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[ScottW]

I am sure you could make the guns.

But I do gotta say, this sure does look neat, and the base shape fits a design theme with PRS-3,
https://www.shapeways.com/product/Y8NXBRZ7G/1-72-usn-4-inch-50-10-2-cm-sub-gun-deck?optionId=117778672&li=shops
And spending the $30 for it saves on doing things with my often painful hands; can apply effort to something else instead.

Edit: Just wrote the designer, said what I'm planning to use his part for, that it will be interesting to conduct an experiment and see how the part stands up to hydrodynamic forces when model is traveling submerged.
Am curious to see what his reply will be.

[ScottW]

A quick post to basically just show off, button hatches now have wheels from old time railway boxcar brakewheels on a short bit of fine brass wire in to hole drilled in button.

Whether the brakewheels are or are not precisely centered and what that meant to society at the time is something which future archaeologists can discuss in their PhD dissertations.

[ScottW]

Quick and simple guides for locating ladder rungs (being primarily a model railroader I keep wanting to say grab irons) from bits of styrene.
The 0.188 inch, 3/16 inch, spacing makes the rungs about 15 inches apart in 1/72 scale, which is the size of figures I am using with the model.
Now all I have to do is drill nice and precisely with a cat whisker thin drill bit ... assuming my hand didn't slant the pencil and make a crooked line ...
(some days that can be a huge assumption with the way my health is)
Made spacers for 1 through 7; to get longer than 7, such as the 12 up the side of the sail simply stack them.

[ScottW]

Three days worth of progress on this, that, and the other thing.
Those 50 ladder rungs did not get applied in one sitting! 


The single-screw 3-foot boat, named PRS-3, still hasn't had its lower hull designed yet. Sketched, yes; designed, no.  Stern will be cutaway under deck and prop will be located about where it sits on deck. Rudder will be aft of prop. That too has yet to be designed.  Rubberband motor loops will be about 2 feet, 60cm, long.


White styrene deck pieces are .040 spacing metal siding sheets .040 thick.
Which is a different spacing than used on PRS-1.

Twin screw PRS-2 will get painted like PRS-1.  The fully armed PRS-3 will be painted differently.

[ScottW]

Here's the 3 boats together.
PRS-1 is 26 inches, 66cm, long from bow to prop winding eye.

[ScottW]

I was wondering about having a searchlight on at least PRS-3 ...

and just now found ... 

Title: USS Bass USS Bonita
Description: Photo #: NH 91782  USS Bass (SS-164), outboard, and   USS Bonita (SS-165)    With civilian visitors on board, at San Francisco, California, May 1932.  Photographed by Lauzin.     U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Catalog #: NH 91782

https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-91000/NH-91782/_jcr_content/mediaitem/image.img.jpg/1438380621765.jpg

[ScottW]

So, how often do you envision submarines lying at anchor with sun canopies/awnings spread out?
https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/NH-56000/NH-56361/_jcr_content/mediaitem/image.img.jpg/1439329895080.jpg

Are several details I'd like to borrow from this boat.
Would also like to build this boat as itself.
Which will likely not eventually happen.
But ... while I'm pondering the proposition ...

in 1/72 scale it would be about 57 inches long.

Revell's 1/72 plastic kit of USS Gato is stated as 54 inches long,
https://www.revell.com/gato-class-submarine.html

[ScottW]

Okay, true, the small boats would be a bit small in real life at that size in proportion to the figures being used, but remember, this thing is 'sport scale'.
Boat outlines were drawn on smooth back of textured plastic; cut out; both cutout and opening were sanded to create a defining gap.
Then deck was glued on followed by boat cutouts being glued in to openings.

[ScottW]

Fun and useful things in the mail on Thursday and Saturday. (sure hope my shopping left enough money in the bank for groceries!)
  There seems a certain manner of Irony in receiving a book about the British Royal Navy on the day a British Royal, the Queen, died; the WW1 submarines book arrived Thursday the 8th.

Drill press and camouflage book arrived Saturday the 11th.(light reflection is inconvenient location but the way my defective body is being today I am lucky to get the photo atall)

My 40 year old Dremel rotary tool will not fit, and I tested and it does indeed not fit this drill press, but the press was a good price and I do need it.
Now to see about getting a Dremel which will fit the press.

--> And looking at the camouflage book I think PRS-3, which will be fully armed to 1920s-40s standards, will be painted blue.
Undecided whether lower hull will have black or red antifouling paint.

"The underbody shall be painted with the current issues of bottom antifouling paints."

https://www.shipcamouflage.com/measure_9.htm
(yes, I know I'm blending British and American policies here)

But doing it red and with a (unrealistic for subs) black boottopping band will accent the length of the 3 foot long PRS-3.

[ScottW]

And while all the pills for coping with bones and muscles which sometimes do undesirable things were at peak effectiveness around 3 am ...

... the strange thing is that I made significant progress on doing a thing for one pool sub.

True, the rails and stanchions are different from what subs of the 20th century used in reality but these are not real subs and that difference is deliberate.
Stanchions were bought last month.
Wire was bought last century, while I worked at auto auction near Kansas City, Missouri.

I had expected that I could pre-curve the wire and just ease it through the stanchions around the 20mm platform.
Hahaha! That is so NOT how the actuality of the task went.
The wire pre-curved just fine ...
... but getting it through the stanchions ...

Still have to make anchors for wires up inside aft end of bridge shield. That is unlikely to happen today.
But stranger things have happened with my life and health ...

[JimG]

The easiest way is to fit the stanchions to the wire first then fit the stanchions to the deck.
Jim

[ScottW]

Had I felt better at the time that thought might have indeed happened before doing that job, oh well, such is life; but you can be certain I'll remember it from here on! 

