today's work

[redboat219]

Got mine from Hongkong.
Ordered through a local hobbyshop.

https://www.hobbyeasy.com/en/data/2qq3w7a3jie4nrmisp9i.html?t=1733584797

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Mine also has the same gap but not as bad.

would try coaxing the bowed hull piece with hot water then secure it against a flat board to cool. Hopefully straighten it.

Nope. That never works. Needs more heat -- which means an increased likelihood of slicking the entire hull by turning into a puddle of styrene.

[redboat219]

Nope. That never works. Needs more heat -- which means an increased likelihood of slicking the entire hull by turning into a puddle of styrene.

Thanks for the heads up.

[Das Boot]

Stuff I got from Ray Mason. One of his pal's, Frank -- who at one time worked at the Grumman model-shop -- gave him slabs of this closed cell stuff, and Ray passed some of it off to me. Like the light-weight RenShape, but of even larger cell size. Suitable for foundations and basic structural elements.

Dave,
can you show how you make things such as cradles with Renshape? I don’t have a lathe, but I would like to know and learn how you do it. Teach an old dog a new trick.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Dave,
can you show how you make things such as cradles with Renshape? I don’t have a lathe, but I would like to know and learn how you do it. Teach an old dog a new trick.

A bandsaw.

[Das Boot]

Lord. That’s a big one. A bandsaw I got. Thanks.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Lord. That’s a big one. A bandsaw I got. Thanks.

A client bought it (around $1500.00). Said we could keep the end-cuts. Their job only used three cubic feet of it -- we're stocked up with the stuff for three life-times.

This is the job -- it was for the MIT School of Engineering:

[Davjacva]

Damn!! I remember that job. That was pre-Caswell.

[Das Boot]

So you can make casting molds out of that stuff too, huh?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

So you can make casting molds out of that stuff too, huh?

Nope. I make masters out of that stuff. Thos masters used to make GRP tools, from which I make other stuff.

[Rick Teskey]

What is it?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

What is it?

An MIT Engineering graduate project was to validate, through tow-tank studies, the effectiveness of a new type marine propulsor. D&E Miniatures was contracted to build the test-article. We completed the job, delivered it, and never heard back from them again. We've done some spooky **** like that before -- and sometimes we're kept in the dark as to the outcome of the work we did.

Side bar to the above. I almost got recruited to work at one of the three-letter spook establishments in Virginia to make models for them. During a pre-interview I informed one of the suites that we usually went public with our work, and they went dark on us. Just as well, Ellie and I preferred our registered and public trade-style business name, D&E Miniatures. Not 'Q Branch'.

Some of our work for defense contractors got a bit spooky -- but never to the degree where our talking about it would slam us into a Federal lock-up. Work like this:








Sunlight is the perfect disinfectant!

[redboat219]

I remember reading an article in Popular Mechanics in the early 90s about an underwater surveillance drone that looked like a submarine with a very tall sail. It had a night vision camera inside a periscope shaped housing on top of the sail. It was designed to operate with just the top of the sail sticking out of the water.
The article even mentioned about how one night they were observing some suspicious activities when the feed from the drone went out. When they raided the place they found the drug traffickers had snatched the drone.
Did you ever designed or build something like that?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I remember reading an article in Popular Mechanics in the early 90s about an underwater surveillance drone that looked like a submarine with a very tall sail. It had a night vision camera inside a periscope shaped housing on top of the sail. It was designed to operate with just the top of the sail sticking out of the water.
The article even mentioned about how one night they were observing some suspicious activities when the feed from the drone went out. When they raided the place they found the drug traffickers had snatched the drone.
Did you ever designed or build something like that?

Yup. And the customer stiffed us on the final payment... He named it, Sea Turtle. I have slides of it somewhere here. What we built for this jerk was a proof-of-concept type prototype. I think this is the same semi-submergible you saw in that article.

Ellie was not amused! We tightened up our vetting process after that butt-****ing!

[redboat219]

Remember seeing photos of the spy sub in your old website Vabiz.com. Unfortunately couldn't find any. I did find these. RC Submarining Book and VHS tape Do you still have a copy? Maybe transfer to DVD?