Restoration of a 1/96th SSN 637 Sturgeon

[thor]

While I am working away on the long term "Shch Pike" project, I am working on another, smaller project that I will discuss here.

Way back in 1994 I built the first SSN 637 Kit that I pulled from the initial set of molds. I built it up and got it running with one of Dave Merriman's very early WTC 3.00 ballast systems. I continued work on it into 1995 and went to my first SubCommittee Regatta at North Lake in Groton, CT. I entered the model for judging and was blown away that it took 2nd place to Gene Berger's magnificent 1/32nd GATO.


Phots of my old 637 before making the trip to Groton for my first SubRegatta





A few months after returning home I took a new job in Wichita, KS and needed a bit more money for the down payment on our first house. Sadly, I advertised my 637 for sale and it sold immediately. I have, ever since, regretted selling that boat. It was the nicest handling boat I had ever driven and it was a hoot. That boat and the early WTC 3 never let me down.

Fast forward to 2015-I was browsing eBay one evening and noticed that the gentleman that I sold my old boat to had it up for auction. But, it had been modified and repainted. It had been repainted and had lots of dock rash on her. After 2 seconds of consideration I hit the "Buy It Now" button and it was mine again! It arrived a few days later and I quickly opened the package and was re-united with my old treasure!

The stern area had been heavily modified to change the method by which the upper hull half was attached to the lower.

[thor]

Along with the changes to the stern, the lower section of the bow was now cut free from the lower hull and attached to the upper half to form the 'Z' cut attachment method. I have never really cared for this method, but many prefer it.



The first item to tackle was to clean up the hull to get the very heavy enamel paint off the hull and to start the clean-up of the interior of the hull to get it back to its original "As Launched" condition.



I began the very long process of grinding the paint away from the interior of the lower hull with a dremel abrasive grinding disk.

[sam reichart]

I remember that boat well. Can’t wait to see it back in all it’s former glory.

[thor]

I made some changes to the lower hull to reflect the correct flood arrangement. The original SSN637 kit, as released, back in 1993 was built to the first revision of the excellent drawings produced by Greg Sharpe back in 1991. It showed that one of the forward floods was off-center more than the others. This was, also, reflected on the early piping tabs for the 637 class. The off-center flood was never produced as shown on the original revision and it aligns perfectly with the others. The other change I made was to correct and error in judgement I made recently opening up the torpedo ejection shutter ports. I decided after looking at the STURGEON that it looked better modeled with them closed. To correct the two conditions above I mixed up a nice thick batch of epoxy thickened with cabosil (fumed silica). I placed masking tape over all three openings to be closed and filled each opening with the thickened mixture.







To stabilize the filled in openings after being filled with the thickened epoxy I laid up a single layer of 4 oz cloth over the back of each filled hole. This is to prevent them from popping loose should it ever suffer an impact. The off-center flood will be re-cut and opened as shown in the newly scribed outline. The torpedo ejection ports will be re-scribed to match how the model was before I decided to stupidly open these ports up.



Here are the re-scribed areas:




Some of the floods are pretty rough as originally cut-in back in 1993. I will spend some time cleaning those up to make them much more presentable.

[thor]

Here is the new rudder assembly and stern plane assembly for the new SSN-637 kit. I am going to replace the old urethane, handmade appendages with more accurate and robust 3D Resin printed components. The appendages have been altered to include 1/16" carbon fiber rods internal to the stern plane assembly along with removable shafts allowing much more easy maintenance and repair if ever needed. Set screws will hold the shafts firm with the stern planes which will be threaded into a machined shaft within the stern plane.

[wlambing]

Dude, Gonna be Nice!