Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

[steveneill]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

I will soon.

steve

[Guest]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

I find acetone is very good at cleaning up cyano runs. It shouldn't attack the resin.

[jefftytoo]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

I've used it on ME, but I was nervous about using it on various hull parts. Thanks, that's good advice!

Jeff

[jefftytoo]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

Finished the sail repair this weekend, which included trying to straighten out its warped shape with a heat gun. Time consuming, and no easy task, but mostly successful. Further, I went to visit local SC member/buddy/engineer Neil Schmidt, who's graciously agreed to take on Seaview's sound effects module, a separate electronic building task set aside by yours truly long ago. It's now in good, capable hands, believe me, and Neil's already having success with this highly modified RAM Products beast.

I also marked my preferred positioning for the pumpjet intake louvers on the engine nacelles for Steve Neill to install later. Unfortunately, Matt Thor is in poor health and has been unable to produce correctly-sized louvers for me, so I'm going with Plan B and using Dennis deBoer's slightly too small versions last seen on that wonderful Seaview Steve built some months back, featured within the pages of recent SCR issues. Oh well, that's show biz. And we all wish Matt a speedy recovery.



Meanwhile, I moved on to my second attempt at deadlight installation in the sail. As before (see posts far above), I drilled and filed out the deadlight cavities as close as I could get to the correct size and shape, and laboriously shaped small cut pieces of square acrylic rod to serve as the deadlights. But this time I made sure they protruded when fitting them in their spots, so they could be sanded down flush against the sides of the sail without ruining the sail itself (as happened last time). Also, as you can see in these photos, I not only blacked out the deadlight cavities with a Sharpie, I also blackened the top, bottom and back edges of the acrylic pieces, a) to give the illusion of empty, unlit depth within the hollow sail, and b) to prevent any filler putty (Evercoat Metal Glaze again in this case) from ultimately being visible against the interior sides of the "windows."

Here's the sequence, starting with the gluing in of the pieces...



And then the puttying…


Anyway, remember this?



Check out this!


Yessssss! (I've illuminated the clear deadlights with an out-of-frame flashlight to show their transparency.)





The deadlights look darned good just like this, I'd say. But, to make them as near-perfect as possible, I created exact size/shape windows on my Mac (this involved a lot of trial-and-error printing to get them just right), then output them on sticky label paper…which I then stuck onto thin plastic 3M painting tape. These window shapes were then very carefully cut out and applied in place over the deadlights to serve as masks for Steve's later airbrushing. Since the acrylic pieces were intentionally slightly over-sized, the masks will allow Seaview's trademark grey paint to cover unwanted clear areas surrounding the window shapes (as well as the putty adhesive) so that only the exact window shape should show as clear.



Gotta admit, I'm pretty proud of how these have finally turned out. Too bad I couldn't have struck such paydirt with my first attempt!

On to work on the Observation Room. My deadline approaches!

Jeff

[scott t]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

Looken good Jeff.

Scott T

[Guest]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

What problems did you have with Milliput fine white, Jeff?

Andy

[jefftytoo]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

Don't remember exactly, Andy, it was such a while back. But if memory serves, it never cured properly and disintegrated in use, crumbling into useless granules when sanding. I figure I either mixed it wrong or it was well beyond its shelf life... or both. As I say, I've had great luck with their regular formula, however.

Jeff

[jefftytoo]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

Yes, finally: DELIVERANCE

Today I delivered Seaview in all her partially built glory to Steve Neill's Magic Workshop for completion. The plan is for him to build her over the course of the next three weeks for pickup sometime over the July 4th weekend.

Still in progress are two special modules for later delivery to Steve for inclusion in the build]Nautilus[/i] build partner) Neil Schmidt.

Here's a look at some of the final work completed before handing the project off to Steve. I'd taken a Vacation Day off from work on Friday, so I got in two-and-a-half days of toil before delivery—just enough time to get Seaview mostly where I wanted her before putting her in Steve's capable hands. Some things I'd planned to finish will now be his responsibility, other items may need to be altered later depending on how the build goes. We'll see.


This is the forward wall of the Observation Room—it butts up against the bottom of those eight big bow windows. This is from Mr. Merriman's upgrade kit for Rick Teskey's hull. Of course, it was designed for the four-window later Seaview version, whose interior geometry is utterly different from my model's, making this part the wrong size and shape and thus requiring a lot of cutting, sanding, shaping, heating and bending to shoehorn it into how I needed it to fit. The girder network for those windows (not shown here yet) were likewise designed for that radically different bow version, and I quickly found when beginning its assembly that I pretty much had to start over from scratch. I could still use Mr. Merriman's white metal upgrade kit parts, but I had to completely redesign the configuration—by way of frustrating, very time-consuming trial and error—radically altering things from the original scale look. It should eventually still fit and look pretty good, but it won't—and can't—be true "scale" for you purists. More on that later.


