Adam Carlson's 1/16th Japanese Type-A r/c submarine, part-2

This is day-three of Adam's stay over here learning the particulars of master/ pattern making. His project, a 1/16th Japanese Type-A submarine, is coming along at a very good clip. He's right now in the backyard shed turning the two halves of the wooden hull maters -- at this scale my lathe was just not long enough to make the master in one continues piece.

Adam has reassembled and has primed the hollow sail master, getting that part

ready for the plating details needing before we can make the tool.

Below is a brief photo-essay of the work done yesterday and today: This morning I got out of bed, had my coffee, and was informed by Ellie that Adam had gone to bed at one AM, and had been up and working a good hour before I got my fat-ass out of bed (not her words, mine). I found the boy working the little Taig machine lathe, turning the tail section of the hull from RenShape 40. And this pretty much illustrates how this guy has taken on the job: I didn't have to teach him basic machine-tool use, he already had it (he restores real aircraft with his dad, back in Arizona), he figured out on his own how to stack a blank of RenShape 40 discs on a mandrel, set it up and cut it down to taper.

While the kids in the shed making wood chips I'll sneak back into the shop tonight and hope to have time to turn the two propeller (coaxial rotating) hubs, and to plot out the propeller pitch blade charts needed for tomorrow's work. I'll let Adam carve out the blade blanks first thing tomorrow.

The principle drawings used on this project was rendered by Gene Berger, former Editor of the SCR, and a good friend. A former senior pilot for USAir, Gene took me on a quick one-day round-trip plane ride to Groton Connecticut nearly ten-years ago just to document the Type-A on display on the Nautilus Museum grounds.

Supplementing Gene's drawing is the great information found in this Japanese heavily illustrated book, Adam acquired recently through ebay. Plenty of great shots of the boats in an operational environment as well as detailed 'post-mission' shots of these, and other midget submarines. All this information is not lost on Adam: he's working to capture every observed opening, panel line, fastener and fitting. This is going to be one detailed set of masters when he's done!

Adam needed to hollow out the interior of the sail master. What I had him do was run the top through the band saw, just below where the sides meet the top. That done, Adam took the lower portion of sail master over to the mill and machined out the interior with end-mill bits. After drilling some 1/16" deep little pilot holes in the top of the sail master, he carved out the concave inboard area -- this important as the opening for the access hatch as well as later limber holes up there would reveal the thickness of the sail. We want to represent the 1/4" thick plate likely used up there, so things had to be cut thin. We allowed for a 1/8" kerf (material hight/thickness) loss to the band saw and sanding where the two sail pieces were parted. You can see a 1/8" thick kerf-make-up-plat atop the major section of the sail prior to gluing the top back in place -- the kerf-make-up-plat restores the required height of the sail master.

The tiny fairing to the right is the periscope fairlead which attaches atop the sail. Once the sail is detailed out with punch-marks for limber holes, panel lines, lap-plate lifts, periscope fairing, and other details, the master will be used to make a rubber tool from which thin walled polyurethane resin pieces will be cast.

Adam checking things prior to reattachment of the upper sail piece to the lower sail piece -- both items now hollowed out in order to later create lightweight, scale looking resin parts. You can just make out some of the pilot holes used to help judge depth as Adam ground out the inside of the upper sail to a scale plate thickness.

Ellie made Kevin, Adam and me stand still for a photo. THERE! ... Happy!?...

Preparing the two Basswood blanks for turning on the wood lathe. Each blank is made of a longitudinal split of two sections, held together with 1/4-20 machine screws, each screws head inset well within the eventual surface of the turned piece. Later, as the hull sections are finished, the screws are removed, and the master split and each half assembled on its respective mold board where the Renshape 40 bow halves will be added.

Adam at work on the first hull half. It's below thirty-degree's in there! I'm typing this at my toasty warm office while he freezes in the drafty, backyard shed. Yeah ... that's a reasonable division of labor in my book!