Tom Andrews' award winning X craft

This is Tom's build log of his boat...

Excellent reading and plenty of eye-candy (pictures). Thanks for posting this! What a Craftsman.

David

It was(is?)an amazing little boat, David...somewhere I have some video footage of it in the AMS pool at the show we did at the Sub Museum at Gosport years ago, I'll dig it out and post it up here.

As promised, here's a video of Tom's X craft in the AMS pool at Gosport Sub Museum.

Apologies for the quality of the video, it was copied from a twenty five plus years old BetaMax video, transferred to a VHS video, copied to a DVD, then edited and downloaded to my laptop, then uploaded to YouTube via Windows Live Movie Maker!

Really interesting article, Richard.
Interesting use of bellows etc. (Rather like the Jacques bellows system ) I don't know why people don't use these more - people still seem keen on various "bags".
His description of his painting and weathering is fantastic. Not surprised that he won prizes.
The video is good - not bad quality. The sub was a very nice performer although the gas bubbles would have alerted the crew of the Tirpitz!

David

P.S Is it just me or has the Forum Title changed to blue - if it was deliberate it looks nice!

RICHARD ,

Along with these excelent explanation there are by accident some where ,some photos with the internal parts?.
For me as Non Native english spoken it's litle be difficult to have in mind hole picture with the components, if You know what I mean!.

Somewhere (if I can find them...I think they may be in the albums which I sent to Nigel, though..) I have some photos of the internals of Tom's boat, it's amazing how he managed to squeeze everything inside such a tiny boat. His ballast system was very well executed, those bellows were a masterpiece.

(And yes, the changes to the forum were deliberate, David...I thought it was about time for a change of scenery. If you notice, no matter whereabouts on the forum you are, you can return straight to the home page by just clicking anywhere inside the blue area in the header picture now. Doing that also refreshes the page.)

Maybe methods and materials were rudimentary , but if I can do it cheaper and safer , I'm willing to do it even if it involves more hand work .
Is a great lesson for me on how I can do it.
I'm not in a hury so if You find those photos it's great.

One of Tom's boats is now with the Chaterham Submariners Club, Bernie passed it on to me way back, and I passed it onto them as a long time passed member was on them as the boat diver.

Is Tom still about, would you know, Fred? I haven't heard anything of him in years now.

Sorry Dick I just do not know, I do not remember seeing any member from Hamwell for some time now, but that could be down to the fact that I have not been to that many shows in the last few years,