This shot shows me altering the rounded Observation Room deck for a blunt forward end so it'll fit more flush into the snout.


Tack-gluing the forward wall into position on the O.R. deck. Later, I permanently screwed it into place.





Drilling out the hole for the searchlight lens, then building it up with putty for a flush lens fit—first with Milliput, then with Evercoat, later in sequence with both again. This little project bedeviled me throughout multiple attempts][/url]

Test-fitting the lens and searchlight cage, then a last (and ultimately failed) putty build-up attempt.


Now we're at Steve's. Here's a closeup of the reverse RCABS WTC unit made for me by Big Dave Welch. This is the forward end, showing what little space is available for extra electronic goodies]it[/i].



Test-fitting the WTC into Seaview's hull on a workbench at Steve's shop. I'd hoped to include a shot of Steve and/or his new dog Rosie here, but alas, we got so carried away with Seaview and other model talk that we ran out of time. So it usually goes…

Next time, more on the Observation Room build.

Later,
Jeff

[bigdave]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

Wa Wa wa!!!
The pressure cylinder will slide back all the way to the front ballast end cap.
That should give you the needed volume for your electronics.
Steve said that would work for him.
It's not my fault!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great build guys!! I hope the cylinder works out for you. BD.

[steveneill]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

No worries. give me a few days and I'll have her functional and then we can do the cosmetics. I got to say seeing this boat up close Jeff has done a very meticulous job on the details. Very clean and precise work. She's going to be a looker for sure.

Steve

P.S. BD's WTC is excellent. So pretty you want to hang it on a Christmas tree.

[jefftytoo]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

Gotta admit I was remiss in not commenting above on the quality of Big Dave's work. You want "meticulous"? That WTC is gorgeous! Very fine work, Big Dave, and my heartfelt thanks. Can't wait to see it functioning, since the RCABS dance is all new to me—I'm usually a gas ballast guy.

Just to be clear, you're saying a bulkhead can be moved to allow room for the lighting board and maybe the sound contraption too? This would be a big relief, especially to my local buddy Neil S., who's in the throes of figuring out a separate module. Would really be great if he didn't have to...

'S'plain it to me, Lucy...

Jeff

P.S. Again, thanks for the compliment, Steve. Means a lot to me, coming from a pro.

[neil schmidt]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

Since I'm the one crammed for space, and if I'm reading and seeing things right, the pressure vessel (it's the copper colored tank, Jeff!!) can be pushed aft in it's compartment, looks like at least an inch or so. That will create more space in the very front, hopefully 3 inches plus, which should give us room to pack full of electronics. I've got the sound board conglomeration down to about 2.5", so an extra inch would be enough for receiver and possibly the light board.

If Steve could be so kind (at his leisure) to pop off the end cap, give the pressure vessel a gentle push aft, and give us a new measurement, hopefully that will give me some breathing room.

Neil

[bigdave]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

Thanks Jeff.
That is nice of you to say.
BTW-You are correct Neil. The copper tank is just a slip fit in the Lexan. Plus the front end cap is hollowed out for more room as well. BD.

[steveneill]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

Started work today on Jeff’s Seaview. First up let’s get those Tesky tail feathers installed. I should finish this up tomorrow morning and move on to installing the WTC to the aft stern section allow it to be pre-connected to the dive plane, rudders and two long dog bones.

The fit of the planes is very nice and gave me little trouble. But with the nacelles already part of the hull it was a bit of a ship in a bottle to figure out. Hog out a bunch of ugly holes and then fill them in. It was the only way.

I had some various BigDave cylinder components and cut one up to fit in the bow. This will allow for additional water tight space for the battery and lights, maybe sound. Neil you can now see how much room you have to work with. If we have servo control of the board it will have to go in the forward compartment of the WTC.

Pump Jets are installed in the designed positions.

More tomorrow folks,

Steve

[jefftytoo]

Re: Jeff Porteous's Repair Yard

Way to go, Steve! This is just too cool to watch from afar!

While Neil continues to work on the sound system, I've again taken up the cause of the Observation Room. Hope to make significant progress on Sunday. Should post my results Sunday night. Gotta feeling I'm soon going to be holding Steve up waiting for my work to arrive!

Jeff