Hi Jay, I'll be making the conning towers and hangars but haven't thought about the price yet. Depends on how long it takes me to lay them up. I found the missing 2002 hangar mold last night while reorganizing the basement with new storage shelving. I'd filled some gelcoat defects that happened after I made the first hangar and need to sand the defects smooth. Other than a couple of areas of deck planking losing about 1/4"x 1/4" of plank line the original mold is repairable. The conning tower mold was fine but I'm still looking for it. Bob
The lay-up of the upper and lower I-400 molds was completed at 0100h this morning. Next steps are to drill the bolt holes in the keel flange (the bolts will hold the halves of the mold together), then trim the rough edges of the keel flange and the flange that runs around the opening of the mold. When that's done plastic wedges will be carefully driven into the keel flange, splitting it down the middle and popping the molds off the plugs. Hopefully there will be no significant gelcoat defects. In that case a couple of hours fine sanding and waxing will have the molds ready for use. The hangar mold gelcoat repairs will take a couple of hours of careful sanding to complete. Then production of the I-400 hulls and 'superstructure' can begin. With Christmas near and no shopping started yet the project will be on hiatus until January, when I'll make my I-400 and turn the molds over to Ralph. Bob
There must have been something wonky with the website this weekend. I posted a report on the I-400 molds Saturday night but it's no longer here. To repeat, the I-400 molds are a success. They came of the upper and lower hull plugs with only one small spot of gelcoat crazing that's very shallow and less than 1/4" across, and there were only two very small voids from air bubbles in the gelcoat (at a 90 degree corner angle). The faint outlines of several rib locations can be seen but half hour of sanding removed most of them and all will soon disappear. The plugs survived with only a few cracks and are reusable. I suggest that Steve and Jay take them and make another set of hull molds - that'll be good practice for the Jay's future Tone cruiser mold. Ralph dropped in on Saturday with bad news. The heater he got can't raise the temperature of his new workshed high enough for hull production, so hulls won't be available for sale until warmer weather arrives (probably late March). I hope to make the first I-400 hull from the new molds next Monday-Tuesday. (Kim's leaving on vacation 3 days before me so I can glass in the basement again.) Gelcoat repairs to my 2002 I-400 hangar mold are nearing completion and the conning tower mold is ready to use. Bob
Thats excellent Bob!! Can you send me a list of everything I need to buy to make molds (I have lots of parafin wax, but don't think that will work ) I will try to pin Steve down and get some working time. Pity about Ralph's shed. How long does a hull have to cure for in a warm environment? Might be able to use the basement here, I have the vent fan and a wood stove. J
Jay, You'll need mold release wax, gelcoat without 'air dry', resin, enough catalyst for the gelcoat and resin, and a lighter weight fiberglass due to the complex shape of the I-400 plugs. The heavy stuff won't follow the hull shape well. There's a new store in Burnside that sells everything needed - I think it's called Marine Fiberglass. You should also buy 3-4 of the white plastic wedges for splitting the molds, but never split a 2-piece mold until the bolt holes have been drilled in the midline flange! It will be extremely difficult to get the halves of a mold alligned correctly if the bolt holes weren't drilled before removing the mold from the plug. The wooden molding flanges were damaged during removal from the two I-400 plugs. One is completely repairable with glue and the other needs a few inches replaced. They're 1/4" by 3" balsa. I let gelcoat cure for at least 12 hours and usually apply a second coat to reduce the risk of cataylzed resin crazing it if the catalyst mix is too weak, allowing the liquid resin more time to react with the gelcoat. I let the completed molds (i.e fiberglassed) cure for at least 48 hours before drilling the bolt holes, trimming the rough edges of the flanges, and removing the molds from the plugs. The off-gassing of volatile fumes from the fiberglass is pretty much complete by 18-24 hrs in my experience. I'll help 'supervise' your mold making if you wish. A key point is to pre-cut all of the fiberglass matt needed for three layers on the body of the mold, 4 on the flanges, and 5 all along the base of the vertical keel flange where it meets the hull bottom at nearly 90 degrees. There's a lot of stress on that angle when the halves of the mold are being split by wedges for removal from the plug. Bob
Mikey, The I-400 hulls will be sold as a set of 4 parts: upper and lower hulls, hangar and conning tower. The conning tower will have to be glassed to the hangar roof by the buyer (or can done by me for a higher price). I plan to make 2 hulls for Jay and me to start experimenting with for equipment installation, lead ballasting and size of the ballast tanks at bow and stern. It'll be helpful to have that figured out before the hulls go into general production. I hope to make my hull early next week and Jay's at his place in early January once he has it set up to exhaust the fumes outside. Additional hulls will be made as outside temperature permits. If we have temps around freezing Ralph Coles can make hulls to sell but if the temp is much below freezing his shed heater can't get the interior warm enough. I can take over hull production when outside temps are warm enough to leave hulls outside overnight to cure (late March/early April). Alternatively I may sell my molds to a hull producer in the U.S. after the 4 of us who worked on the project all have hulls. Bob
Hello Bob, all arrived safe and sound today, Christmas for me!! Thank you VERY MUCH !!!!! did I say that enough? ....no but it is all i can do here..., thank-you! Bryan (opps, have to edit my signature block now........) ;=)
