Proposal

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

More tid-bits:

[greenman407]

Is that Ellie with a Black & Decker drill? Whats she working on?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Is that Ellie with a Black & Decker drill? Whats she working on?

Yup. She did a lot of grunt-work on the effects miniatures we built for the Wade Williams production of, Midnight Movie Massacres. It was the only non-union flick we worked on -- this permitted us to secure opening and closing screen-credits. Whoopee! ... worst flick since, Plan-9 From Outer Space. Yeah.

So, you ask, what kind of crew works a non-union flick? Remember the cantina scene from the first Star Wars movie?...

Not your A-listers, I can assure you. But, it was a gig (and we heard that a lot during our stay on-set). And we did not suffer union rules and associated bull-****. Rather liberating for those guild-members there working under the radar. Hence the Kansas City location.

Still in the navy, I got involved as technical art-director, miniature maker, and practical effects supervisor. A plate load of stuff for a dumb-ass Torpedoman-Diver. The initial design and miniature fabrication was done out of my military housing garage, and after shipping the stuff to Kansas I took 30-days leave, and Ellie and me flew out to build miniature sets, and rig and operate the miniatures for the second-unit gang. I think is was 1984.

As I did the effects element story-boards, and had consulted with the camera crew, I knew how big the principle and secondary miniature TD-1 saucers had to be. The big one was GRP and would be hung, controlled, and powered by a classic wire support rig. The small one had a small hole in its side for a pipe-stand -- the shots of the small miniature composed to insure the pipe-stand support elements would be out of frame, masked my the miniature itself. All the work was done in-camera, no post production lab work required. Anyway, that was the plan.

I needed the big TD-1 light of weight to limit the gauge and number of support-control-power wires needed to support and 'fly' the miniatures during the shots. GRP seemed the logical choice. I screeded out an upper and lower hull mold onto the garage floor from cement, then laid up the GRP parts over those molds.

Got the idea as a kid watching foundry guys where Dad worked doing something like that to a green-sand core. I digress....

Ellie wet-sanding the lower hull half of the TD-1. Later she trimmed away the excess glass from its perimeter and we bonded the two hull halves together. Note the hole I cut in the center. The removable piece there gave access to the lights and wire hard-points within the upper hull. Note the three openings for the landing gear wells. There was a set of 'retracted' well doors for in-flights shots, and a set of landing gear equipped wells for the landing and take-off scenes.

We finished up the big and small saucer miniatures in record time, crated them up and sent them to the Kansas studio -- an old, five-story Masonic Temple, no less! Talk about WEIRD! Had everything but blood dripping from the walls. it was like the upper floor of that tall building in the first Ghost-Busters movie, but without the devil-dogs. The place creeped me and Ellie out. It was a looooonnnnnggggg two-week shoot. And throughout the structure was this evil, foul stench of death (all the toilets had long ago overflowed onto the bathroom floors). Man, like I was back on the TRUTTA! Ellie was not amused.

Two smaller miniatures were needed. One a good-guy spaceship, the other the 'bad-guy' spaceship. Guess which is which! These would be pipe-stand mounted. The bulbous one had internal lighting.

I had to build two forced-perspective sets for the miniatures. Ellie dressed out the big one where we would 'fly' the large TD-1 miniature. And the one pictured here -- the hangar from which we see the TD-1 (the small miniature) lift off its pad, then back out the hangar door, out into space.

The biggest miniature was this TERRA-STATION. I modeled it off a sperm cell. Wade wanted crazy, I gave him crazy.

The movie was a flop. Made Plan-9 look good. The French loved it. And Ellie and I got the only screen credit we would ever get on a movie. How bout that, sports-fans! Ed Wood, eat your heart out!

Ellie did me one better, she got a special credit line at the closing of the flick: "Boogers by, Eleanor Merriman of D&E Miniatures". I arranged that with Wade.

Ellie was not amused.

M

[Von Hilde]

In my time that boat was on display at the 'light-house museum', not far from the main gate. It was outside and rusting terribly. That was the late 60's.

Yeah, Gene is an uber-modeler of the first order. His work -- both mechanical, and exterior -- is to die for.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]29291[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]29292[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]29293[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]29294[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]29295[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]29296[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]29297[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]29298[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]29299[/ATTACH]

I just e-mailed Gene to find out the scale.

