Scratch-built 1/96 Oscar II

[KevinMC]

Now for the good stuff-

Now for the good stuff- here's where I've gotten to with the masts. The simpler ones I actually did at home on my drill press. The more complex ones I did on the lathe at work...

Here's the bare parts for one of the radio masts- nothing more than a collection of appropriately sized brass and alum tubing...



Here's the setup I came up with to turn down brass rod on my drill press. Note that the bottom end of the rod is supported by the plywood plate that's clamped to the table.



I did all my really rough cutting with a cut-off wheel on a Dremel. (Shown below) Finer work was done with a sanding drum.



Final shaping was done with well oiled 320/400/600/1500 grit wet sanding paper.



And here's the "in work" mast ready to be trimmed to fit...



A completed set! (Well almost- there's still some other details that will have to be built on later, but this is all the machining that will be done...)



Do I really have to paint these?



And here they are in their new home... (Almost)

[elec_tech]

Those are sharp looking!!! Excellent

Those are sharp looking!!! Excellent work Kevin!!

Thanks for the pics!!

Dan

[tmsmalley]

Fantastic! It's a shame to

Fantastic! It's a shame to have to paint them.
Tim

[anonymous]

Ditto kid!!! Fantastic.

Steve

Ditto kid!!! Fantastic.

Steve

[KevinMC]

Thanks guys. And although it

Thanks guys. And although it will come with little surprise, I've taken steps so that I won't have to paint my pretty brass mast heads. The solution was RTV... I cast these molds the night before last- they're my first RTV molds so I really wasn't sure how they'd come out, but they seem to have come out just right.



And after...



I also started casting a mold for my propellor blades the way I should have the first time...



This was actually supposed to be a 2-piece mold, but the halves have fused together. (I thought that nothing could bond to cured RTV!) Fortunately the flexibility of the mold still allowed me to pull the master without any damage, and I'll pull the first casting shortly.

While I was at it, I also made the mold for the reactor scoop. I just pulled the master from this one this morning and have already flowed in the Alumalite to cast up it's first part as well.

[KevinMC]

Ohhh, there is so something

Ohhh, there is so something to be said for trying new things!

I've now pulled three cast reactor scoops from the mold, two will be for use on my hull and the third will be used as the master for the rear scoops. (The rear scoops are identical to the front ones but they also have a broad fillet at their base that I wish to incorporate into the molded part.)



Notice the colour difference between the scoops- this seems to happen when Part B of the Alumilite is not sufficiently "well shaken" prior to mixing the resin.

I've also been making good headway on the prop blades- Including the ones cast this morning (still in the mold) I now have all seven blades for the left screw and two for the right.



I can't wait to start assembling these!

[gerwalk]

Kevin]

[color=#000000]Kevin]

[KevinMC]

Thanks Pablo.

Okay, more updates- I've

Thanks Pablo.

Okay, more updates- I've finished gluing all the blades to the prop hubs. Here's the progression


Using a glue stick, I stuck down one of my prop drawings to use as reference for aligning all the blades.



Here I have a set of blades, the hub (still on it's construction shaft) and the alignment tool all ready for assembly. The wheel collar on the prop shaft is used to set the height of the assembly above the "working surface" of the jig. Also note the pencil mark on the root of the left most blade - all the blades will need to be trimmed back to this height before assembly onto the hub.



Here's the hub set in the blade alignment jig. The three "extra bits", tacked in place with hot melt glue for easy removal later, were added to hold the blade at exactly the right location and angle while the CA used to hold each blade in place sets up. I've also used the angle guide at the root to mark onto the hub where the grooves will have to be milled to receive the blades.



The final step before the blades go on is to mill receiving grooves in the hub. These need to be oversized for the blade root as you don't want the hub to contact the blade root anywhere. The jig should hold the blades where you want them, and the gap between the blades and the hub should be filled with medium CA.

[KevinMC]

Now on go the blades!

One!
http://www.subcommittee.com/forum/new_prop_blademaster20.jpg

Two!
http://www.subcommittee.com/forum/new_prop_blademaster21.jpg

Three!
http://www.subcommittee.com/forum/new_prop_blademaster22.jpg

After

Now on go the blades!

One!


Two!


Three!


After finishing the second one, I couldn't resist test fitting them to their eventual new home...





BTW, if anyone is curious about how long this process took, assembling these two props actually took less time than was needed for Marko to get Red October all the way back to the 'States...

[aeroengineer1]

Kevin,

Those props are beautiful! Your

Kevin,

Those props are beautiful! Your boat is looking great.

Adam

[KevinMC]

Thanks Adam!

I wish I could

Thanks Adam!

I wish I could call them complete, but I've actually still got a fair bit of work left to do. Still to build yet are the vortex attenuators. These I'll build as a separate parts that will essentially form a bladed cap that gets glued onto the rear face of each prop. Stay tuned!

BTW- Any movement on your 1/16 Jap sub?

[aeroengineer1]

Waiting on parts from David.

Waiting on parts from David. He has all the masters that I had made while there. He is still working up some pieces for me (mainly the bow section and other detail fittings). I do not have the tool capacity to do these pieces, so he is doing them. I figure that I will have them by summer time, then I can start to detail the hull. Hey, I would also like to see more pics of that Arado. That is a nice looking ship!

Adam

[KevinMC]

Unfortunately there's not much more

Unfortunately there's not much more to show of the Arado for now. (It was essentially shelved when I began work on the OSCAR.) Other than the foam plug, I have a set of foam wings cut out and that's it. Once I recommence working on it I'm very much looking forward to applying all the detailing techniques I'm learning here to the cockpit- it's an excellent subject since I'll have to build the instruments both front side and back.

[anonymous]

Kevin. You know what I'm

Kevin. You know what I'm thinking. Fantastic!

So I have a shelved F-106 project too I got to ghet back too.

Sold off the 17 masters to Atomic Subs so I could buy this]http://customformers.com/site/1480954/product/AF480[/url]

Know what I mean?

Steve

[KevinMC]

Steve- I think it's a

Steve- I think it's a prerequisite of this hobby to have "shelved projects" to get back to "someday". I definitely want to see the '234 through to completion though. Great work on the Blueback molds, BTW- I expect I'll be using the same technique for OSCAR shortly.