Ray Mason Nautilus Article

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  • Davjacva
    Commander

    • Nov 2022
    • 350

    Ray Mason Nautilus Article

    Last Fall, I e-mailed back and forth with Ray Mason about his version of developing his Nautilus submarine. 'His version' is part of the motivation for the inquiry, as I heard so many conflicting stories, so Ray was kind enough to dust his memories off and provide as near as he could recollect his journey from seeing the movie at it's release in December 1954 through to when he upgraded and produced a 2nd even more accurate version. So I put the document with photos together and ran them past Dave Merriman for a pass, then asked Ray if I could post it. I recently had an issue where the whole contents of my laptop went to the cloud (I wasn't on the cloud), so I had to extricate and get my stuff back. I think I did, but I'm getting back multiples of the same files, and have to get rid of the duplicates. Stuff going back 30 years. Today, I'm getting ready to send it to Bob, and it's not there. Luckily, I remembered I had sent a copy to Ray and got the final version. This all leads me to wonder how much other stuff I've lost. Anyway, it's coming. Oh, Dave, Ken Druze, and I will be at the 'Cabin Fever' event in Lebanon, Pa. on Friday and Saturday. It's supposed to be a great event. It's our first time.
  • RCSubGuy
    Welcome to my underwater realm!

    • Aug 2009
    • 1884

    #2

    The Disney Nautilus of Ray Mason


    THE SUBMARINE AND MOVIE

    My introduction to the Disney Nautilus (designed by Harper Goff) at 12 years old was backward to say the least. I devoured all things sci-fi, from reading ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’ to anything on tv and the movies. I even knew of the 20,000 leagues book, and I believe Gold Key comics did a treatment of it, but somehow the movie, and more importantly the submarine totally escaped me. Pretty much the reason – in the pre-VHS era – was that Disney had a lock on all their material, and would occasionally re-release a movie periodically. The 20,000 Leagues movie I think had only been re-released once in the mid-60’s after its initial showing in 1954. In the Spring of 1973, two of my brothers, my sister and I, went to Disney World, and attended ‘The Walt Disney Story’ in the Main Street USA area of the park. My siblings wanted to attend the venue, but I didn’t have any expectations of entertainment. After entering, much to my shock was the 11’ HERO version of the Nautilus right inside the lobby. I had no idea of what it was, what it was about, or where it came from. My older brother filled me in on what it was, and I lost my place in line looking at it, as I was in total shock. My lasting impression was ‘How do I get one?’. The actual main attraction of the show was not the submarine, but a theatre that played an informative biographical movie short about Walt Disney’s life and work. Within the movie were scenes from ’20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’, particularly interesting was the attack scene on the USS Lincoln that left me willing to sell my soul for one. I wound up later sneaking back to the submarine, when my siblings were elsewhere for about 45 minutes, so I could try to take it all in again. Back then, the salon lights of the Nautilus were lit. In 1976, I returned and got to see it (twice again) and the salon lights were again still lit. From photos I’ve seen of the HERO Nautilus later on, the none of the lights were lit. Time went by. Because of the way Disney released movies to VHS/ Beta, I wound up not renting and seeing the movie until the ‘90’s when it was finally released. I was once again blown away, but as I had not re-discovered modeling yet, that’s as far as it went. It was not until a few years later that I got back into model building, and pretty much where I had left off with it in the late ‘70’s, with tanks.


    MY BUILD OF THE RAY MASON NAUTILUS

    About 5 years into modeling, I got introduced to master model builder David Merriman III. Back then, there were a few modelers that hung out in Dave’s shop off and on, and you typically watched two different shows that were happening. One, was whatever he had playing on the VHS TV, which would range from 1927’s ‘Metropolis’, to something from the 1950’s, or something current. The other, was the myriad of ways Dave would create or massage a model into shape. Over time, you slowly developed, or were introduced to a cache of high-end techniques that catapulted your modeling techniques into the stratosphere. Along with the improved techniques, you were introduced to better materials that vastly improved and strengthened the model.

    Dave is that ultra-rare person that chose to make model-building a business – a game not for the faint of heart; a game of knock you out, drag you through the ditch, and suffer the occasional fool. Professional model building is a vocation where the faint of heart need not apply; a profession, like many, where you had to pay the bills whether you were successful or not. Not to get too far into the weeds, but discussing modeling in Dave’s shop, or Dave’s expansive history in modeling are by far major topics for another time.

