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    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton

    david f
    david f
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    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Empty Nautilus II by Robert Fulton

    Post  david f Thu May 27, 2021 10:06 am

    This has been a project running over 2 or 3 years, with a coronavirus pandemic intervening which prevented trials. (Hardly very important compared with the tragedy of a global  pandemic so I'm not complaining!)

    Robert Fulton was born in Pennsylvania and can only be described as a brilliant polymath - painter, canal builder, inventor of the naval mine and steam boat pioneer. In between all that, he managed to build the Nautilus I submarine for Napoleon and designed this Nautilus II for the British Admiralty. He is probably most famous for helping open up the US with steam boats and he is commemorated there (by amongst other things) lending his name to Fulton, Missouri.

    Sadly or gladly, depending on your point of view, Napoleon's navy was defeated at Trafalgar so the Royal Navy's interest in submarine  waned and Fulton's design was never built.  So this was an exercise in historical re-enactment.

    This shows a cross section drawing by Fulton of 1805. (He was an accomplished artist.) Note the conning tower and WTC. Also a very early propeller.(hand cranked - the crew would have earned my respect!)

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 800px-11

    This shows the sail plan and gives a hint on how she would have been used. An early stealth ship with the ability to submerge and hide during the day on the French coastline.

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Image-10

    The key reference for me was this one "Robert Fulton and the Submarine." by Wm. Barclay Parsons. Publ. by AMS (Nothing too do with us unfortunately!) Press, New York in a 1967 reprint.  the original was published in 1922 by Columbia Press. And thank you eBay for my copy.

    This book is very much based on Fulton's original manuscript which was kept hidden for "political reasons ............and only recently turned up in England" - according to Barclay Parsons writing in 1922. I believe him, but this method has often been used to introduce forgeries e.g "The Hitler Diaries."

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20190615

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Bow_de10

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Sail_p10

    The only cross section and this shows how he intended to arrange his ballast tanks and his "submarine bombs."

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20190614

    One of the interesting and challenging things about this project was that it combines a lot of unfamiliar territory for submarine modelers, like sails and rigging!
    Asking the very helpful "Yachties" in my club the Furness Model Boat Club suggested that I needed to look at a fishing boat with a sloop sailing rig.

    One example of this was this a local (for me)  fishing boat a "Manx Nobby" (Don't laugh) and this example is the "Gladys" in the Isle of Man museum, Douglas.


    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Manx_n10

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Manx_n11

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Nobby810

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Manx_n12

    A rather nice model of a Manx Nobby downloaded from the web (Sorry I don't have the reference now.)

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Sails610

    I didn't want to build a hull - sailing boat hulls are a specialist item  and I found this grp hull nicely made and very strong from:

    https://www.sarikhobbies.com/product/manx-nobby-by-david-alderton-hull/

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton P-260410

    During the initial design and trials, I had one eye on equipment I already had and the other eye on Fulton's original design (cross- eyed!). The tricky thing was to ensure that it would submerge and was stable during the flooding process. I used lengths of insulating foam to simulate ballast tanks. The WTC was my standard one used for a number of my submarines but I changed the end cap to incorporate two winches. One for the main sail and jib sheets and one for mast raising. These are the 2 white (3D printed cylinders). A standard lead acid battery at the bow provides all the power. The WTC already has a  proportionally controlled piston tank with about half a litre capacity.

    Existing sail winches are not very suitable for submarines (the diameter is too big) so I constructed winches using my favourite  mfa geared motors (https://www.mfacomodrills.com/). I had to develop software for the various control options (on/off, proportional, failsafe no failsafe etc.) The software is based on my proportional piston control software and it is all detailed over here:

    https://github.com/rdforrest/submarine-proportional-pistontank

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20200213

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20200212

    This shows 2 of the foam tubes substituted by the ballast bags. These are 2 litre capacity urine bags pumped up and deflated by a peristaltic pump again controlled by my software. A pump cycle takes several minutes but the full scale boat would have been hand pumped. (The bags were kindly provided by Gareth a club members whose neighbour was very ill and sadly didn't make it.)

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20200214

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20200116

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20200312

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20200115

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20200114

    These trials showed that the stability of the hull was OK and would not be toppled by the sails.

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20200113

    The rudder control wasn't easy because a small servo movement needed to give a considerable rudder movement. A toothed drive belt provided a fairly unobtrusive method of doing this. The large diameter propeller required a lot of trials to get the speed right. (Thank you mfa and the gearboxes!)

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20200215

    The next thing was to tackle another skill - sail making! The sails are made from old cotton sheets - nothing too advanced. Old photos of sailing trawlers show that they didn't use anything fancy either.

    This photo shows David J suffering everything that a British February can provide. But we didn't complain because this was 2020 and we were very soon forced to go indoors - BY LAW!

    And all trials ceased for close on a year.

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20200313

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20200411

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210422

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210420

    She actually sails rather well - as much as my limited sailing skills allow.

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210421

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210423

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210424

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210510

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210512

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210513

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210515

    And she submerges:

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210514

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210516

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210518

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210517

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210521

    Still more work to be done:

    - Need to be able to lower the mast without a miniature crew.

    - More work needed on the set of the sails.

    - Some of the sailings were conducted using the prototype LoRa based radio control. So the model combined low and very high tech. I think Fulton would have approved.

