Scratch type 17 project begins

[anonymous]

Sam,

So true. Thanks a bunch

Sam,

So true. Thanks a bunch Sam.

Matt,

I plan to use a technique I've used for my jets in the past and it works well. I hope as well on subs. If you go to my web site www.sneill.com and then to the planes section, click on TA-183 you'll get the idea.

Drafting tape and other types of tapes are used to create the indents with a lot of heavy primer coats over them. Once the tape is removed you get some very deep scribes that can be lightly sanded before molding.

As the details on the the type 17 are rather sketchy I can get away with a lot.

Hard to tell whether this later boat used the same type of construction methods as the type 7. Rivets I may leave out because in all the pictures I have of the real boat I can't see them. Maybe all the panels were welded by this point. If someone knows please ring in here please.

Myles,

Thank you very much and I'm glad to see your learning from this and plan to do your own boat. It's a pleasure I'm sure you will enjoy very much. I will endeavor to keep all the little details in this thread as is possible.

One thing I need to point out which has become apparent by my email. When wire cutting the sections some folks asked the question if they remove the formers does that change the size of the section?

What I've done here is to break up a side view to scale of the boat with all the stations marked.

Next you cut a block of foam out to the profile and mark all the stations. Cut them up. Then placing the correct formers either side you can then wire cut the section. Remove the formers and your done. Once they are all cut they go right back together again perfectly except now you have something that looks like a hull.

Steve

[anonymous]

Here. This will help you

Here. This will help you understand better what is sometimes difficult to describe in writing.

Steve

[mylo]

Steve,

As I mentioned, I

[color=#000000]Steve,

As I mentioned, I had envisioned this type of process but seeing it definately helps.

Were the plans for the formers in that book you have or how did you go about creating them. That is my challenge at this time, getting the plans for the type VIIb, in particular, the side, top, and those formers. The material that you have put them on, I believe you called it "press board." I've never heard of pressboard but it looks an aweful lot like what we call "hardboard". (It's all just a play on words). That is, if it's 1/8" thick and quite...well....hard. (Model railroaders use it a lot for scenic backdrops as it is bendable, to a certain degree, especially if you steam it around a rounded mold.). It may also be what we call MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) which is used a lot to build sub(woofer...not submarine) enclosures for car stereo use. MDF comes in thicknesses anywhere from, I think 1/8 " all the way to 1". Does pressboard sound like any one of these two ? .....does it matter ? I can see the advantage over plywood when it comes to the sanding process.

What's your opinion on creating the hull in one piece and then cutting it after the glassing is done to allow access inside ? I was considering this approach for my type VIIb as I would separate the deck from the hull, much like the 1]

[jeffrey j]

hi Steve, this is exactly

hi Steve, this is exactly how I made my 1/24 type XXIII, 1/24th type IIC, and my 1/32nd type IIc, 3 of them ... this is an easy cheap way to make your own hull. Thanks for posting the photos so everyone gets the idea. Your right, its alot easier to show someone how this is done than trying to explain it. Jeff Jones

[jeffrey j]

hey Myles,
If your going

hey Myles,
If your going to do one hull only you can glass the whole thing up at once. I started out using duck tape over the foam to protect it. Is way a bear to remove from inside the hull after the glass was cured. Someone gave me the idea of painting 5 coats of laytex paint on the foam hull to protect it from the polyester. This worked well, and was easy to remove by soaking in warm water, the paint peeled off in strips. Also, if you do a one off, file out all the limber holes first, cut any holes in the hull that will be going in it. This will aid you in removing the foam, the foam will be drilled and filed to pieces, thus making it easy to remove when you get to this point. good luck,,, Stever your work is awesome. Jeff Jones

[anonymous]

Myles,

Your talking about the same

Myles,

Your talking about the same thing really. It works better than ply and is easier to sand.

From the sounds of it your making a one off just for you. In that case I've never built anything from scratch without making a mold.

If I were to use a one piece tool then I would make a parting board as I did with my scratch George Washington Class boat. There's a pretty detailed thread for it here on SC that shows the parting board and method.

So I would follow Jeff's suggestion rather than the tape to get the foam out. sounds like a darn good one to me.

As for the plans I just scanned the plans in the book (see beginning of this thread) that included the cross sections or bulk heads and enlarged them both at the same time since they are on the same drawing.

Once enlarged everything matched up perfect. I just used the ruler function in Photoshop and enlarged it to 45 inches of length for the hull. Everything else will then correspond.

Here's an image of another model that will show you how the access to the insides will work.

After I remove the two halves from the mold they are then glued back together. There will be a score line in the hull to show you where to cut the top off. Once it's open you can get inside and using fiberglass tape as it's called you can really bond the two halves together for good.

Index strips will be used made out of the taped soaked with epoxy resin. These strips are made directly against the hull for shape.

What I do is wax the hull to protect it and provide a release agent. Once hard I remove them and the go inside the hull against the hull separation line. I'll be showing all that once I get the molds made and move on.

Hope this all makes sense.

Jeff from what I've seen your work is pretty darn awesome itself! Thank you!

Steve





Edited By U812 on 1123985882

[mylo]

Steve,

I believe I know

Steve,

I believe I know what you are talking about. Your two halves are put together and then the top is cut to allow access to the inside. In this way, you preserve your mold tool not to mention the added ease in construction by having one flat side to lay down on your work bench while you construct the thing, scribe, etc. This looks like the way to go, as long as the seam for the two halves can be patched to the point of being unnoticable, which I'm assuming it can. I can see the benefit in conserving the mold tool in case something "goes south" during the construction of the sub and another glass half hull section is needed. PLUS....with the conserved mold tool, you could make a whole wolf pack.....hee hee. My only concern with this method is having the two halves match up perfectly, which, I guess, will be dependant on the quality of the mold tool.

Jeff, given the fact that you have used this method repeatedly with success, it would seem that it is the way to go. ....a IID...cool. I was contemplating a IID but I really like the type VII, the trim tanks just do it for me. If there ever is a 2nd project, it will be a type IID.

So, if I understand correctly, the formers are the bulkheads ? Steve, in your photo it shows the profile divided up into sections. How did you decide on those sections ? Is this where the actual bulkheads are ? I'm a little unclear as to where the plans for the formers are from. I am assuming they were part of the profile plan that you obtained from your book, which you scanned and enlarged.

Keep the info / photos coming....I'm like a sponge when I get my head into something.

Myles.

[mylo]

Steve,

I just went through

Steve,

I just went through your thread on the construction of your Washington. Man.... *I* was pissed when you told of what happened during the vacu-form phase. I can't imagine how you felt. People that don't do modelling, in particular scratch building, have no concept of the hours/effort it takes to create things like the molds you made. I had a similar experience with one of my pieces of rolling stock for my model railroad. I scratch built a string of ore hoppers using molds that I had cast from a proto type I built out of styrene...bla, bla, bla.... I had, what seemed to be a lifetime into building the cars and mold and so was reluctant to lend the mold to a railroad club. I got the mold back with residue of some sort of hardened "stuff" in it. When I tried to chip / scrape, clean the "stuff" out, I damaged the mold. Nobody seemed to know what happened when I asked......... In short, I feel your pain, as I'm sure many others did. I enjoy scratchbuilding but I REFUSE to let anyone screw with my stuff. I would trust someone with my wife before I would my hobby toys. It sounds as if you have found some people that you trust very much in the "R/C Sub" community. I'm new and have never met anybody (that even has my passion for scale models for that matter) but there seem to be many good folks here at subcommittee. Maybe someday, I'll be able to make a Regatta. I'd love to cruise down to Cali with a 9' long type VII strapped to the roof.....

Nice Washington.......very nice. For what it's worth, I wouldn't know if it was scale or not but she looks good from where I'm sitting.

Myles.

[anonymous]

First thanks so much for

First thanks so much for the kinds words. I also admire your passion for the hobby very much. You'll go along way with that.

Yes it's true I have met some very fantastic people here who I do in fact thrust very much.

As to the bulkheads-formers. Same thing. On the plans in the book is the exact marking location of the bulkheads and of course I used those locations. It was really easy.

What I did in Photoshop was to eliminate and details in the plans that weren't relevant to the bulkhead locations to make it less confusing. Just the outline and the locations.

