¹⁄35

Building the Beast - Part Two

With some time off and the nasty weather continuing, I decide to start replacing all of the lost rivets. About 75 rivets and 2 hours into it, I change my mind. Most, if not all of the missing rivets are on the bottom of the boat. I place it on its display stand and can’t see, but a few of the ones I have replaced thus far. The lower hull will be painted in a dark color and will help hide the fact that they are missing. Unfortunately, I have a self imposed deadline to meet and at the rate it is taking, I won’t meet it. I press on.

The weather has failed to cooperate and I decide to build the transport box for the sub. Using 1”x2” fir strips I constructed a basic box frame. The corners were reinforced with small triangles of the same material. Once this was completed, the entire box was covered in 1/8” Luan plywood. The box measures 80”x10”x18” and houses the sub nicely. Once the entire box was covered with the Luan Plywood, I measured from the top down, about 6” and marked the box all the way around. Using a chalk line, I snapped out this line. This 6” portion would become the top portion of the carrying box once cut away. I did this rather than try to build the top and main box separately and having the measurements cause them to be off a little. I cut the top off of the box and added four more fir strips for framing inside the top edges of the box and bottom edge of the opening top. Three brass hinges were added to the rear, along with three hasps to the front. I added ½” corner molding to complete the look. As a finishing touch, I purchased eight brass corner pieces to dress up the box. A simple carrying handle was fastened to the top to ease in transporting. The box looks like a small coffin. I can just imagine the looks I am going to get when I open it and remove a 6’ plus submarine from the box.

12/05/05. All this time and I have not been able to accomplish much. I have the next three days off and I plan to get something accomplished. The wife leaves for work and I drag the U-ber sub into the garage. The weather outside is still in the teens, but it feels warm enough to paint. I check my putty work from days prior. All of the putty looks nice and smooth. I sanded a couple places and then got things ready for the first shots of primer. As I commenced to painting I noticed there was a definite fog in the air that I was afraid of settling on my Harley. A small break was needed to fix this. Once the HOG was covered I went back to work on the boat. A whopping ¾ if not more, of a can later, the boat was completely coated in primer. I left the boat to dry for a good while. Later that morning, after the primer was dry to the touch I broke out my two cans of Testors Panzer Gray and prepared to paint the lower hull areas. Finally it was starting to take shape. I am glad that I bought two cans, as I would need them both. I normally would have painted the lighter areas first, but this would have involved some tricky masking procedures so I decided to go this route instead. A good liberal coat of Panzer Gray was applied to all of the lower hull areas and left to dry. There was some slight overspray that found its way up onto the upper hull areas, but nothing significant. Now that the Dark Gray was applied I check to see just how visible the missing rivets would be. Unless I was right up on the areas, say within 12” I couldn’t tell. Good enough for me. Again, I left the paint to thoroughly dry.