M

I would guess 1:32 or1:35. The actual boat is 78ft 5in. Ive noticed the pictures of the Ha19 the forward section of the prop guard was missing, not so on the boat in Groton which is questionally Ha8. That one was raised on Guadacanal in 42 and did some war bond tours before ending up at the museum. The Ha 18 that was raised off the bottom at Pearl in 1960 has some reminances of the strapping. The 19 had some gyrocompass problems outside the harbor and never went in. It ran aground around 8 am Dec 7, and dammaged the lower torpedo tube and rudder. It was spotted by the destroyer USS Helm , but they mannaged to wiggle off the reef by shifting their body weight around and rocking the boat off the rocks. dont know if shots were fired during the chase. Ended up all the way round Diamond Head on the east side of the island. Ran aground again on Walminalo reef near Bellows Field {now Bellows Army Beach area} There was an issue with batteries leaking Chlorene gas knocked them out for a short while. Then they were depth charged for some time, after comming to. The got underweigh again and then intentionally ran aground a final time, a few yards off the beach. The enlisted crewman Kiyoshi, eventually drowned trying to escape after they set charges, that did not det. Lt Sakamaki went on to be the first Japanese POW of the war. I would guess the missing parts were torn off, either during the groundings, or when the salvage crews dragged it off the rocks up on the beach. In any event the missing parts were replaced as much as they could for the bond tour using pieces from a couple other midgets that had been raised during the war. Is that model a one off hull, or can one be had?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I would guess 1:32 or1:35. The actual boat is 78ft 5in. Ive noticed the pictures of the Ha19 the forward section of the prop guard was missing, not so on the boat in Groton which is Ha8 theat was raised on Guadacanal or the Ha 18 that was raised off the bottom at Pearl in 1960 The 19 had some gyrocompass problems outside the harbor and never went in and ran aground twice while running from surface vessels. Ended up on the Walminalo reef near Bellows Field {now Bellows Army Beach area} I would guess it was torn off, either during the groundings or when the salvage crews dragged it off the rocks up on the beach. Is that a one off hull or can one be had?

Right you are, sir. 1/32. Got word from Gene yesterday. Thanks for reminding me.

M

[Von Hilde]

Right you are, sir. 1/32. Got word from Gene yesterday. Thanks for reminding me.

M

I edited my post with a few historicle facts and amended it some. didnt post the pictures of some of the recovered boats different sterns, but if there is an intrest with anyone building one I will share. That box is definately a work of art. Overbuilt is an understatement. Machine turning the rascle is off the chain, besides the engineering aspect. That kind of stuff gives me a Heart on daddio. So, is there any availability of a hull in my future?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I edited my post with a few historicle facts and amended it some. didnt post the pictures of some of the recovered boats different sterns, but if there is an intrest with anyone building one I will share. That box is definately a work of art. Overbuilt is an understatement. Machine turning the rascle is off the chain, besides the engineering aspect. That kind of stuff gives me a Heart on daddio. So, is there any availability of a hull in my future?

Yeah. Gene's middle name is, 'over-kill'. Machine swirls on the gear case. Pure nut-job! I hate him so much. Study a model of his is like two-weeks of a quality shop-class.

Gene's got the tooling. Let's ask him.

And, yes, by all means, von .... post what you've got!

M

[Von Hilde]

I believe the standard prop cage that they universally was like the Ha8 in Groton.
Full cage.

The Ha19 was taken to Pearl after the 8th of Dec when they dragged it out of the water. As you can see the props and whats left of the cage are barely attached to the hull and the rear section has what looks like close aboard depth charge damage where the hull is all caved in.


Then the 19 went to Mare Island to get fixed up to go on the bond tour where she got a replacement aft hull section and the remnants of the prop assembly on tour at UCLA with the props and minimal cageHa18 was raised in 1960 with similar damage to the aft cage, due to ramming by the destroyer USS Monhegan and driving it to the bottom on Dec 7



Another Ko was found on the bottom of the bay where the LSTs blew up during loading in 44. while salvaging the LSTs They dug up Ha20 which had its two torpedoes missing. The boat was scuttled after the attack according to the Japanese orders of what to do after the attack was successful. The bodies of the two souls were left aboard and the boat was immediately resunk and then used as fill, in the lagoon later after the war.

The Groton boat was a conglomeration of good parts many of which were in Kiska in a bunker undamaged To this day there are several still up in

Alaska sitting in the fields well preserved, same spot during the war after the Japanese set charges when they left.
The boat in the foreground is the one that's in the current picture The ones up under the shed went to Mare Island for war bond promotion boats and replacement parts and study. There were only 32 of thr "A"s plus one prototype with no number or tower. Less than a dozen around the world on display now. Most of the boats that went operational were unaccounted for at the end. It wouldn't surprise me if some will show up on the bottom a lot closer than Alaska. The last one was, the one the Ward sank on the 7th and was located in deep water off pearl by an ROV in 2000 something. War grave and wont be brought up.

The IJN had its own Polkinshlag when they shelled the Golita fuel piers and blew up a bunch of insignificant buildings and one small fuel tank. Other boats were off the Origon and North Cali coast doing the same thing. These boats were the big IJN B1 seaplane boats, One even launched the E14Y and dropped bombs. on the continental US. I'm aLmost sure the I 17 launched the Seaplane after shelling the Richmond oil fields that night. The next day was the Controversial "Battle of Los Angles" where a flight of P40s attacked a (UFO)? and several hundred antiaircraft rounds went astray and caused some collateral damage {Plot for the movie 1941} Real incident happend in early 42 but no one actually saw an airplane.

