Work on the VANGUARD Sail, Part-3

A Report to the Cabal:

This is the continuation of a long delayed project: the work-up of new masters and tools to improve the look of the 1/100 OTW kit of the SSBN, VANGUARD. The basic kit is just that: basic. Not because of any lack of effort on OTW's part. No! The kit was made available at just about the time of launching of the first boat of the class, and information was very hard to come by. In fact, this kit would not have happened had not OTW been able to aquire an actual dynamic test model of the vehicle from the design beuro affiliated with the yard tasked with design and production of the VANGUARD herself, the lead boat of the class.

I came into the picture as I picked up a turnkey job from Erich Kloss, who sent me one of the OTW kits with the carefully crafted instruction: "make it work good and look pretty" (or words to that effect). What started out as a simple ugrade to the sails mast arrangement turned into an entire overhaul of the off-hull components by me -- I having been the benificiary of new documents and photos not available to OTW at the time of this kits introduction. I look on this job not only as a bit of income from a turnkey job, but also an excellent oportunity to give a big 'thank you' to OTW for the excellent line of GRP hull kits and neat WTC's they've offered through the years. (I hear that their new 1/32 TYPE-7 is a kit simply to die for!).

Long story short, when I'm done with this job I'll turn over the tools to OTW so they can upgrade the 1/100 VANGUARD kit and charge you guys an outragiously high price for it! In the meantime I will have cast up the needed resin and metal parts needed here to super-detail Erich's turnkey VANGUARD and make him a happy camper.

(The Cabal Reports, both the VHS/DVD and on-line versions started out as 'progress reports' on this VANGUARD job. So, if you care, the genises of the Cabal, as you know it today, started out as updates on the VANGUARD work here -- now look what a monster thing the Reports to the Cabal have become! ... gee, thanks, Erich!).

A lot of work has gone into the sail master. The complete mast, scope, and antenna array atop the sail as well as this current work of outfitting the base of the sail with the fillet seen on the prototype.

Here goes: be rewarded!

About three months ago Ellie and I were at a steak-house eating dinner when I had a flash of an ideal: I quickly turned over my place-mat and drew the above working drawing. A 'fillet tool' used to hold the sail master and to provide a defined boundry for where the bottom of the fillet would terminate, through use of a 'fillet plate' and the upper boundry of the fillet could be established with a suitably cut masking 'dam'. It all became clear in about five minutes of scribbling: with this tool I could accurately, and quickly build up at the base of the sail master the varied radius fillet that girdles the entire structure. Neat!

And here is the completed 'fillet tool', built up and used during one days effort: The sixty-thousanth inch thick plastic fillet plate is backed up with a plywood piece that imparts regidity and a foundation for the 6-32 all-thread (needed t help clamp the sail in place). Two plastic tabs within the upper face of the fillet plate insures registration of the sail master upon it.

The sail master itself has already been outfitted with thin brass sheet gusset pieces fore and aft -- these needed to maintaining the correct fillet radius at those points during filler build-up, as well as imparting shear strength to the Evercoat fillet material. At the top of the picture is a piece of plywood, the strongback. When all three items are put together, a thumb-nut driven down unto the strongback acts to sandwhich them into a rigid whole. Masking tape dams are cut out and placed on the sides of the sail master to define the upper edge terminus of the fillets. You see a stencile used to guide a knife as those dams are cut out, just above the scrap piece of plastic sheet used as a cutting board.

To prevent the Evercoate Metalic Glaze filler, that will form the sail fillet, from sticking to the fillet plate, I coated it with wax. It worked: there were no sticking issues between the sail and the fillet tool what so ever!

The fillet maker of choice here is the very thin (generically called, 'icing') Evercoat Metalic Glaze two-part polyester based, heavily filled, filler. You see the stuff in its big squeeze bottle next to a tube of cream hardener. I mix the stuff on this paper pallate, using only a forefinger for mixing and application duties. The fillet is not formed in one pass. About five different passes, letting the stuff harden between each, was required to build up enough material between masking tape dams and fillet plate. Final fillet shapping was done with rat-tail files and rolled up pieces of decending grits of sandpaper.

After each lay-up of filler I had to pull the upper tape dams off the sail before the filler could harden and lock the tape in place. This ment that I had to cut out a new set of dams each time I built up a layer of filleting filler. Not too tough a task: I just had to cut out the two tape masks using the template seen here, one the mirror of the other.

This is how the fillet tool goes together: The sail is sat down upon the fillet plate with the 6-32 all-thread running up through its center, and the strongback placed on top and the thumb-nut driven down to sandwich the sail between the strongback and the fillet plate. Two transverse spacer tabs glued atop the fillet plate (barely visible here) insure exacting registration between the sail and the fillet plate.

Looking at the bottom of the sail master shows the different colores of the Renshape 40 sail proper and the fillet work around the peremeter at the base of the sail.

Fortunately the deck area under the sail is flat which permitted me to make the fillet plat from a flat piece of plastic. Mounted atop the hull, we see the transition between sail and hull -- neat! Don't get me wrong, I still think the VANGUARD is one notch less ugly than sin, but, it is growing on me!

I'm looking forward to getting this beast into the water: It has plenty of rudder area, the pump-jet is realy neat looking and (from an American perspective) is quite unique, and the well forward mounted bow planes should make this thing very easy to drive in depth.

Placing the sail atop the hull to check the look of things. Examination of this picture of the VANGUARD in dry-dock and comparing it with the fillet work on the sail master demonstrates that I pretty much got the sail-to-deck fillet right.

Damn ... I'm good!

Since the relativly weak Evercoat filler transitions to a near knife-edge at the base of the sail I had to strengthen the filleted area with very light weight fiberglass cloth saturated with epoxy resin. Here you see that work. Of course this had to be later worked with file and sandpaper to get rid of the envitable bumps and 'weave' of the GRP sheathing, but that work went quick and in no time I had the unit ready for final build-up of the high relief seam between sail and the top edge of the fillet.

After filing and sanding the GRP I shot the work with primer which revealed some minor depressions and file marks. These were addressed with some Nitro-Stan lacquer based air-dry touch-up putty that I had transferred to a bottle and cut with lacker thinner to make it brushable. Using a little brush I puttied the dings and dents identifed on the sail master and left the work to dry for about ten minutes in the hot-box. Sanding with Flexi-File sanding stick and a rolled up piece of used #400 grit sandpaper knocked the putty down to surface level. The master was again primed and the process repeated until I had a blemish free sail master.

This master, and all the others I've worked up in support of the 1/100 VANGUARD

build, will be used to make rubber tools from which cast resin and metal parts will be created. OTW will receive the tools when I'm done with them and it's planned to 'upgrade' the VANGUARD kit with parts made from the new tools.