    About 4 years after meeting Dave, he brought me over into one of his supply/work sheds and showed me a model that I recognized, saying, ‘This is a Ray Mason Disney Nautilus’. He goes scrambling back a few times into the shelves and comes out with a box with bags of parts to go with the model. We discuss the model in my hands for a while and I had to go back home.



    That evening, I put the model on my build table and took some photos. On this version of Ray's kit the four quadrants of the hull were unified into a complete hull. I mocked up the hull with the superstructure and wheelhouse only. Looking at it mocked up and still unbuilt, it was an overwhelming model to look at, so I took some initial photos. There may be people who are not impressed looking at the Nautilus, but I haven’t met one. A short time later at Dave’s shop, the hull was cut in half and I proceeded cleaning and restoring the detail that was lost. This work went slow as I had a few other long-term intensive builds going on, and I started collecting and working on old classic cars. Though the Nautilus was set aside for the next 15 years, it was always displayed, and the next project to be worked on. People would come in to my hobby room amidst all the other stuff and each one of them would ask about the Nautilus first.

    Finally, in September 2022, I went and talked to Dave about what direction I should go. He was fully retired and we started working on it. Dave had completely built at least one 31” Nautilus, and had cast up a few of the 1/48 scale ones, but this model had a lot of un-built history for both of us and both of us wanted to see it completed. For the un-initiated, converting a model from a display piece to a fully functioning radio-controlled model is apples and oranges. Sometimes the two are at odds with each other, especially regarding the depth of detail and painting, yet you strive to make the model as attractive as possible. As radio-controlled submarine building was measured, the Nautilus is number 10 on the Richter scale, and I had never built a radio-controlled submarine before. Dave’s involvement was absolutely essential, and I had no idea going in to it how essential it was going to be. Some tasks he just took on by himself, such as building the watertight cylinder (WTC), operating linkages, and the tilting gimballed screw and linkages to name a few. Just as essential, was when I hit a hurdle, he gave me direction on how to proceed, or I could bounce a build direction off of him and the problem would be worked out.

    I was glad the Nautilus was my first submarine. It is very unconventional as a submarine and requires some completely different methods to build and operate it. Seven months into the assembly of this kit and there were only minor details to complete. However, the boat was not yet trimmed out and Dave wanted to show it at the 2023 SUBREGATTA. So, we cleaned and primed the hull and it went to the event. After the event, we got back on schedule to have it ready for the SUBFEST-23 event in Cohutta, Georgia in the middle of September. We had three months. Some operating bugs had to be worked out, and trimming it took some time, and it had to be properly painted, but it was ready to go for SUBFEST-23. We initially took it to a local pool and tested it. The chemicals in the pool interfered with the radio operation of the model, but the model behaved well.

    At Cohutta, this was the where the Nautilus would be fully tested in operation. We were surprised at how well it operated, but after running for 3 and a half days, design problems reared their ugly heads. These issues were mainly with the rudder operation, but the dive planes and gimballed-screw tilt wouldn’t work at times. Incredibly, one of the five blades for the screw came off, and we didn’t notice it for a while until Bob Martin came by and asked how the sub operated missing the blade. The reduction in speed or operation were never noticed. After getting back home, these issues were addressed and improved and it’s operating even better.

    The next year, Dave went again to the SUBREGATTA in 2024 and brought the Nautilus. Ray was there and brought his improved Nautilus there and Dave took photos of the two together with Ray. This was absolutely a total blast for me.



    Initial photo of my Nautilus:




    My completed Nautilus:





    First time in operation:




    RAY MASON

    I’ve gotten to know Ray Mason over the past couple of years online. I’ve conveyed to him the big blanks, gray areas, or complete misinformation about not just his Nautilus, but his build projects in general. He was kind enough to answer all my questions that he could recall, and provided some of the build-process photos that he could find. These were conducted via a series of e-mails, so here the correct information as told by Ray that he sent and is ordered chronologically. In December 1954, Ray saw the brand new Disney live-action version of ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ movie at the theatre with his father. Afterward, he started making cardboard models of the Nautilus. In the summer of 1964, Ray again saw the movie when it was re-released. This time around, he made balsa models of the Nautilus, ran them through water, made some 8mm movies and even added some music. His reference were principally rough drawings from a comic book. In September 1978, Ray went to Disney world, and inside the entrance to the building where the ‘Walt Disney Story’ was shown, the 11’ HERO model from the movie was displayed. He took four photos of the model, which he used as one of the main references in designing and making his model.



