R/C'ing the Revell 1/72 GATO Class Static Submarine Kit, Part-8

A Report to the Cabal:

Back a few years, when Revell came out with that world-class 1/72 Type-7 kit, I well remember the traffic on the boards about how everyone had plans to r/c this 'plastic model kit.' Everyone was singing the praises of Revell for finally producing a kit of a popular subject big enough to be r/c'ed.

The only guys I know of who have got this boat to work with any degree of success are David Welsh and Norbert Bruggen.

It's two years now, and how many of you big-talking, Internet chatters have actually put a Revell 1/72 Type-7 into the water and got it to run? The above guys and one or two others, and that's it, isn't it!? The rest of you, you strutting, no talent keyboard pounders ... you haven't done squat with the Type-7! And what do I read in the aftermath of the Type-7's introduction? The usual after-action reports of retreat and surrender, such as: 'The boat was too small' and 'I'm waiting for after-market acid-etched decks'. How quickly the first flush of excitement at the Type-7's introduction is replaced by a sheepish sidewise look as you toss your half assembled kit into the closets upper shelf, out of sight, out of mind, hoping no one notices. Another failure. But you keep on BS'n it up on the Internet -- don't you!

And then comes the monstrous Revell 1/72 GATO. And now, when shown how to maximize internal access, you bitch about the process of alteration required to get this kit to work as an r/c submarine. You people amaze me!

Case in point:

Some guy recently posted at the SC site, "... Looks like Merriman's approach opens up too many cans of worms. Warped hull, Reworked cut line ect. Which appears to create a lot of extra work."

Well ... too fucking bad, Mr. Whaaaa, whaaaa, my-pussy-hurts!

Guess what? Good things come to those who work hard. You want a hull that is accessible; that is receptive to equipment installation, change, and servicing; you want a hull that is easily accommodating to upgrades -- then you do it my way, and don't tell me what's 'extra work' -- you think I go out of my way to show you how to spin a hamster wheel?! You want to question my methods, you want to dance on a pin and kick over 'ideas' and split the baby three ways, then fine! You'll never get traction; you ain't go'n nowhere, and you'll never complete that GATO kit ... hope you left room next to that discarded Type-7 kit up on the shelf, the GATO's next to be banished to your hall-of-shame.

FINISH SOMETHING!

Take something to a successful conclusion before you dare question the methods of God's such as myself! Keep your pointless, vacant questions and observations to yourself till you've earned the RIGHT, you unaccomplished, spit dribbling dope!

'Can of worms', indeed!

At the end of this exercise (give me another two weeks) and I'll show you mine, and I dare you to show me yours! Oh ... you don't know how to convert the GATO to an r/c model submarine?! Well ... who in the hell do you think you are questioning MY approach!

Dude! ... you ain't Qualified!

You want to know how to convert this GATO that dropped from heaven? Yes? Then listen to me. Don't question me. I show you how. All you have to do is follow my instructions. You can't listen when you're talking. Shut-up and learn or keep talking and wallow in your ignorance.

I know your type (the SF kit-assembly world is full of them). You are an empty vessel; a waste of valuable Internet bandwidth; you and your fellow procrastinators and armchair critics are legion; you I-post-so-much-on-the-boards-I-don't-have-time-tobuild types formulate questions and make pithy observations about things you will never practice; to you this game is an intellectual exercise, not a craft. You build nothing of substance, you advance the craft not one bit, and you are a drag on the innovators, the elite, such as myself, who have to suffer your insufferable nagging and unsolicited hints and tips ... be gone with you, damn spot!

Oh, Merry Christmas!

And this is the endgame: splitting the hull horizontally near its maximum breadth to gain as much unfettered access to the interior as possible. Even with the long WTC2.5/GATO installed, there is plenty of room fore and aft for torpedo tubes, a bow plane retract mechanism and other goodies. And the access here for placement of fixed ballast weight and buoyant foam is unsurpassed. Note the vast amount of annular space between cylinder and hull.

'Can of worms', indeed!

You'll notice that I've permitted the upper hull deck, attached to the upper hull, to overlap onto the planes-anchor-tubes area of the bow, a portion of the lower hull half, permitting access to those areas when the two hull halves are separated. Plenty of access for later upgrades of this model once I get it working in the water satisfactorily.

Hopefully, during the initial in-water trim session, I will find that I can reduce the floodable volume of the ballast tank, shortening the WTC. We'll see. I should have this thing in the water the first week of the new year.

A closer look at the access afforded over the space that will house the bow plane retract mechanism and torpedo tubes when the kit is assembled with the foreword deck attached to the upper hull half, such as I've done here. Tomorrow I'll work up some sort of capture latch mechanism that will hold the deck down on the bow buoyancy tank when the two hull halves are joined. More on that later.

Only one non-kit transverse bulkhead was needed to pull the upper hull half even with the lower hull half. It's the white bulkhead you see here. The only other transverse bulkheads on this assembly are the two modified (each was split into an 'upper' and 'lower' half) bulkheads that came with the kit -- and they were pressed into serving double duty: the lower set of bulkheads have been outfitted with 6-32 studs to form rubber band hand hold-downs, additionally, these have been ground with a Moto-Tool drum sander to conform to the WTC-2.5 diameter -- the lower set of transverse bulkheads serving as WTC foundations.

' ... appears to create a lot of extra work.' My ass!

A single registration pin (a discarded propeller shaft part), attached at the base of the forward transverse bulkhead in the lower hull, fits a hole in the WTC-2.5/GATO ballast tank section. The pin insures that the cylinder does not move radially or longitudinally within the hull once it is rubber banded down in place.

You see to good advantage here the staggered indexing lips glued within the hull halves, assuring registration as the hull is assembled.

To keep the sides of the two hull halves indexed tightly atop one another I glued narrow strips of plastic sheet on the inside of the hulls, these indexing lips engage the inboard face of the opposing hull. The index lips are staggered so as to avoid one set interfering with another, opposing set.

No access problems here!

Remember all that work I did getting the bow out of the keel side of the hull? Here you can see that cured filler and the bright shiny brass keel strip I've added (to help prevent damage as I drag bottom with this model). Here are some of the many flood/ drain holes that represent the main ballast and fuel-ballast tank openings in the hull. A special thank-you to SubCommittee member, Scoot Trosper who did the research and published the results at the SubCommittee site. Well done, sir! Good sleuthing and an excellent presentation.