M-1 Class Submarine Kit GRP Layup

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

When the gel and fillet coats had cured I laid down the first ply of four-ounce fiberglass cloth and wetted that out. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Nope, I find that there are many more minutes involved in negotiating the deep draft and vertical surfaces than I first anticipated. I've been working since yesterday afternoon on this first layer of glass and I gotta tell you, laying up within this tool is a Mother! This is one labor-intensive GRP job.

And a minor disaster occurred a few hours ago: I was blowing dust out from the starboard hull tool when some air got under the gel-coat and popped a four-square inch piece off the cavity and across the shop. I decided to leave the rest of the gel-coat as is and proceed with glassing. This means a lot of clean-up of the part later. So, the first set of M-1 GRP parts will be mine, not Albion's. Oh, well. I know what I'll be doing this weekend ... Damit!

David,


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Weather Eye

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Hand crafted indeed:)

Yeah, Mike bought this set of tools off a guy in the UK ... or was it Canada? All the same to me.

I believe it's 1/72, right?

Anyway, the tools are old and well seasoned -- they require little part-release treatment, just a few licks of wax and a few spray coats of PVA and they're good to go for the glass work. I'm working to minimize the weight above waterline so will be taking care to adjust the laminates so that only the structures above the water needing strength will get the extra glass.

The above shots show the second application, which is a non-glass brush-on of thickened resin to fillet the right-angle, deep draft areas such as the keel, bridge fairing, and superstructure portions of the tools. by tonight I'll have all the glass laid in and tomorrow I pop the parts up. The first layer was the gel-coat, lightly filled resin -- when that cured I laid in the fillet goo.

I'll trim the parts to fit, then bolt the left-right portions of hull together -- working out the upper opening for the 'deck' piece, then get those two structures to fit. I'll then take the hull halves apart, temporarily install them back into their respective tools and mark the deck separation line onto the tool with light engraved lines -- this will make further production work easier, as I'll then capture the deck separation line onto the hull parts, making deck integration a much easier task for future kit customers. That one-time job done I'll glue Albion's hull together as well as the two halves of the bridge fairing. That will conclude fabrication of his hull kit. I assume he's bought the fittings kit for this thing to round out the assembly on his end.

Albion benefits as his parts (used as marking stencils) will already have been trimmed, ready for immediate use. Lucky guy. See: sometimes the pioneers don't take the arrows!
David,
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Hero honda hunk specifications

[Albion]

Hand crafted indeed:)
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Toyota Matrix

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Here's the first M-1 kit taking form. I think the victim ... err ... customer is Albion.

David,
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Corcel