    These are the photos Ray took of the Nautilus at the ‘Walt Disney Story’ exhibit:










    Later, Tom Scherman published the scale Disney plans for the Nautilus, these became an invaluable second reference. He went back to Disneyworld in 1980 with the intent to take more photos, but the exhibit was closed and the Nautilus removed. Ray worked on the model and molds with the intent of casting it in fiberglass, and that it would be a radio-controlled model. He completed the model in fiberglass in 1984 and ran it in a lake for several years. After the SUBREGATTAS in 1992 and 1993, there was much interest for copies. The original mold was made out of two-piece red rubber with hard strong backs made from fiberglass for strength. The model-master was made out of foam core, balsa card stock, and rounded pinheads for the rivets. The left and right sections made an upper and lower hull. The texture of the hull was made with latex paint and spackling, applied with a shorthaired brush. All the external parts were created and test-fitted in their pre-mold state. Later in 1993, he went back and created a 4-part mold when he started producing some for others.


    Ray was ever-busy, and says he only produced maybe 15 hulls, 20 at the most, only for those individuals he thought would be able to put them together. His job had him going between New York and Florida, and he often did wedding photography on the weekends, so there wasn’t an abundance of time to go into production.

    These are the photos of Ray’s production build of the Nautilus:

    First, is the foam core layup.



    First hull layup in rubber mold with fiberglass strong back.






    The first hull.



    The wheelhouse and mold






    Photos of Ray and his completed Nautilus in 1984.
















    In 1988, ‘Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea’ was running on afternoon tv, and he recorded the shows and took photos with a 35mm camera off of the screen. From these, he began constructing a model master and fiberglass molds for a radio-controlled version which he completed in 1992. That same year he found out about the SubCommittee and what was to be their annual meet in Groton, Connecticut at SUBREGGATTA-92. There he met other like-minded modelers including David Merriman, whose building articles he had seen in various modeling magazines. The next year in 1993, he returned to Groton for SUBREGGATTA-93 where he brought video equipment and started his production of the ‘SubCommittee Report’ video series. At the awards presentation, his Nautilus won 3 awards, one of them ‘Best of Show’. After that show, he started producing a few Nautilus models for the select few he thought could put one together. While easy for him, he recognized they were quite difficult for others. In 1994, Ray built a radio-controlled version of the Jules Verne HMS Sword from the Czech movie ‘A Deadly Invention’ (also know as ‘Invention for Destruction’) by Karel Zeman (from the Jules Verne story ‘Face the Flag’). He ran it at the SUBREGATTA-94 and 40 years later, he ran it successfully at SUBREGATTA-24 where it still works great. Regarding his intention to build the Sword, he said that one Saturday morning Tom Scherman called him. He thinks that the genesis of the phone call was that David Merriman had told Tom about his Nautilus, and decided to give Ray a call. Among other things, Tom told Ray about the cinematic photography of the 20,000 Leagues models during the movie, as told to him by Harper Goff. Ray mentioned that he would like to build the Sword next, and Tom not only sent him a VHS movie, but several photos of the Sword for reference.

    Back to the Nautilus, in 1998, he found the 11’ HERO Nautilus at the EPCOT ‘Living Seas’ exhibit, where he took many still photographs and video, and later put them into the SUBREGGATTA-98 video report. From the photos from EPCOT in 2000, he used an old hull and started an upgraded version of the Nautilus, making new master molds and one new hull. It went up on a shelf unfinished. In 2022-23, he saw that I (Jake) was building the one from Dave, and it inspired him to finish the new hull, using new techniques featuring a gimbaled propeller, eliminating the need of non-scale horizontal control surfaces. This upgraded Nautilus was brought to Groton for SUBREGGATTA-24 where photographs were taken by Dave along with my Nautilus and Ray. He ran it for about 10 minutes until a nylon dogbone was chewed up. It has since been corrected with a stainless steel pin.

    BY David Jacobs, with invaluable inputs as told by Ray Mason

    Photos by: Ray Mason and David Jacobs

    Reviewed by David Merriman III

    November 2024

    Comment

    • SubSteve
      Lieutenant

      • Apr 2022
      • 84

      #3
      Wow.
      This is a brilliant posting and will take a while to digest. Thanks to all that contributed to this!

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