New project - USS Nautilus

O.K., moulds for the middle section are done. Will let them sit for the better part of next week at decent temperature so that everything fully sets.....

First hull out of the new moulds. 3 mm GPR...also suitable for self defence ;-)

Roughly put together....nevertheless, it starts to look like a boat:

Just snapped together the support frame. 750 ml Engel tank, 12V, with Hall sensor and compact control unit. Makes the thing controllable like a servo. In the front: 4 x LiFePo



One also can nicely see the v-shape of the stern bulkhead:

the grp-bridges on which the photo-etched deck will rest:

That's how it's gonna look like:

O.K, assembled the watertight motor feedthrough.

The parts:


Ball bearing installed:


Seal installed:


Motor fastened to the motor flange:


Drive shaft installed:


Assemby of the whole thing:


And with the o-ring it's just one M16 nut to install the whole thing in a boat:

O.K., my notebook is fit again. I made some progress with the boat, too:

Anchor housing:






First details on the sail:


Evened out:


Mast base light-weighted:


And glued to the sail cover:

On we go:

New decks and small brass parts; photo-etched:













Fins on the sail:






Bridge with brass deck:







Flood holes with brass grids::





Interior in the bow:



Sail windows::

More detail work. The handrail on the sail is installed. I used 0,5 mm brass railing posts. The rail itself is made of 0,3 mm steel wire.









The stern service hatch with positioning bolts:







The v-shaped stern bulkhead was aligned to the stern tubes and glued into place. The bras tubes force the bulkhead into the right position:




The technics frame then was an easy fix. M4 thread rods and nuts. The 8 mm brass tube is the feed for the piston tank:

Not too mach space in the back in the boat, but I want a linkage without play. That's my solution:

Make a flat on the side of a brass set collar and drill a hole (90° to the thread). Take a brass spherical joint and shorten it:



Solder the shperical joint into the set collar and re-drill the center hole of the set collar:



Done:

Absolutely GREAT idea to get rid of any free play in the linkage.

(parts now on my shopping list....)

How much rotation of the shaft will this allow before the nylon housing fouls the brass collar?

John

I think +/- 30 -35°

Should be enough.....

Worked allot on the sail, and some filling and grinding on the hull. Here's the current status:





The bow got its flood holes:


The sail is 90% assembled, primed and painted in its base color:

First half of the last mould for my boat is done.....going to be the bow planes. Now the second half and the tool making should find an end by Sunday:

O.K., I didn't post for a while because filling and sanding is not only no fun but also doesn't look good on photos. But one can put on a big smile after finishing it....next are weld beads from Archer:

Almost like Christmas.....the props arrived today. Very nice:







Meanwhile the boat got some weld beads from Archer:





The torpedo hatches are masked and then painted over, resulting in slightly recessed areas:

First layer of base color:

Base colors are on. Looks quite nice. But when I put the boat outside today to get the colors dry, I recognized some minor bubbles in the dark paint. Something I'll have to take care of tomorrow (pain in the a.....):





The bow planes are finished as well. Those were the last moulds I made:

Started the weathering. Below the waterline the boats usually look quite shabby. I did this using David Meriman's tooth paste weathering technique. Not that bad for a first try:

Today's work - upper bow sonar dome. Archer rivets and some paint:

Some more weathering...

The first segment of the brass deck is painted and installed. The hatch is a cast of resin and the hand wheel is photo-etched:





Al masts are assembled and tentatively installed. In the end only a few will end up extracted:





As expected, the props look awesome:

On we go....second deck segment:



Sail numbers (decals) with weathering:







Boat name and draught marks - again decals:

The work on the outside of the boat approaches its preliminary end. The sail is pretty much done. The masts are installed, painted and the whip-antennas are mounted as well:







The bow planes are finally installed in the still controversial v-position. The bow segment of the photo-etched deck will only be installed after the boat is trimmed to allow access to the bow for additional ballast/foam for trimming: