Scratch-built 1/96 Oscar II

[KevinMC]

Gantu- Thank you!

Not much to

Gantu- Thank you!

Not much to add from last night- After a light skuff I put coat number two of DW onto the bow.




I also started building up the stern area to bring it up to the correct height for the new drawings following the same process I detailed yesterday. This will also correct the "discontinuity" in the upper surface created when I elevated the screw fairings with the saw and wedges.




Just in case anyone's curoius, yes those are fluorescent light ballasts in the corner of the photo. I have a half dozen of them that I keep for use as general purpose weights. In this instance I've been using them to block up the hull and keep it from shifting around while I'm taking measurements.

[gerwalk]

Kevin,
I think yours is one

Kevin,
I think yours is one of the best threads of the SC forums. Not only you are showing us your skills and tricks but also you are showing us 100% honesty in redoing your Oscar. This kind of things happens to us modelers all the time but not everyone has the guts to admit it! I ussually expend more time correcting mistakes (both from inaccuracies I find when the model is almost done and from my lack of certain skills) than actually building the models!!

THANKS!

[tmsmalley]

Bravo Zulu Kevin.

It's stuff

Bravo Zulu Kevin.

It's stuff like this that gets people excited about building subs. I am even thinking about getting going on my next scratch project.

I am in total awe of this whole thread and the ones that Steve Neill has done - it's interesting that two rising stars of North American RC subs (Steve and Kevin) are old hands at model aircraft and had never touched a sub before. But have successfully applied the principles of scratch building one kind of model to that of another kind of model.

We need to recognize that Steve has done a lot in shaking things up and doing a great job documenting his builds (and now Kevin) and not taking a year or more to do it like us hockey-helmet wearing "short bus" riders.

Kevin - please keep it up - especially when it comes to doumenting the moulding process!

I have the FE-ver. Not for More Cowbell* but MORE scratch sub building!

* Christopher Walken - More Cowbell SNL Skit



Edited By TMSmalley on 1133805384

[KevinMC]

Tim, Pablo and eveyone else

Tim, Pablo and eveyone else who's been so supportive in this adventure]http://www.subcommittee.com/forum/icon_razz.gif[/img] )

I'll have a few more update photos to post tomorrow- I've spent the weekend "tweaking" some of the filled areas, but there's not much apparent progress. As I've probably already mentioned the one down side to using the drywall compound as a general fill material is the wait time after laying the stuff down. Fill a little, then wait a bunch. Sand, fill some more, and wait a bunch more. I've been using a run-of-the-mill oscillating fan to speed up the drying time, but beware that on thicker applications it will also tend to cause Grand-canyon sized cracks in the surface...

[tsenecal]

I went the spakling route

I went the spakling route for a little while as well, but also hated the drying time, so i have since adopted this product... it dries relatively quickly (2-4 hours)

balsa filler

Tim

[aeroengineer1]

If I remember correctly, there

If I remember correctly, there is a plaster that is used in construction that is two part. and accorsing to how you mix it, determines how fast it dries. I remember my dad pastchind a large area where this plaster was used ( it was applied about 1/4" thick) and it dried in about 10 min. I do not remember how sandable it was after, but if it were not very sandable you could use this as a base layer, and then put a thin layer of spackle on the surface. I think that he used to get it at Home Depot.

Adam

[pirate]

Kevin,
I like the square trick

Kevin,
I like the square trick up against the hull and the plans to check for accuracy, and then add or subtract to correct. I'll have to remember that. Nice work! Keep going, the end result will be well worth it.

"There's nothing like the smell of a new submarine in the morning." Or something like that.

Pete

[KevinMC]

Tim (tsenecal)- The balsa filler

Tim (tsenecal)- The balsa filler of which you speak is great stuff to use, but exactly the same as many kinds of "lightweight wall filler" that can be bought from your local hardware store for a fraction of the price. I've stayed away from using that type of filler on this project however because I find that even when it's dry it is still very soft and will "ding" up easily. The drywall compound once dry is very hard by comparison. (Airplane guys refer to this as hangar-rash. What's the bubble-head equivalent? Dry-dock rash? )

Adam- That's worth looking into, but I'd be very curious to know how it compares cost-wise to DW compound. The way I've been going through this stuff I'm really glad I can get it cheap!

Pete- I'm glad to be able to add to someone else's bag of tricks. Despite the detour I had to take to make the hull right, I'm very pleased at the way things are shaping up and I have no regrets for doing things the way that I have.

[KevinMC]

I ran into issues uploading

I ran into issues uploading last night's photos so I had to store them off-site.

Here's a closeup of the bow having been final sanded to shape.



Since I'm only going to be laying down a single layer of 1.5oz cloth this time I'll do my "laser check" of the bow before I put the glass cloth down.

[KevinMC]

Now it's time to step

Now it's time to step back and give it a good over-all final sand in preparation for the glass-cloth.





Just for kicks I put the old sail in place. The sail will have to be rebuilt as well, but it's good enough for the photos...

[KevinMC]

Final shots for today- While

Final shots for today- While making my corrections to the hull I noticed that some areas of the 6oz glass cloth seemed to be rather dried-out. As best as I can tell the drywall compound sucked the epoxy right out of the glass cloth, leaving "unsaturated" weave that would not take any more epoxy on subsequent applications. This time 'round in an attempt to prevent this I decided to seal the DW compound with a coat of alcohol-thinned epoxy applied with a brush.





I'll leave this to cure now for a day or so, then another light sand and the cloth will go on Wednesday evening.

[elec_tech]

Kevin,

It looks absolutly fantastic. I

Kevin,

It looks absolutly fantastic. I am green all over seeing your progress.

I love seeing the laser level trick, that's pretty neat! I Look forward to more progress.

Dan



Edited By elec_tech on 1133896897

[novagator]

She is looking great! I

She is looking great! I love following the updates!

[KevinMC]

Thanks guys!

Well, I got home

Thanks guys!

Well, I got home last night and found the epoxy seal coat had cured up enough to begin laying the cloth down. I gave the hull a quick once over with my 250grit-loaded drywall pad and then a fine sanding sponge. (I'll get a photo up of this thing tonight- it's really handy!)

As before, glassing will be a two-step deal. This time I'll begin with the top half, then I'll do the bottom half once that's set up. Because I'm using such light-weight cloth this time, I've tried somthing different for trimming the ragged edges- stay tuned!

After roughly cutting the cloth to size, I laid it down on the hull. Since I've not made any "adjustments" to the prop fairings I don't need to recover them, but the rest of the upper surface will get it down to the waterline. Once spread out into place, I used the horse-hair paintbrush (in the photo) to brush-down the cloth and build static electricity, keeping it in place. This is one of these places where its worth it to take one's time and work out all the wrinkles.





Next, pour down the epoxy resin on top and spread around with old business cards to fully saturate the cloth to just below the waterline.





Looking great, all but for those ragged edges. Here's the trick for that. I finished up laying the cloth about 10]

[KevinMC]

So no takers on my

So no takers on my question about the sub-equivalent of hangar rash?