In those days all that stuff was hushed up, by the War department. They didn't want to panic the citizens. The C model boats were almost as big as the B1s but deployed the Kohyoteki exclusively. Dont know how many of them operated off the west coast, but Im sure there were some that met their demise before they could return.
Lots of subs sighted and sank acording to reports. If its anything like they were doing on the east coast, the propaganda machine had the same U boat being sank more than once, in reality, like in Hardigans case, he wasnt sunk and managed to slip away.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

This is great stuff, von. Just what we need to see.

M

[Scott T]

I am intrigued by the view screens (window screen) in the nose of this ship and how they were made. Sorry I pushed your Waldo button, but this was my number one selection. Just did not include a question. Scott T

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I am intrigued by the view screens (window screen) in the nose of this ship and how they were made. Sorry I pushed your Waldo button, but this was my number one selection. Just did not include a question. Scott T

Back for more, huh?! Never say 'sorry' when you're in the ring -- you'll get your nuts handed to you before the second R gets past your lips. Just plow ahead and swing away. Works for me.

That 'ship' of course is a model of a model: the venerable FIREBALL XL-5, from the Gary Anderson TV show of the same name. I LOVE this stuff!

I scratch-built this thing for one of the Editor's at Starlog magazine in the late 70's. It eventually found its way into the Greg Jein collection -- not bad!

The big FIREBALL main-body is a GRP hull, vacuformed outboard vertical stabilizers, and styrene sheet wings and central vertical stabilizer. The FIREBALL JUNIOR, which separates from the main-body ... for no good reason at all, but looks neat ... features vacuformed stabilizers, hull and clear parts. Paints used were Floquil lacquer -- these were the days before I embraced automotive finishing products. The 'FIREBALL JR.' marking is a home-made decal. Hence the silvering. Ugh!

Though counter-intuitive, the trick to getting a seamless union between clear part and opaque part is to polish out the inside of the clear part, detail the interior, then glue the clear part down -- the seam between opaque part made way past the clear/opaque demarcation line later established by the eventual paint job. NEVER try to make the model plastic part interface with the opaque model part at the prototype separation point. That dictate adhered too, you'll note that the horizontal seam (equatorial to the Jr's. center line) between clear and opaque FIREBALL JR. is not at center line, but a tad under it. The radial, vertical seam between clear and opaque parts is a good 1/8" aft of where the painted demarcation line will be between clear and painted model.

All the dirty, nasty, disgusting, messy seam filling, putting, priming, and smoothing out is done in an area that will be painted over. You won't bugger up the eventual clear part. Whoopee!

And that's how I did the 'dead-light' wrap-around clear piece for this RASHER model -- a converted Revell kit. The actual seams are way above, below, and behind the paint demarcation lines. Don't see any apparent seam do you. Well.... DO YOU!? HUH!! So there. Where was I?...

... Oh, yeah:

I vacuformed two clear pieces (JR. and main-body clear parts) from clear styrene sheet (an acquired skill, I can assure you), trimmed them to fit and glued them down with five-minute epoxy. NEVER use cyanoacrylate (CA) adhesive as that **** will fog up the clear parts and you'll be screwed! Not to worry, after smearing on all the re-finishing product, that seam will not only go away, it will be strong.

Once all the seam work is done you start in on the outside of the clear part with descending grades of sandpaper -- starting with #600 and working down to #2400 -- and polish worked with an old T-shirt and copious amounts of elbow-grease.

And ... finally: Future floor-wax is your friend!

M

[Scott T]

That is slick! My mind said how did he place all those individual windows so perfectly?
Made of one piece. Thanks for the lesson.
"Never say 'sorry' when you're in the ring --" If the honey don't work look out for that
sucker punch or cane.

Scott T

[Von Hilde]

Very nice work on the greenhouse. I will be utilising some of those ideas on the canopy of my OS-2 kingfisher project. Has anyone built a Lindberg 1/72 I-20 R/C with a launchable Kohyoteki? or multiple boats.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

That is slick! My mind said how did he place all those individual windows so perfectly?
Made of one piece. Thanks for the lesson.
"Never say 'sorry' when you're in the ring --" If the honey don't work look out for that
sucker punch or cane.

Scott T

Love the Batman gag!

In our game of model submarine building/assembling, this trick is useful for the later ALBACORE spray-shield, sail dead-lights, and Tin-Tin's 'shark'.

The technique applied to an industrial cut-away display piece, dating back to the beginnings of D&E Miniatures. Built for a Client working to secure a contract for the Australian COLLINS combat system job.

M

[Von Hilde]

Did you cast your own figgures?