You can make a copy up and glue it with a light coat of 3M 77 directly to the foam and using a band saw cut the hulls. Then cut again at the locations and your ready to go.

You can make your own wire cutting bow from nicrome wire available at the local hobby store. I believe Sig makes it.

You can use a 1 inch wooden dowel and drill two angled holes in the ends so the they are both at about a 25 degree angle from them selves. Then cut a thick piece of piano wire to insert into the holes. I used the house of balsa tuff wheel cutter to cut the wire. Groove it near the top and wrap one end of the wire around it a stretch hard to the other piano wire so it's nice and tight.

Then get a battery car charger for 12-6 volts. Connect the two clips to each piano wire. For a short bow use 6 volt. For a larger bow 12 volts. Works great and it's cheap all the way around.

The drips you see there are CA. Make sure a ruff up the ends with a bunch of grooves you make with the dremel.

The books you can find online.

U boot books

You can find them on amazon.com

And here's a picture of the bow. A thousand words there. LOL!

Steve

[anonymous]

Or... a train transformer works

Or... a train transformer works just as well as a power source...

[anonymous]

Ok guys. The next step

Ok guys. The next step after glassing with the cloth is to fill the weave with two coats of straight resin epoxy. Use a brush and spread it on even.

After that dried for 24 hours I then took the hull pieces off the blocks and using a flat surface attach some 80 grit sand paper to the surface with 3M 77. Sand until you remove any flash or dripping and she sits flat to the surface.

Next step is to wet sand the entire surface of the hull pieces smooth as possible. I used 80 grit then 120 wet dry sand paper.

Then dust a light coat of primer on the hull. This will allow you to see the problems right away after which you can start using spot putty to fix them. Primer again. Check again. You do this over and over again until satisfied with the end result. I'll be showing that next.

Steve

[anonymous]

Chris,

your right about the train

Chris,

your right about the train transformer.

Steve

[mylo]

Steve,

Your wire cutting tool,

[color=#000000]Steve,

Your wire cutting tool, very innovative, following the KISS priciple. I am going to be making me one of those. The "arms" that hold the wire, I'm assuming they have to be a conductive material. (I donno.......metal rod perhaps. Would brass work well for those ?). They want something like $50 for one that doesn't look half as sturdy at the HS. I never needed one before so never bothered.

You answered the bulkhead question. That is what I suspected but I don't know enough about subs (real, R/C, or otherwise) to have made an educated guess. The secret seems to lie in the obtaining of good plans/blue prints. I am still digging around for those.

Yes, I am a scale model nut. I'm far from a pro, but I really enjoy building them. Every single one of my static models got trashed in my last move when the movers got into an accident. Unreal luck. The lesson learned = move models yourself. Thankfully, there was nothing as complicated as a working R/C. sub. I took an interest in model railroading a few years ago because it allowed me to build my own little HO (1]

[anonymous]

Myles,

I used 1/4 piano wire

Myles,

I used 1/4 piano wire by K&S from the local hobby store. It works best and yes it must be conductive. Brass is to soft. You need to use the steel piano wire.

Trains are cool. Not weird at all. Yes big can be more user friendly as far as getting your hands in there but when you go that large it opens up another whole can of worms in that you have make you your own WTC. You can't use off the shelf WTC there.

Here are some pictures that show how well it still mates up. There are uneven spots as you can see however once I get the hull all smooth the last thing I will do is put it back down on the flat surface and take some micro balloons and epoxy and fill those in making a perfect mate.

Yes a typo error. Between all the working I'm doing and writing I'm doing it's bound to happen! LOL!

Steve

[anonymous]

Here's the spot putty I

Here's the spot putty I use. All you do is use an old credit card or cut up some PETG like I did and make a card to put the stuff on with. 5 bucks gets you this big old tube from the auto supply store.

You hold the tool up to the light overhead and at an angle that will show you the shadows where smoothing is needed a fill the suckers in.

You can go real heavy and over board as I did because this stuff sands down real easy and blends perfect.

Tomorrow after this dries I'll sand it down and primer it again with a light coat. Check for more problems and correct them again.

It takes a few passes and each time you do this you'll see the problems become less and less until it's smooth and even.

That's it for today folks but ther is that sail to work on. Hmmm...

Steve