[ScottW]

And ...
Here is where being autistic introduces various and sundry wrinkles in to the living of life ...
Dad's 82nd birthday is later this month and he wants me to bring these for him to see in person. Now, the finished one he has seen it run in the pool of apartments where I built it back in 2005 but it will make a nice size comparison to the ones in progress.
Okay, yes, I'll be happy to bring them! 
But ...
Even though the little plastic guys are not real people and the models are not real Navy vessels ...
The idea of packing up the guys was okay ... but ... the idea of getting them on "The Wrong" submarine from the one they have been on was causing me real, actual, physical and mental stress.
A lot of stress. 
So ...
A minute's work with a Sharpie marker has made that stress go away.
Put sub hull number, 2 or 3, on bottom of their bases.
I am now a happy camper.   

[ScottW]

Ahh yes, the insomniac satisfaction of some 3am progress. 


And if it seems there is a break in railing wire continuity at the center stanchion, you have deduced correctly.
Because of the U-turns the railing wires were worked from each end.
But ...
Given that the little blue plastic navy guy is only 1 inch, 25mm, tall, the offset isn't overly noticeable to the eye.

And yes, both wires are in the stanchion hole.

[ScottW]

Got a pair of platform braces made and installed.
I like the outline they give.
Hmm ...
Am looking here at the larger than real life photo and seeing how a few of the stanchions appear less than perfectly vertical. In their 14 millimeter tall reality it isn't much noticeable to the eye.
And ...
With my having a couple musculoskeletal problems now joined by a neurological autoimmune disease, the option of perfect alignment is no longer on the table; it is a bit of a minor miracle that I'm still good for doing this kind of stuff at all.

[ScottW]

Ahoy mateys! Some 3D printed firepower has just arrived. 

Along with some doors to select a pair of for placing one each side about where the guy holding fender is.

Doors are printed to have one opening each way, I guess so they can hinge forward on each side of ship.

[Alan52]

Looking good Scott. The 3d stuff looks impressive.

[ScottW]

The 3d stuff looks impressive.

Thanks Alan!
It is impressive. And 3D printing has done so much for hobbies, crafts, manufacturing.
Upcoming things I want to get are a 20mm, a 40mm,
And I want the radars from this, https://www.shapeways.com/product/BEC4DFD68/1-72-us-gato-radar-antennas-set
Those radars will likely be the next purchase.
Looking at their 3D animation of the tall pylon reveals it has locations for attaching ladder rungs on one side.  Its location on model will be right in middle of deck of surface bridge, immediately forward of the deck hatch.

[RST]

I still can't get my head around rubber band power but it obviously works!  Your builds look great.  I'm sure any "Squiffyness" will be covered up in a lick of paint and lost in the rest of the detail you put in.


All the best,


Rich

[ScottW]

I still can't get my head around rubber band power but it obviously works!

Thanks! 
They are great fun and have been a thing for many, many, decades, even to the point of commercial production with plastic or tin hulls, instead of wood, in several countries.
How about this scratchbuilt wooden one with scratchbuilt counter-rotating screw propellors even, https://youtu.be/ceTxZv8wRgU

A commercially produced rubber band powered submarine, https://flic.kr/p/m1wPpU
Similar boat on Pinterest with a number of other rubber band models shown as suggestions, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/285908276328400305/
Stock photo of commercially produced plastic Regulus missile or similar sub with rubber band power, https://www.alamy.com/vintage-submarine-rubber-band-wind-up-toy-cut-out-image437434203.html

[RST]

Hi, the first link above is contra-rotating not counter rotating propellers.  That's very impressive!  I have some little 6mm diameter bevel brass gears to make some shottel type drives for 20mm props but the scale defeats me just quite yet.. Though I do have a schottel drive that size roughly made so far The gears are very small, about the size of a lentil at most.


Rich

[ScottW]

Hi, the first link above is contra-rotating not counter rotating propellers.

Hmm, all these decades being in to ships and airplanes and I don't think the difference between counter and contra has ever yet stuck in my memory.
A scratchbuilt Schottel drive in a size suitable for a 20mm prop? Now there's a thing which will definitely count as something!

[RST]

Hmm, all these decades being in to ships and airplanes and I don't think the difference between counter and contra has ever yet stuck in my memory.

...They're really quite different principles. 

I don't want to crowd your thread here, your models look great to me.

Rich

[ScottW]

Will be experiment time when that Dremel drill press gets operational.
Mom & Dad gave me some money so I ordered a newer than 40 year old Dremel rotary tool which will fit in the drill press; my 1980s one doesn't fit the 2020s drill press.
So, the experiment will be ...
Drilling 4 stanchions to make right angle T intersections.
Right angle intersection at stanchion at left of image is a simple super glue join with right-angled railing wires secured in holes in plastic.
Image shows where there will be a right angle stanchion to right angle stanchion bit of railing.
Also, railing over ladder point will get bulged out a bit to give clearance to come up through where there is a small trap door in deck.  Yes, some or even none of these details may fully adhere to real-world practices, that's okay and often by design in these builds; sometimes, true, it is by happenstance, but more often than not it is deliberate.

(likewise deliberate is the possibility that this structure might have the feel of something from a pre-dreadnaught battleship)(oh, the pushed-in end of that one ladder rung is now fixed)

[ScottW]

Got tools in the mail today so I played this evening!

Dremel drill press is a big help; thanks Mom & Dad for the money for newer motor tool to fit the press!

Began the vent holes with regular 1/8 inch (more or less 3mm) drill bit.
Then moved to a Dremel spiral cutter which looks kind of like a drill bit but isn't, not pictured.
Finished with a scrap of 100 grit sandpaper wrapped around a paintbrush handle.

Took a break to get chicken out of oven, but, I dunno, only 10 to 15 minutes for this job - 2 vent holes, start to finish.