Not the hobby I expected :)

A progress.

I had to rip the plastic end caps off the battery and re-seal it with tape but it's IN; and I've got the electronics stuck down and partially wired in.

I need to split the power to get it to the dive pump as well as the speed controller but it's all 'in' the tube at least.

Still very learning lathe, I've done a bit of facing, turning and a little bit of knurling, but I've not done a thread yet and an experiment in cutting an o-ring groove failed spectacularly. The mystery plastic I was messing with didn't want to cut a nice flat bottom in the groove despite the same tool turning an acceptable outside diameter. It's all learning and I will get round to casting some endcaps and giving grooving a go on resin in due course.

Meanwhile I've been mucking about with some actual sub building and radio fettling.

One of my good friends loaned me one of whatever these things are and I've been batting my SWR numbers on antennas as close to 1 as I can get for a center frequency of 459Mhz (band being 458.5 - 459.5 so sayeth ofcom



Submarine wise, I've cut holes in the bulkheads for air and water to circulate, glued in the rubber band rings that support the tube center it, I've got the rear prop fin things installed with the prop bearing inside, the cylinder end prop support and control surface control arm whatsit is glued in and shimmed so that the prop shaft turns freely.

I've drilled all the holes for the control surfaces at the back end of the sub and I'm working out how the control wires need to be bent, at the moment they want to bind for down dive plane so some bending must be required to make them sit and run right, I might drag the thing down to my boat club to get some practical advice from real life model makers.

Still loads to do, but the list of stuff is getting gradually shorter!

I use a parting tool to cut my O-ring grooves, probably not the proper way of doing it, but in polyacrbonate its seems OK with a slow rotation.
Youre not removing too much material, and the parting tool is thin and square ended.
Don't go sideways, do repeated cuts straight in, then come out and move sideways bit by bit to give the right width.
If its any 'encouragement' I foung cutting the O-ring grooves the most tricky bit of building a WTC.

Because there's something wrong with me, I've made a start on the astute. sob.

I've done some wiring. The boat can now switch on and off from the pushy button through the endcap, wiggle its servos, switch the dive controller on and off in both directions but it can't yet power the motor because it needs a power feed from the battery yet.
I have spun the drive motor in both directions.

I 'just' need to build a tiny loom to go between the battery pack and the speed controller to split power to the dive pump and to also incorporate a main fuse (yet to be aquired)

Eek we're getting scarily close to being able to shove something in the bath and see where it leaks!

Playing with the lathe, I've made my first 'part' so to speak.

I chopped down a big bit of aluminum to 50mm to match the OD of my astute tube

and I'm *slightly* proud of my accuracy.

I didn't do QUITE so well on the actually more important inner diameter, but that doesn't actually want to be an interference fit because that's what the o-ring does for us.
It goes in the tube nice anyway


No o-ring groove cut because I'm going to mold this in silicone and make resin copies of it and groove them instead. That should give me multiple chances to cheaplyish get things wrong.

Anything to avoid actually finishing the seawolf, right?


What kind of main fuses do you lot use? I need to find one to pop in my loom.

I use 15a auto fuses (the blue ones)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/261130867103?hash=item3ccc9cd19f:g:fJUAAMXQY8JRf-6q&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4FBawmPvSew%2BQtkaQXwzCgVfnThY5CoYJQuWJQg5R4zTloSEuANujB9od3NgYH4%2Bkw%2Bj6QFpdAykX6vMrEZxDQ47A9pZApvwX%2FOBz9W2uX%2F5jXC7XahvtHeIDWjq82%2BxTX5td%2B6URvh2drWiuzeMJqpOv62DuiKmYa2S5IkfEFgXwve38FxU6O4Ndq2jwRJSMQPkvDCwPErS3uH85yHxptTq%2BAjJtXy%2BNYAiCPaKycJiKEUUmpsl2qDlN5uAnzG3%2Fpw9hc%2BSSuZa70AGapRpBUW0hrGzkW5RWKImCbKt8leq%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR46Fw7TiYg

Other suppliers are available!

David

Nice bit of turning, by the way.