    So more to do but already I'm very impressed by Robert Fulton. His design translates through to a model fairly easily. I think his full size design would have worked as long as his crew could stand it. But Napoleonic sailors WERE rather tough.

    Some videos:

    https://youtu.be/W3G9HyK0R24

    https://youtu.be/xhQeTjqo86s

    https://youtu.be/Sq77PSENf4U

    https://youtu.be/6WwMSkjUc7Y

    https://youtu.be/PSHBwicO9ic


    Last edited by david f on Mon Sep 11, 2023 8:20 am; edited 1 time in total

    SimonH likes this post

    salmon
    salmon
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    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Empty Re: Nautilus II by Robert Fulton

    Post  salmon Sun May 30, 2021 2:07 pm

    What a super unique subject and I love the background you dug up. Excellent David!
    Peace,
    Tom


    _________________
    If you can cut, drill, saw, hit things and swear a lot, you're well on the way to building a working model sub.

    david f likes this post

    david f
    david f
    AMS Treasurer


    Posts : 2411
    Join date : 2010-11-10
    Age : 74
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    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Empty Re: Nautilus II by Robert Fulton

    Post  david f Thu Dec 16, 2021 2:20 pm

    Just updating this project which I finished in Summer. It has been interesting but it is much more about sailing than submarining.

    I eventually had the boat sailing and diving more or less as Fulton had in mind but he would have had the advantage of a handy crew to trim and haul the sails! His project was never completed because the British Admiralty stopped his funding after the Battle of Trafalgar, but I think it would have worked with very capable crew.

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210718

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210719

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210720

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210722

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210814

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210815

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Img_2010

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210721

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    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210724

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    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210818

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210816

    The two insulation tubes provide buoyancy and stability. (One of the problems in design was to keep the boat stable when it made the transition from dived to surfaced and vice versa.)
    The black tube is my standard "sewer pipe" WTC which I have used for several models.

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210817

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210821

    The silver drum on the L.H.S is for a toothed drive belt which operates the rudder. (I needed to "step up" the rudder shaft output and toothed drive belts are rugged and precise.)

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210819

    The two winches (one for mainsail and jib and one for mast hauling.) needed to be specially developed for a submarine. The drums had to be long and thin to fit in the hull and the drive shaft needed to go through my usual Simrit seal. The drums are 3D printed.  Both winches are driven by geared MFA motors and controlled by my standard electronics and software. The software is basically the proportional piston tank software which I developed several years ago but that now includes control options for a winch and a pump. The black cords are elastic to provide tension for the winches.

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210820

    You can just see the air bags (urine bags!) which are pumped up and down with a peristaltic pump. Not very fast about 3 or 4 minutes but probably to scale. The original was all hand cranked including the propellor.

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210824

    The 4 Ah lead acid battery  "in the wet".

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210823

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210822

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210826

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210827

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210825

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210829

    This is my attempt at Fulton's very early Conning Tower. The Captain sat in this and looked out through a quite sophisticated view port.  The vent pipe allows air and out (in the model and full-size.)

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210830

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210828

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210831

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210833

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210832

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210834

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210835

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20210836

    Videos:

    https://youtu.be/uI50AYiAk3k

    https://youtu.be/q_0vW8HsF1U

    https://youtu.be/9kQ-7bW5Xb0

    https://youtu.be/K6zu8bF-r_U

    https://youtu.be/IZA2eZEKyI8

    https://youtu.be/FdTj4EoCjZs

    https://youtu.be/9IPgoHcOsgE

    https://youtu.be/854UGAszWWY

    https://youtu.be/CvPE47KNpI0

    https://youtu.be/7AASiC9dzSk

    https://youtu.be/5bJxqzIp_Cg

    https://youtu.be/QLxzAcWqaic

    https://youtu.be/eQeanzNwHq8

    https://youtu.be/t6rFSC0rgdg

    https://youtu.be/i0iIkAsC4x4

    https://youtu.be/V4cRimeq9hQ

    https://youtu.be/9uQj61Rg-4I

    https://youtu.be/n1x7pk3GuRU

    https://youtu.be/-mgMhPA5-t8

    https://youtu.be/0qbapAmLnnU

    https://youtu.be/q1F_xtVVUKk

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    david f
    david f
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    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Empty Re: Nautilus II by Robert Fulton

    Post  david f Fri Jul 15, 2022 3:16 pm

    Nautilus II gets a new suit of sails:

    (Originals would probably have been oxblood on linen but this is the vegan alternative!)

    Sept 2022. Extra edit. A few more recent photos added - sails adjusted and set better. Rather nice to sail now.

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20220712

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20220713

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20220714

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20220911

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20220912

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20220910

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20220914

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20220915

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20220913

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    david f
    david f
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    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton Empty Re: Nautilus II by Robert Fulton

    Post  david f Mon Sep 04, 2023 11:23 am

    Had her on the water this Summer with some improvements to the running rigging  making it sail much better.

    The toothed drive belt idea for the rudder was dropped in favour of a direct link to the servo. (It is hard on servos, though, large rudder.)

    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20230911


    Nautilus II by Robert Fulton 20230910

    Video here:

    https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YuR-VL2FA4Q?feature=share

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