Your posts always give me the feeling, I once had in the apprenticeship workshop, when the foreman demonstrated
a new technique to us ... often with that special aha-effect. Thanks for sharing !
It is most gratifying to hear that, sir. You made my day.
My country has lost touch with the classic apprentice, journeyman, master ranking and order of Craft; a time honored system best suited to teaching, refining, and passing on the skills of a specialized guild. We are the poorer for its abandonment. Professionals have become to 'specialized'.
These posts are my attempts to keep the spark alive by passing on what other Craftsmen taught me.
I've been busy, but had nothing new to show off. Hence my absence from the forum of late. Only recently have I found a few things to save me from the crushing boredom of MSD production work.
Here are some recent shots of production work, SOS I'm afraid:
Hurray! I just got working drawings from Richard O'Malley on a 1/96 USS NAUTILUS we're collaborating on. Finally! Some model building to break shop boredom! He's doing the hull master, I'm doing the fiddley stuff. We'll reduce our work to proper tools and from there will produce r/c submarines for ourselves.
My model building pal, Kevin Rimrodt, is putting the finishing touches on his backyard 'shed' that will be his production facility for the kits he's going to produce starting early next year. Stay tuned, more GRP ship and submarine hulls soon to be available!
FINALLY! I get to do some traditional model-building stuff!
Here I'm checking out a RTR 1/72 SKIPJACK submarine assembled by good friend Tom Chalfant who sold it to another guy. A little maintenance to the propulsion motor, replaced a bum angle-keeper, installed an r/c system, and dialed in the transmitter for correct servo direction and end-points. Should have this thing in the water soon for a final trim check, then I box it up and send it on its way.
This little 3D printed Swimmer Delivery Vehicle (SDV), MK-8 was produced by a wonderful model-builder, Darrin Hataway. He's done masters for such outfits as OTW and is now negotiating with Nautilus Drydocks to produce kits of the MK-8 as well as several scale sizes of the German one-man submarine, DELFIN.
I'm working up a practical WTC for the SDV -- so far it's gone through no less than four iterations, but I've finally settled on a hybrid employing both MSD and SD bulkheads and fittings. I call it the FrankenSubDriver.
Darrin is working up a big and small DELFIN. This is the small one and an early mock-up of the WTC it needs to make it a practical r/c submarine/pool toy.
A while back I produced a 1/96 kit of the German Type-212 submarine --Steve Neill did the hull master, Brian Stark detailed it beautifully, and I produced the appendages, propeller, and WTC. One of those kits got into the capable hands of Manfred Reusing, way up there in northern Europe.
Manfred sold it to a guy here in the States and sent the model -- several seasons of good use under its belt -- to me for check-out and forwarding it to his customer.
Amazing features: two practical gas propelled torpedoes, practical deck vents and hatches, retractable masts, and a working floating recovery buoy should the boat get stuck on the bottom. Manfred is scary good at this shit!
Yesterday -- after nine months of design, prototype, master and tool work -- I finally settled down to a session of resin casting in support of our new product, the modular subdriver (MSD). We're in the production phase of the effort. Time to cash in on all that hard work.
Darrin Hataway, an excellent model-builder, has produced this beautiful little SDV, MK-8 model submarine. He generated a file for use by guys who wish to 3D print their own hulls employing godless, spawn-of-Satin Star Trek technology.
He sent me this little gem so I could work up a water tight cylinder (WTC) for it. A simple affair: 2.5" diameter, a very small ballast tank and employing both old SD bulkheads, and the new MSD type bulkheads.
Darrin has struck a deal with my Boss, Bob Martin of Nautilus Drydocks. Bob will market the 3D files and sell the hybrid water tight cylinders I make for customers looking for a unique, maneuverable, and fast pool toy.
The real SDV's are wet type subs that are used by SEAL's and other sneaky types who need a cold and exhausting ride to and from the job at hand.
Initially I'm making three of these WTC's. One for me to proof out integration with the hull, one for Bob, and one for Darrin. Three sharp knifes working out the bugs should get the product ready to sell in no time. That's the plan, anyway.
Nothing to report the last few weeks, just the same old production work on SD's, and MSD's -- crap you've seen all too much of. But, Here's a delightful departure: proofing a RTR sub model for a friend.
He bought this 1/72 SKIPJACK r/c model from a guy who's been running it successfully for a few years. I took it to insure the new owner would have a trouble-free product when it finally gets into his hands.
Here's the model undergoing sea-trials at my Son's pool.
I enhanced the ballast sub-system on this models SubDriver through inclusion of a back-up gas type ballast blow bottle and blow valve. Most of the time the ballast tank is surfaced by use of the air-pump based SAS ballast sub-system. However, to insure the ballast tank can be emptied should the SAS fail, I included the gas back-up seen here.
Of course the added weight of the bottle and associated plumbing required retrimming the boat to insure it floats at the designed waterline in surface trim, and with only the top of the sail sticking out of the water in submerged trim.
Re-trimming is the process of playing with amounts and location of buoyant foam within the free-flooding spaces in the hull. Initially trial hunks of foam are rubber-banded to the outer hull for convenience until the boat assumes correct surfaced and submerged trim.
Darrin Hataway has produced a 3D file of the SEAL's swimmer delivery vehicle, MK-8. It's a four-man, wet type conveyance used by the frogs to commute to and from 'work'.
Darrin printed one up and sent it to me to evaluate for possible commercial sale. The hull and appendages are well formed. The fit is tight and part break-down is simple and well thought out. It's an easy kit to assemble.
