Revell Gato build

[landlubber]

Well having completed all the little home projects it time to turn my attention to the Revell gato thats been sinking into my workbench the last couple months. Purchased the David Meriman conversion kit from Caswell and was pleased with the quality of the kit. The cd David has made to go with the kit is a really big help, I don"t think I could bring myself to cut up a kit like this without seeing him do it first. He is a wild man with the roto saw but in the end the boat comes out looking great. The D@E WTC looks good,the price seems a bit high until you see what you get, It has alot of pre assembly already completed and your trading a little money for alot of work savings. anyway enough of this before Merimans head starts to swell up with all the praise.!!!!!!!!

The patient marked and ready for roto saw.

After the cutting,still have all my digits and no blood on the bench


Hopefully the pics are OK, Ive been doing alot of lurking and not much posting lately so I may be alitttle rusty.

[raalst]

WaaaaHoooo, a new building thread

WaaaaHoooo, a new building thread !
thanks!

the rust will wear of with regular posting

[landlubber]

While finishing up the fit

While finishing up the fit on the forward dive planes I had to file a little relief into the dive plane actuator arm area, it was binding in the up and down position holding it from travelling all the way.


also needed to reposition the gear plate a liitle bit lower to let the bow planes have enough travel to lower completley.


Also happy with the up position,planes fold up nice and tight, not sure how tight the real boats planes are but you can always lesson the travel on the servo,


The bow section with the prop shaft supports secured into position.The D@E kit contains a nice set of cast white metal supports that adds alot of strengh to the prop shafts and should help with those in harbour hull benders that happen from time to time.


Photo with the stern and bow pieces secured onto the main hull,It is alot more fun wrestling around with the stern and bow sections seperate from the main hull when doing the fitting of the planes and shafts,but its time to make them one.

[greenman407]

gato build

looks professional to me. Im getting ready to start mine soon so your thread will be of great help to me. have you ever seen the website Ironbottom sound? It can be found linked to eastcoast armory. They make a lot of gato stuff. I bought one of their 1/72 scale guppy sails. My gato will be built as a postwar fleet snorkal sub. Two drawbacks to their sails is that they are kind of rough looking. lots of detail but rough. i took a sanding block to mine to knock down the high spots then used bondo to fill in the lows. Now its quite respectable looking. I did this because I dont like the gato sail. Actually I prefer the pre-war gato sails that are refered to by some as a tambor class sail. The other drawback is that they are made solid. I just drilled a bunch of 3/8 " holes in the bottom of it, watching the depth of your drilling. then whip out the old dremel or die grinder with an endmill on it and hollow it out to reduce weight. The sail also comes with a large chin sonar and deck sonars as well as a host of masts for the sail. These fleet snorkals( is that how you spell it?) chin sonar were quite large and funny looking but I think it will make it very distinctive looking. Well keep up the good work. mark

Tambor class sail

chin sonar

[landlubber]

Had some time away from

Had some time away from the build this week while I waited for my Nautilus Models flood vent templates to arrive. Having them almost makes this fun,,,,almost.

Peel the templates off the backing,sprinkle a little baking soda on them to lessen the adheasive grip and apply to the hull,trace with a fine sharpee
and remove and reapply template back to the protective backing for future use,


Rough out the holes with a burr or drill,file a little till the D@E supplied sanding mandrels begin to enter, than sand till the mandrel slides through
I found that flipping the mandrel 180 deg. while sanding helpes keep the hole symetrical also keep an eye on things so the holes stay aligned

Steady as she goes. get comfortable and try and enjoy this process.
Thanks Greenman for the reply, I like the look of your seaview build.

[greenman407]

Thanks landlubber, my plans were

Thanks landlubber, my plans were to build my Gato as a static shelf model(dust collector) but the more I look at your build the more I think that I might change my mind. In the background in one of your pictures it looks like I see ,up on the work bench, two 2.5" cylinders. Planning on building more than one Gato? Boy I sure am nosey!

[JWLaRue]

Mark,

.....it's an addiction...... You may

Mark,

.....it's an addiction...... You may as well get used to it!

-Jeff

[greenman407]

yes Jeff, my wife says

yes Jeff, my wife says that I am manic compulsive, that I am truly sick and need profesional help. The good side to it is she still loves me.

[JWLaRue]

Well, if you have come

Well, if you have come here for "help" with your addiction........it's not going to work!

-Jeff

[landlubber]

Well after a trying week

Well after a trying week of everyhting except working on the Gato I'm back at it. Finished up the flood vents,settle in for this part as you will be doing it for at least 5 hrs.

Making the waterline where the hull will be split.

The setup for the cut

Then on to the part I was really waiting for" as Dave says "The ravages of the blade " " oh my" This actually went alot better than I was thinking it was going to. Just do as Dave says and take light cuts and if you hear the dremel slowing down your going to deep.

The finished results.

This building threads intent is not to give all David's secrets away He supplies the cds with all the instructions included with the Caswell kit. its intent is to get some of you guys with kits out of the chair and down to the workshop.If your thinking of building one I strongly recommend you buy the Caswell kit ,you will learn alot and if you follow the cds you will end up with a very nice functional Gato.
Well need to go and take care of the 12" of snow in the driveway.
Steady as she goes.

[kazzer]

Nice job! Get the darned

Nice job! Get the darned thing in the water!

You have a Seaview to build, and then the Seawolf, and the Kilo, and a T Class, M1, X-Craft. There's not a moment to lose!

[landlubber]

Thanks Kazzer, trying to corner

Thanks Kazzer, trying to corner the sub market are we?.Its nice to see Caswell selling almost everything required to build a sub.the cost of shipping all the required items from seperate vendors starts to add up.
Ive been doing alot of the little things that take alot of time but not much to show for it. Conning tower is build and ready for primer. Hull has been sanded and filed and sanded again indexing lips are in place. a few more hours and it will be ready for primer than somemore filing and more sanding and so on and so on. I will post more pics asap. The gato is a really nice boat, I haven"t been much of a fleetboat guy in the past but I will be building one for myself after i get this boat shipped off to Rick.

David said you will be sending out the remaining build cds soon.?
Happy New Year to all.
Regards Kent.

[kazzer]

The last DVD for the

The last DVD for the Gato build is going out this week! If you don't get it within the next couple of weeks - HOLLER!

[Guest]

Kazzer,
Just having some fun with

Kazzer,
Just having some fun with your signature.

[kazzer]

Hey! Put a cork in

Hey! Put a cork in it Art!



As for making THE cut on your Gato. Do a dummy run on a length of 4" plastic pipe first, if you feel scared!