The Great British M1

[Albion]

Its all very quiet, whats going on?

[Kazzer]

The Wizard has completed the 'control surfaces' mold and product will be available next week.



Here is a shot from The Cave, showing the Wizard's Work.



Note the gun has an aluminum insert inside, giving it the potential to be a workable weapon.



The kit will now comprise, two GRP hull halves, Conning Tower, Fittings Kit comprising dive planes & rudder, 1/8" prop shaft, Raboesh Props.

Here is a shot of the boat with a Revell VII alongside.

[Albion]

Fantastic news Mike, errr woot

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Just one little correction to what Mike said about the gun barrel: I'm using aluminum tube as the bore, not brass. I wanted to maintain as light a weight in the topside fittings as I can to minimize trimming problems for the customer. That's why we went for the hollow resin gun in the first place; forming the bore with a brass tube would have been counter-productive.

And I want to apologize to those of you who I have keep waiting on the M-1 kit. It took forever to find definitive proof of what the control surfaces actually looked like. As it turns out, the plans Mike and I have been working from are correct: The horizontal control surfaces are terribly thin of section and employed an internal casting to transmit the shear and toque loads to the operating shaft. This results in the distinctive 'nub' at the inboard edge of each surface -- that nub constituting the external projection of the control surface operating shaft into the load absorbing casting underneath the plating of the control surface. Confirmation of that arrangement revealed in a U-Tube video from a sport dive of the HMS SWORDFISH.

Though the SWORDFISH was not of the M class it was the precursor of the K class. And the M's employed pretty much the same hull and control surface arrangement as the K's. One shot in the SWORDFISH dive video got up close and personal on a bow plane, which revealed the nub. Also, it appears that the rivets used to secure the plate to the internal casting were counter-sunk as none of the research I came up had any visible rivets atop the control surface plating. Hell, the American Confederate marine engineers were counter-sinking (flush riveting) submarines in the 1860's, so it makes sense that the Britt's in the 1920's would be doing the same for their submarines.

Anyway ... that's my version of the story, and I'm sticking to it, ******!

David,

[Albion]

Makes a lot of sense to me, Mike's original attempt looked a lot like a early century casting type thing, and having the same drawing I concur. The riveting also makes sense.