Moebius (Revell) Skipjack Build

[rwtdiver]

Tom,

Thank you very much for offering up your expertise and help! I am looking forward to starting my build on the Skipjack!

Thanks,
Rob

Tom! A question for you? Do you use an airbrush in doing some of your finish work? If so what type of equipment do you use? Thank you!

"Firemen can stand the heat"

[trout]

Rob,
My first sub, I did not complete, was over my head (1980), but when I restarted, I also did not do a easy beginner's sub either. However, this time I had a different mindset. I guess what I am saying is subs did not get easier with time, just my determination to complete made the difference. When you are ready, we are here to help you!

[rwtdiver]

Hi Tom,

Really like what you are doing to your Skipjack! The linkage in the stern for dive plains and rudder look great, and very professional! I have been so involved with all the 3D printed Subs, That I put my Skipjack to the side until I watched a few more being built before I attempted to even start on mine!



I even went so far as to purchase the 3.5" SD (before I even knew what a SD was) from Bob Martin along with everything else needed for the build!



I have looked at your complete blog, and it is going to be a great help when I get started on mine. I really jumped to quick and did not take the time to learn a lot more about Sub building! I like lot of people just getting started put the cart before the horse thinking this stuff is easy! HA! Lesson learned! So it sits, but I will get started on it soon!

Your build is looking great! Keep the photos and info coming!

Rob

"Firemen can stand the heat"

[trout]

The prop uses 3/16" shaft, I had a length from McMaster-Carr that I used for the Walrus. I placed the prop on to see how far it went on and marked that location.


Then marked where the set screw would sit and notched out the shaft.


3D printed a bulkhead that will hold the bearing and shaft. I did this because I did not want a super long dog bone shaft. There are two indentations that are to catch the pushrod if it disconnects from the WTC. The hope is the next time the magnet passes by it will reconnect.


Waiting for parts before I can move forward. In the meantime, there are some touch ups that need to be done. The prop had some paint chip off and there are small areas on the sail that the paint chipped off near the top

[trout]

In the bits and pieces were two sacrificial zinc parts. The kit uses 4 so I went ahead and cast two up since I was making some molds for the navigation lights.

Legos are great for small molds.

The holes that the pieces go into needed to be drilled out. Layers of paint had narrowed the opening.


Here would have been a step by step photo of painting up the zincs, but somehow I misplaced this section.
Here is what I did, I began with base coat of black. I washed a coat of the hull red. Then painted each zinc silver.
Then using a wetter dry brush applied a light gray streaking the paint in each square (vertically if the zinc was installed).
Followed that with some white dabs and some very dry brush for the edges. Then lightly applied silver in small splotches.
The final finish was a black wash.

[trout]

When David gifted this hull to me, he drew in some bits and pieces. There were some custom hatches he had on round disks.


The openings for these were not obvious and took a little research (I was not sure why these were included, but assumed David was not crazy).
In the released kit the hatch is a solid plate. On David there is this triangle opening. A little research and I confirmed it was as he modeled it.


When I put the hatch under that location, very little is seen around the hatch. I removed excess material hoping that doing so may help in air escaping.
Began by cutting notches into the disk.


Then cut in-between the notches.


Next it was time to do a little dry brushing to make parts pop. Dry brushing is a technique where you dab a little paint on a brush then remove what seems like all the paint off the brush onto a paper towel. You can vary how much paint to remove, but the more you do, the more subtle the effect will be. Next take your brush and swish it (could not think of a better word) back and forth over the part (hatch in this case). The more you do it the more pronounced the paint deposited is.
(note the 3 holes - that is heavy application - I test there before doing the hatch. I used black gray, gray, silver, white - I will do a light rust mask at the end of the assembly.


To secure the hatches on, I made pins from extruded sprue material and bonded the pins to the hull.

Added the hatches
and touched the three corners with CA.
Here is the hatch assembled.

[trout]

Excellent, we will run them together, we will have Will’s Skipjack too!

[secrtwpn]

I like it. I'm gonna drag out my Skipjack and start it again.....

[trout]

Once the RTV cured the styrene sticks were used to place the light in.



The light housing glass originally I was going to pull from Clear styrene, but had a lot of trouble getting consistent size and once I got the hang of it, I ran out of stock, so since I needed to cast two zinc strips (David through in what bits and pieces he had), I cast some light glass.

