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How do you avoid trapping air under 1/72 Gato Deck?
How do you avoid trapping air under 1/72 Gato Deck?
Just bought my 1/72 Gato Kit. I am wondering about how to prevent air bubbles from being trapped under the deck. I do want the model to be prototypical. Short of drilling out the myriads of vent holes, I can't see an easy solution. The drilling would take FOREVER!!! Any ideas?
Good question, Mermaid. Opening up all those little pin hole vents will do you no good; too small to pass any air. Since BigDave did not have quite enough ballast on board to submerge at the time of our last outing, we did not see how much of a problem this might be. I am not quite that far along myself to have had to deal with this issue yet. Soon. But.... I have given it some thought. In the bow area, I drilled a small hole hidden inside the bullnose area to let some air out there. A little further back is the little round grating over what would be the bow buoyancy tank vent. That can be drilled out. Then there is that companionway ladder opening by the foreard hatch.. that should let some air out. Some large holes need to be hidden under the conning tower, and the tower itself ought to have some concealed vents in it. As the boat dives and the stern becomes the high point, most of any remaining air should exit through the stern torpedo loding hatch opening. That's my present analysis, anyway. But there is bound to still be some trapped air back there somewhere. If you are modeling the real Gato, you are in luck. This photo of Gato's stern shows a series of reasonably sized holes right at the upper bend of the turtledeck, not depicted on the Revell model, that should do the trick. At least they were present at some time in her life.
If you are just doing a generic fleetboat, then artistic license should permit you to have them too. I'm not sure if all the boats had these holes, but some pictures I've seen show them further up, nearer where the steel casing meets the wood deck. SS-224 Cod is one example. If you are doing another specific boat, you will just have to research the NavSource Online Archives to see where or if these holes existed.
Maybe by now, BigDave has addressed this issue. BD??
Also, if you check out Dave Merriman's Cabal Report on RCing the Revell kit over at Subpirates.com, he should be getting to the point soon where he needs to deal with it.
sigpic
"There are the assassins, the dealers in death. I am the Avenger!" - Captain Nemo
Thanks for the tips George. I'm thinking that perhaps a PE deck incorporating all the air holes will become available in the near future. I suspect that a thin metal perforated deck will clear trapped air better than a relatively thick perforated plastic deck. I have also considered scratch building a simulated wooden deck using 1/32" square styrene strip glued to lateral supports a la the prototype. The spaces between the strips would vent the air. This would take a heck of a lot of work though. For now, I think I'll just hang back and see what develops on the after-market front. There is quite a bit of designing to be done in the meantime.
Yikes! Hand laying up the deck would be a chore, particularly if you want it to be truly scale. According to Jim Christley's book "US Submarines 1941-45", the deck slats were 1-1/4 inch square with 1-1/4 inch spaces. At 1:72, that's just over .020 inches wide per board. Now go back and look at the kit's deck. I measure those planks at around .030 inches wide, so a true scale deck would be even finer. It will be interesting to see how the after-market guys deal with it. Not to mention the fact that the hole patterns seem to have had a lot of variations from boat to boat, and likely over time on the same boat every time it went in for overhaul. The Skippers seem to have had a lot of freedom to have their boats modified for faster diving. So where does a PE maker draw the line, I wonder.
sigpic
"There are the assassins, the dealers in death. I am the Avenger!" - Captain Nemo
Dear George:
I just talked to Mike Keating about the deck options. He told me that in actuality, the wooden deck was composed of slats that were apr 2.25" wide x 1.75" thick spaced 0.75" apart. But yes, I agree the project would be finickey in the extreme!!
Thanks for the pix Tim! Great stuff. Looks like the wooden deck slat dimensions that Mike gave me are somewhat oversize. I figure that If I ever do build a deck, I'll stick to 1/32" (0.03125") square styrene. That is 2.25" square full size and close enough for me.
Sorry Mermaid, I stand by my statement 2" X 1.5". I measured them as a "Quals " question when I was on Quillback.
It's another of those stupid bits of info (like the 1950 vent holes in Amberjack's clamshells) so beloved of diesel boat submariners. And, at the time, so useless, that they stick in your mind forever.
Mike K.
If you have ever been to Mike's house and heard him talk, you will quickly come to know that he knows his stuff, and that you could take it to the bank. I think that the one thing here, and Mike correct me if I am wrong, is that each boat was individual and changed over the years. What it was commissioned with is not necessarily what it ended with. So I am sure that if you were to go with the pics that were posted or with Mike's information, they would both probably be correct or incorrect depending on what boat you are going to model. But the thing is who is going to get out their magnifying glass and calipers and count?
If you have ever been to Mike's house and heard him talk, you will quickly come to know that he knows his stuff, and that you could take it to the bank. I think that the one thing here, and Mike correct me if I am wrong, is that each boat was individual and changed over the years. What it was commissioned with is not necessarily what it ended with. So I am sure that if you were to go with the pics that were posted or with Mike's information, they would both probably be correct or incorrect depending on what boat you are going to model. But the thing is who is going to get out their magnifying glass and calipers and count?
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Just bought my 1/72 Gato Kit. I am wondering about how to prevent air bubbles from being trapped under the deck. I do want the model to be prototypical. Short of drilling out the myriads of vent holes, I can't see an easy solution. The drilling would take FOREVER!!! Any ideas?
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