Hmk 1/72 hms astute

[ManOwaR]

Secrets! Come on man!

[ManOwaR]

Chap.2

To build this model I need a foundation to build it around. This foundation is the cylindrical pressure hull found in the prints and on the real boat. This pressure hull will also be extremely detailed and will need a surface conducive to scribing etc…With my Seawolf I made a basic hull shape and made a secondary mold to which I applied a heavily filled epoxy mixture (backed up by urethane foam) that was supposed to give me a non-shrinking surface that should have been easy to do my detailing work on. I couldn’t have been more wrong, because besides the ton of extra work and money that went into this extra step, the actual epoxy surface ended up being too hard and full of pin holes. Any area that needed scribing or any other sort of detail work was ground out and was replace with a thick layer of Bondo and blended in smooth with the surrounding hull. This provided a far better, more workable surface. For this project I asked myself: “why don’t I just give myself and entire canvas of proper surface to work off of from the get-go?” So, that’s what I’m doing here.








First order is to machine down my white pine pressure hull down to about ¼” radius less than what the actual hull will be. No precision here, folks.








Styrene plastic guides are cut from sheet material. Cured Evercoat doesn’t stick to styrene sheet. I discovered this fact when working on the Seawolf Wide aperture arrays. One guide was made for the end of the cylinder and the other was a ring that could be moved to each section after the plastic (Evercoat) cures

[ManOwaR]

To begin, I apply a heavy coat of plastic inside the guides, let it cure to a gel state and then apply another coat and even it out with the guides using various sized drywall mud applicators. Once one section cures, then the hollow guide ring is moved to the next section, holtmelted in place, and the plastic application procedure is repeated. I did this for the whole cylinder and now it has to be machined to the proper diameter using my wood lathe Unfortunately, the special attachment that will allow me to machine perfect straight lines hasn’t come in yet.

















Shrinkage issues? Theory has it that this shouldn’t because I’m applying the plastic first, letting it shrink, then machining it down to the right size

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

You're taking us all back to school here, Joel. Good stuff! You've made up your mind to get the substrate you want, from the start!

David

[ManOwaR]

Yeah, After the last project I don't see any reason why not to do it this way. I heard some people in the past complain about Evercoat and how it is crumbly etc it can be for scribing, but at the end of the day, I'm not too sure that the sources I've heard this from really have the experience to back those statements up. With that being said, it's my close second favorite substrate to work on and I thoroughly enjoy working with it. My first is Duratec Vinyl ester surface primer with a perfect degree of hardness and no pin-holing. The deciding factor came down to Evercoat Lite costing 9$ per gallon as opposed to 100$ per gallon for the vinyl ester, forcasting that most likely I'll use three gallons at the very least.

Joel

[Subculture]

I've been using some of this stuff for repairs and blending on epoxy hulls.

http://www.reactiveresins.com/Easy-Fair-T-&-S.html

Makes a nice counterpoint to polyester fillers (I use Upol products, Evercoat don't trade in the UK). It spreads like polyester fillers, and sands easily. Much slower cure time though, and considerably more expensive, so I tend to stick to polyester based fillers for pattern work.

[ManOwaR]

Looks like an interesting product, Andy. It has the properties needed to the kind of work we do

Joel

[bassplayer1]

I'm not familiar with Evercoat!!! The stuff Andy suggests is really good! My brother uses it on real boats and I always "steal" his leftovers for my masters! Great stuff for scribing!!!

[Peter W]

Joel, don't know if it helps but a chap over here in blighty has just released 2 different scales of Astute kits. A 1/72 and, wait for it 1/42 scale. www.rc-subs.com mind you the big kit is £2500. Want to think about an S/D for that Dave. (tongue in cheek)


Peter.

Nothing to do with me just an FYI.

[Slats]

Joel, don't know if it helps but a chap over here in blighty has just released 2 different scales of Astute kits. A 1/72 and, wait for it 1/42 scale. www.rc-subs.com mind you the big kit is £2500. Want to think about an S/D for that Dave. (tongue in cheek)


Peter.

Nothing to do with me just an FYI.

Having built the 1/72 Seawolf from Joel, the Caswell / Merriman 3.5" Subdriver that I used on Seawolf will easily fit this boat. The Caswell / Merriman SAS system represents the state of the art and would be hard to go past.
The only question is ballast tank size, - I expect it to be 25% bigger than the Seawolf's requirements due to the higher reserve buoyancy of the Astute's sail and rear hull hump cf with Seawolf. As the 3.5" SD comes in kit form the ballast tank size demands will be completely catered for.

I have hundreds of hours of patrol time with various Subdrivers. The reliability of the equipment is excellent.

Re those new kits - be nice to see some photos.
Also - I am not so sure about the WTC on offer utilising welding gas. http://www.rc-subs.com/html/rc_subs_6.html
The WTC seems from the text to have (ballast tanks)...i.e. plural. see Technical data: http://www.rc-subs.com/html/our_kits.html IMHO overkill cf to the ease of simple single tank located at the COR / COG / COP.



J

[ManOwaR]

...mind you the big kit is £2500...

Sounds like they a good proper understanding of what their time is worth. I'd be interested in seeing some pics as well, Peter.

[Subculture]

I did a bit of investigation into this newcomer to the model submarine scene, as something didn't smell right to me.

1. They have provided zero evidence of any model, no pictures of a completed model or any master work. However they're able to place one up for auction on ebay. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1509780257...84.m1555.l2649

2. The specification is decidedly sketchy.

3. They took without permission pictures and videos from other sites, and hosted them on their facebook page. They removed these pretty sharpish when I challenged them.

4. They placed an auction on ebay for one of these kits. Again no pictures of a product, and if you clicked on the sellers feedback, you could see he'd just purchased a small 'starters' fibreglass kit. Hardly the kind of thing you buy when you're cranking out huge submarine hulls- you'd have oddles of the stuff already.

The previous position of the owner of this outfit was running a cleaning company (now defunct). So Mr Mop suddenly becomes master modelmaker- quite a career change.

Their site makes much of donating 25% of profits to charity. But what is their profit?

I wouldn't send them a brass farthing (plugged nickel for the Americans).

[greenman407]

OOOPPS! Maybe the jig is up?The Titanic

[Subculture]

If you want a 1/72 Astute, wait for Joel to complete his. If you want a smaller Astute Chris Netherway does some nice hulls, although he doesn't adevrtise them, so it's just on a word and mouth basis.

RC-subs need to provide some decent images, and better information on their kit, if it exists.

[Slats]

If you want a 1/72 Astute, wait for Joel to complete his. If you want a smaller Astute Chris Netherway does some nice hulls, although he doesn't adevrtise them, so it's just on a word and mouth basis.

RC-subs need to provide some decent images, and better information on their kit, if it exists.

Thanks Andy.....

the thing that I thought looked genuine about this was the scheduled events.

http://www.rc-subs.com/html/events.html

But then I got to thinking - do I know anyone with 1/42 scale ships? -= Nope ...
Do I know anyone with a 1/42 Invincible? =Nope
How much water would one need to maneuver the Carrier with that scale sub =heaps.

We do learn from the ebay ad that the system has bow and stern ballast tanks for the 1/72 scale model. - An overly complicated and unnecessary system for a sub of this size, especially working on the fact that the system uses Argon welding gas, presumably to blow the tanks.
We do also learn from the ebay ad their are no photos currently to be had.

One of the standout items for this submarine is her pump jet which is humbly described as a mere prop.

All very sus indeed.
J