I built a custom SubDriver to fit -- that module providing the guidance, ballast, and propulsion needed to animate the eventual r/c submarine. Today's task was to work out the running gear and to mount the two principle control surfaces.
Darrin Hataway's 1/15 scale swimmer delivery vehicle (SDV) r/c model kit came to me as 3D printed parts. The six parts that constitute the hull arrived with the lower hull -- itself comprising three parts -- already assembled; the upper hull separate, but outfitted with indexing pins to assure a tight, secure mating with the lower hull; and two SubDriver foundations. The only other parts to this very simple to assemble kit were the single rudder, single stern planes, propeller, and set of bow planes.
My job was to develop a SubDriver to make the thing go; and to come up with a practical means of spinning the propeller; and getting the control surfaces interfaced with the SD's servos. Once I get the thing into the water I'll make recommendations as to how to improve the 3D files to correct flaws and suggestions as to what it will take to make the eventual product more user-friendly.
This little r/c submarine will be perfect for pools and small bodies of clear water -- environments where a vehicle of tight turning radius, minimal table-space and requiring only basic support equipment. This little SDV model will fill the bill nicely.
The actual MK-8 SDV's have been in use for decades. These are wet type vehicles that deploy 'operators' to and from the work site. They can be deployed from submarines, surface craft, or from shore. Typically they are housed in special dry-shelters mounted to the deck of a parent submarine -- in operation the parent submarine assumes a shallow depth, hovers, and the SDV -- assisted by support divers -- is removed from its shelter, readied, manned, and sent on its way.
Today's task was to manufacture the pushrods, clevis' and control horns that translate the fore-aft motion of a pushrod into a torque that rotates the rudder and stern planes.
The rudder and stern plane receive a control horn at one end, that horn pined to a pushrod clevis. In actual practice the fore and aft motion of the pushrod swings the control surface by the 'pilot' who sits in the front of the vehicle, in tandem with the 'co-pilot/navigator'. On the model servos move the pushrods through a bell-crank linkage.
A control horn is simply a soldered sandwich of three pieces of brass strip. The center is .030" thick with the two outer strips .014" thick. Portions of the outboard strips of brass extend past the end of the center strip to form the cavity in which the pushrod clevis is later inserted and pined in place.
The outline of the horn is inked onto the work and rough-cut to shape on the band saw. From that point on it's hand work with the aid of a rotary tool.
Final shaping is done with rotary cut-off wheel, files, sanding sticks, and steel wool. Holes are drilled to pass the control surface bearing pin and horn brass securing nails.
Note that a 'handle' is retained -- the middle length of brass strip -- during shaping of a horn. This makes it much easier to maneuver the work as I hand work it. KISS!
After tack-gluing the brass control horn to the outboard end of a control surface I drill holes into the control surface, and insert .030" diameter brass securing nails, which are first coated with thin formula CA adhesive. This insures a good, sound union between horn and control surface; a union that should survive handling accidents and the torque presented by the pushrod.
A unique feature of this little r/c submarine is that the two servo outputs are at the front of the SubDriver, not the back. I'll have to device a pair of bell-cranks to translate motion back to the control surface pushrods. Tomorrow's task.
Here I've marked out the location of the pivot rod that will pass through holes in the bow becoming the axil about which the two translating bell-cranks will rotate.
Real learning is done with the hands, not by pushing a mouse around the table. You either embrace the real world of physical objects and master the techniques of manipulating those objects to your wants, or you retreat into the analog world presented by, 'teaching machines'.
When problem solving my preference is to think with pen and paper, not keyboard and screen.
You have my utmost respect for the integrity of you work in these fantastic craft. Whenever I feel at a loss with my projects, I come and look st these for inspiration. Bloody marvelous.
You have my utmost respect for the integrity of you work in these fantastic craft. Whenever I feel at a loss with my projects, I come and look st these for inspiration. Bloody marvelous.
You made my day, Foo Fighter. Others have inspired me. I hope to inspire as well.
Right now I'm trouble shooting the radio control system -- something is attenuating the signal to the receiver as right now I only have an effective range (distance between transmitter and receiver) of only 30-feet. I'm Easter-egging this problem by taking one electronic device at a time out of the loop, range checking after each change. This way I hope to identify the RF noisy component. We'll get there. Once I have acceptable range I can put this model in the water and trim it for surfaced and submerged operation.
Out of nowhere I received this reasonably good r/c model of the Confederate blockade-buster, HUNLEY. A bit damaged in shipment, but salvageable. I have no idea why it was sent to me, but I do tend to be a magnet for this sort of good stuff.
Back to the usual production work. Here's I'm installing brushless motors into motor-bulkheads.
The fifth photo from the bottom shows a deliberately bent round warding file. Once ago, I tried this
by myself, to get a certain shape, but after two files simply broke, I switched to abrasive cloth on a
wooden bracket, not really ideal. What's the trick ? Heating up ?
The fifth photo from the bottom shows a deliberately bent round warding file. Once ago, I tried this
by myself, to get a certain shape, but after two files simply broke, I switched to abrasive cloth on a
wooden bracket, not really ideal. What's the trick ? Heating up ?
Indeed. Most files are made from high carbon, brittle steel. The trick is to take the tool to a red heat and then have your way with it. After shaping take the file back to a red heat again and quench in water to re-harden the tool. Done. You now have a 'riffler' file.
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