Static model rebuild for a retiring friend - And now for my next trick.

[boss subfixer]

I seem to do a lot of these here lately. A good friend I've worked with for many years is retiring this year and after seeing the build I did for the Chief that retired from my shop he asked if I could do something with a large static model he has had for years. After talking with him about it for while I decided I just could not pass this up. The model is of a Trident submarine in 1/96 scale and is made from solid wood. The boat is in real rough shape and needs quite a bit work but I think the end result will be worth it. I will have to fill in the grooves (see pictures) in the hull to smooth it out, fix some dings in the sail, make the rear stablizers from scratch and totally make a new section to make the hull the right length. She will be outfited with scopes masts and antennas and a brand new paint job. I then plan to mount her to a board sitting on keel blocks as if in drydock.
I will post updates as I can, I will be getting busy at work soon so please be patient.
These are just a couple of before pictures, there are more on my home page for those interested.
Take Care
BSF






Edited By Boss subfixer on 1123277282

[tom dougherty]

Looks like a great project,

Looks like a great project, Don. Please consider writing it up for the SCR!
Tom

BTW, I just realized you are in RI, not very far from me...

[boss subfixer]

Tom,
Maybe we could get together

Tom,
Maybe we could get together some day. Let me know.



Edited By Boss subfixer on 1123359308

[anonymous]

I'd stick it back together

I'd stick it back together and clean it up as you will do. But before you add that paint job pull a simple two piece stone mold off it.

Then paint it up and finish her off. One day you trip over the mold and say," Hey! Lets pour some glass in this thing and make a sub".

Just a thought.

Steve

[boss subfixer]

Steve,
I do want to

Steve,
I do want to make a sub for myself and thought about making some sort of mold, I just haven't decided what to use or how to go about it. Could you tell me more about this stone mold?
I've never scratch built anything before but I feel ready to tackle such a task. If you or anyone else knows of any books, web sites or any place I can get information on scatch building I sure would appreciate it.
Thanks
BSF

[boss subfixer]

O.K. campers work has slowed

O.K. campers work has slowed abit and I have some progress to report.
I've done alot of research, asked questions and scoured the net for anything I could get my hands on. A very big thank you to all that helped so far.
First I needed to get rid of the paint. Problem; The model is made of several pieces of wood, glued together as I said earlier and is very old, I guestimate early seventies vintage. Glues then were not quite as good as they are these days so I was concerned about using harsh chemicals. I opted to use cuprin, it's paint remover for your hands so it should be some what gentle. The results were not that good, it got the bulk of the paint but left a stained look to the model.


I decided that good ole fashioned elbow grease was the way to go on the forward end, so I very carefully scraped all the paint with a small hand scraper with better results. Also note that the sail has been carefully removed.



As I suspected when the boat arrived at my shop there was a piece missing, problem two; how to go about making the missing section and still be able to seperate the boat for transport as it was originally designed. After talking with my friend it was decided that the boat would be permanently joined together since it would not be required to make any more trips.
I glued up the needed boards, templated the hull shape and cut out the new plug. (sorry about the bad picture but you can see the rough edges of the plug)



The following picture will give you an idea of what the boat will look like once all the fairing is done and it's glued back together. You can also see the difference between paint striping techniques.



The next pictures show the new plug as it's taking shape and the tool I'm using to fair it in.







The tool is a craftsman 3d sander, three sanding pads on floating disks like an electric razor, very handy for working on round shapes. It's a little slow but the results are very good.
I'll post more as I progress, again please be patient.
BSF

[boss subfixer]

Well when I said please

Well when I said please be patient I did not think this much time would go by. But I do have some forward progress to report dispite my interesting summer. I spent most of the winter working at my job and gathering information for the Trident, plus no heat in my shop means not much work goes on for the boats. Fast forward to June and I lose my job, if that wasn't enough I had a heart attack the very next day! Now to the good part. I have found a much better job, my doctor can't find any damage to my heart and I get to spend more time working on boats. so one door closes and another one opens. Now back to the Trident.
I managed to get the new replacement section smoothed out and installed between the forward and aft sections. After allowing the glue to dry I started working on correcting each end of the super structure. As you can see from this shot of the forward end the taper is all wrong and it terminates too far aft.



The aft end looks exactly like the forward end,wrong taper, but at least it terminates at the correct place. The next picture shows the hull together and if you look close you can see on the aft end where I shaved the super structure area down to the right taper and on the forward end you can see where I layed out the hull to build up that end with bondo.



At some point while working on the boat I noticed that some how the hull ended up with a curve where the two halves were glued together. I checked this out nine ways to sunday and yep it was curved about 3/16" towards the port side. I tried to do what Kevin Mcleod did when he found himself in this situation, cut a little and wedge it but I soon figured out that would not work in my case. So I cut the hull in two and decided to wait til a little later to glue them back together. This believe it or not makes it easier to work on and transport.
The next set of pictures show the corrected forward end from a bow on and then the side view.





And finally a shot of the reshaped aft end with the first coat of filler.



More later as this progresses.
Don