The housings were painted black (and later a gray to match the sail's color) and mounted to the sides.

Fired up the LEDs.

Yeah, they worked.

[trout]

It took several ways, but I got the wires threaded through.


I will attach the heat shrink portion to the hull to keep it from interfering with the shaft or rudder travel.

The next target for lights is the sail. It was a big struggle to even drill into the sail because if I mess up, well it would bum me out. David's work is top notch.

I survived and the sail did too!
The LEDs I am using are 1.8mm in size. I cut a strip of styrene and put a slot in the center at the top. The saw blade's kerf was really close to the thickness of the legs. What worked out real nice is the height of the LED base is equal to the wall on the sail. Putting it on this strip allows me to install it easier.


I will be running these lights from a 3.7v source. I saw that RC airplane guys run their LEDs from the LiPo balancing plug. These LEDs use about 1.8v at 20ma. If I did my math right, 95k resistor is the beginning resistor. Theclosest I had was 100k and red LED it worked perfectly. The green was WAY to bright. I wanted both lights to emit the same brightness, so I kept swapping for higher resistance. Once I got to 3200k it seemed close to the red one.


With that decided, it was time to solder it up.


To seal it up I engulfed it in RTV rubber.

[trout]

The hardest part about the rudder was just getting the hole started. I filed a flat area on top of the molded in light dome. Then gradually stepped up the size of the hole. No special tools just went slowly with the hand drill. Frequently pulling the bit out and cleaning off the shavings.


I angled the hole to shoot for the base of the rudder were the brass rod exits.


The hole had to be enlarged to accept the lip at the base of the LED.



The LED was soldered up and tested. This light is a warm white light (super bright and not to scale).


Fitting the LED in to verify it will look O.K. and is at the a height I like.


Because of the lip on the LED and the drill sizes needed, it wiped out most of the bezel that went at the base of the light. There was also some chipping of the paint that made the edges a little ragged.
I decided to just flatten the area create a rudder bezel.

I got the wires to the base and put a notch into the brass rod. This notch or groove will protect the wires while the rudder rotates to make turns.






The rudder bezel is attached to clean up everything.



And lights on.

[trout]

Let there be lights! or hopefully at some point.

I look at this Skipjack that David painted and it is like a Leonardo da Vinci painting. Can you imagine what those curators must go through when they work to restore a piece of art. One slip and you destroy it. This sub feels that way with me, I do not want to destroy it, but I do want to make it my own.

The Skipjack had Navigation lights on each side of the fairwater above the planes.



The Revell Skipjack has the Nav lights in a closed position.

Love the painting. You can see the location just above the would be installed fairwater planes and hatch.

I went to my computer and in Fusion 360 created my version of the deployed lights (using photo posted earlier).


There are three items here, the final revision of the sail light housing. Light lens (to make a mold from) has an area cut into it that will fit the LED lens into. Rudder light Bezel more on that later.



This is an early prototype that I used extruded clear plastic fo a lens and simple black spray paint on the housing to see how it will look. The final version of the housing I increased the diameter of the protective rods going around the light. There is a slight amount of thickening of the walls just to boost the strength a little.
I have not gotten my courage to drill into the side of the sail yet. Then one of our wonderful members here (Ken) said, oh I might make mine working! What a terrible thing to say to me...... Can I do that? Do I want to do that??? Must think on this.....

Let us move further back on this sub, the rudder light.

[trout]

Let me see if I understand, are you asking if WTCs in England are cheaper? If so, the answer is it depends on how you look at it. Straight dollar wise which vendor are you looking at? One is less expensive and one is more. However, that does not take into effect of service or what your preference is. I know and have seen David take a person’s Sub-Driver and help repair it years after it was purchased. Not everything comes down to saving a few dollars. Of the systems I am thinking of, each works differently. So you cannot do a feature to feature comparison. All of them will get your sub down, and if setup correctly, back to the surface. Dollar to Pound conversion makes adds to this discussion.
If you are not asking that question about price wise, then ignore the above and please restate your question.

[Tugfan]

Are the WTC in a England cheaper and have more to them?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Yeah. The vBullitin logo pops up when I use the 'Upload Attachments' save feature. No lost pictures, just a ghost in the code.

David