Bob, If it would be at all possible, (if you do decide to sell to a US hull producer) if myself and Bryan could possibly get hulls made before the molds go to the US, so we can avoid paying duties, currency conversion fees, and extra shipping costs. We are of course both located in Southern Ontario, and I'm sure both of us are very eager to acquire your latest hull. Thank-you, Chase
No problem Chase. My only problem with hull production (and the main reason I've sold most of my molds) is being unable to make any hulls inside when my wife is home; nearly all my hulls are made when the weather is warm and dry, which is not often in N.S. Bob
Bob, I have my set up in place. If we are going to do this at my place, we will have to hurry as I am gone to Quebec for the month of Feb. If not, we may have to ask Ralph (unless your wife is going away again soon). It would ideal to have a hull at the Shearwater show, if we had some parts for it even better. J
Jay, I've been too busy with work, 'chores', and starting another 1/600 scale model ironclad master (for Bay Area Yards in San Francisco) to do anything with the I-400 molds this month. Fine sanding was 50% complete when I stopped after Christmas. I looked at the molds 2 days ago and concluded after 2-3 hours work they'll ready to wax and use. I'm busy all this weekend but will resume fine sanding next week. If we have a few unusually warm days in Feb. like we had this week I'll be able to lay up a hull for display at the model show. It's nice to see my old I-400 on this site's main page today. Check out the superstructure that replaced the one from Battlers Connection. Repairs to the mold for the hangar are almost finished. Bob
I don't know if your club allows this, but would it work if you mounted a cannon in the hanger with the barrel going down the side or through the catapolt ending at the end of the bow, the cannon would represent torpedoes(have a bb for every tube in the magazine so when you fire the mags capacity you call five to represent the reloading of the gun then come to shore to reload the magazine when five ends). Also for the deck gun have it mounted in the back of the hangar(the deck gun is in the back right?), but if the deck gun is in the front have it firing over the torpedo gun. If you try this please tell me how it works.
Making a gun barrel that long (Hanger to bow) would be WAY over any rule set's legal length for a gun barrel, also you cannot by our rules have anything firing under the water level so "torpedoes" are out, this submarine (Bob's Old one) is set to have a gun in the hanger with the barrel pointing out the back of the hanger. As a class one (1.5 unit) ship it can call 2min when it is out of ammo and wants to come in, or in a convoy battle yes can come in and reload. Hope that clears it up a little, the main problem is maintining you balence bot left to right and fore to aft when you fire, by pushing out a few BBs and some CO2 your changing your weight in a few areas, and in a sub that can be quite tricky. If you have a smaller class one or 2 vessel you will know how critical weight can be in them, now add a 3rd dimesion to the balencing act and you know what your fighting with, and if your wrong, you sink.... If you look at that pic you will see at the back of the hanger deck a small notch where the gun barrel would normally come out, it is not fitted in this photo, and the deck gun would be removed if it was here and in operation. SORRY DID NOT MEAN TO HIJACK THE THREAD... Hope that helps clear it up a little!
Now that is fascinating. The first submarine I've seen that was built outside the WWCC. I know it's been around for a while, but this is the first photo I've ever seen of it.
There was a video back in the day showing it submerging and then blowing the tanks and surfacing. I think it might have been lost with the old pittelli NABS site but somebody may have it saved on their computer.
I have the video of my I-400 doing a static dive and resurface on our computer but several attempts to post it on R/C Naval Combat failed. Steve Crane shot the video in August 2003 during the model's first trial run. If he still has the video he might have be able to post it. (Our PC computer is 4 years old and constantly malfunctioning.) An effective bow quadrant gun isn't possible with this sub because the deck rises significantly ahead of the hangar, which is the only place to put one. Although it's a 1.5 unit ship the hangar is too short to accomodate even a 1.0 unit magazine. The longest mag I was able to fit held 35 BBs. The more BBs in the magazine the worse the stability problem. That's why I tried a 1.5 unit spurt gun with 25 BBs, then a 1.0 unit spurt gun with 15 BBs. The gun was custom built with barrel and magazine almost in a straight line, but the mag angling up at about 5 degrees so water would run out after a dive. The cannon design worked very well and the gun fired reliably after resurfacing. The housing for the interrupter pin sat below deck level on top of the watertight pressure hull. The gun barrel was just above the deck, protruding through a hole at the end of the hangar. (The gun will be reused in my next I-400 model.) Instability prevented the sub from being effective. It heeled 45degrees and stayed there after a sharp turn in its first and only battle (Cannats 2003 or 2004). At that angle the BB cannon's barrel had no effective range and the sub couldn't steer. I gradually transferred lead ballast from inside the hull to a lower position alongside the keel which improved the stability, as did removing the armament. My plan was to convert it to a diving convoy ship but I sold the model to Bryan after starting the molds for an improved I-400 hull. The superstructure in the photo Bryan posted replaced the 'semi-scale' Battlers item. It's a two piece construction with conning tower glassed to hangar . Both parts were from molds I made in 2003 and will be available with the new I-400 hulls. Note that I'll only be making hulls for the guys who contributed to the project. The molds will then be for sale. If you want to detail an I-400 HR Products sells the correct AA guns in 1/144 scale. Bob
