ass!

Good recovery. Glad to hear it.

Next time -- after jumping out of a perfectly good airplane -- keep your head in the game at least till your shroud-lines go slack. But, I don't have to tell you that, you've got a squashed tail-bone reminding you, every day. Lesson learned.

The object of the game (and a guy like you already knows this) is to die a total, used up, wreak, requiring DNA/dental analysis to confirm identity. And, to not to slip into that good-night quietly. Rather, evidence of your passing should be revealed as a trail of nail gouges in the dirt.

No! One's death should be announced with a bang/scream/crunch or, as likely will be your case, a resounding THUD, somewhere in a corn field, adjacent the air-strip!

Drink deeply, and enjoy it all while you can. God cares not if your corpse is pretty, just that it was well used.

Don't sweat the inevitable outline between filler and PE plates. When critics point it out to you, tell 'em you meant to do that, and to shut the hell up... then ask them how their assembly and detailing of a Moebius SEAVIEW is coming along!?

Diplomacy is only good for getting nations/individuals into wars/fights. Critique the DVD's, and use the sharp knife.

As to the painting. You're only doing gray and white. Gray for the interior of the FS-1 bay. Paint the frames and other parts before assembly -- makes life easier. But paint white over a uniform neutral gray (that primer again) as the pigments of white do not 'cover' as well as the other color pigments.

Pictures, damit .... I want pictures!

David

[alad61]

Sadly she who should be obayed has deemed that I won't be leaping from a "perfectly" good aircraft again... But nothing was said about climbing and abseiling...(insert evil laugh).

Anyway back to the now... As of today I have completed the flying sub bay, glued in the forward drive plane mounts. I also finished the filling and sanding on the problem areas around the windows and middle hull join. Then I added the lights to tho forward and manta fin floods and applied the first prime coat on all the main hull sections. Something I realized I should do is go over all the wiring where I used shrink tube and lather them in the rtv silicon to help keep out the water. All the backs of the micro leds I had already added gel ca glue to to act as insulation against the water but the ends of the shrink tubes didn't look that water tight. As an after thought I glued in place a circle of plasticard over the manta fin flood housings on the dive plane blocks. Tonight I cut away the areas on the manta fins to take the fittings kit dive planes and promptly came to a screaming halt... At first I had thought I had buggered up fitting the dive plane mounts but short of molecular engineering which is just not possible, I realized that I had received two identical planes in my fittings kit. When looking at the bow dead on they both fitted the port side cut out like a glove... Just a bit of a snag!!


If you look closely at the pics you can make out the opposing profiles when set against themselves. Together, by my reckoning there should be a curved profile from one side to the other?? So Ill shoot an email of to Caswells to see about getting the other matching plane. It'll take a week or two to get down under but I still have the observation lounge and additions to the sail to do along with wiring up and mounting the snort pump system wiring the two batteries in parrallell and then fitting and calibrating the auto pitch controller. Before finally indexing the position of the WTC and fitting all the push rod assemblies.
Now as requested here are some pics of whats done to date including priming the main lounge assembly pieces... I deviated slightly from the DVD instructions for the pin to hold the bay door in place. It aint pretty but it does the job.



Those micro leds are really quite bright little lights and no they aren't upside down that is light glare from inside the light wells.




I won't be doing anything more to the primer or paint work till after it has been tested in the tank. something else I am considering are some index tabs on the inside of the main hull to help the superstructure sit better and hopefully prevent it from excess movement

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I'll send you those bow planes directly -- my screw up, not Caswell's. Give me your mailing address. e-mail me here: dmeriman@aol.com

David

[alad61]

Thanks David.

Email sent. I tell you some mobs down here could learn from those I deal with in the states regarding service and response. But enough butt kissing... I'll be off to bed so I can get up early and go head down bum up into my work desk again.

[alad61]

I have a questions regarding the push rods... Is it best to or indeed do I need to heat them before I start bending them to those tighter angles around the fs bay? I have put beds in brass rod but never that tight a radius. I've bent aluminium in larger sections at 90deg when cold and the metal looked more than a little stressesed. Also I was planing to run one push rod in a slightly heavier section colleted to the forward plane rods down to the stern. No real reason for it but to me it'll just look better and is ca glue ok to attach the klik-ons with the threaded brass sockets to the servo push rods. I don't like the idea of using a soldering iron? I've got misgivings with the subsiquent dipersed heat radiating through them. Icm think ca would work as there is no shear stress on them.