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Hi Doug.
Your below post made me think of something. I wonder if anyone has ever
used a similiar molding process to cast an entire sub. Imagine if someone used
foam to create the hull thickness and any
exterior and interior parts they wanted casted along with the hull. Then
they could fill the interior with sand and coat the outside with the same sand.
Then the whole thing gets cooked underground
to allow the now molten foam to run out before the metal is poured in. Then
after the mold cooled you would have to remove the sand from the subs hull
interior.
I'm sure I have not stated this procedure technically correct, but you get
the idea. Like the discussions on concrete subs we've had here
before, this would allow hull penetrations, reinforcement rings, and other
things like hatch covers to be cast with, or next to the
sub. I've made a few underground sand ovens for cooking pigs in the ground
Hawaiian style and was
wondering if someone made a mold and then buried it underground so you
could heat it underground like the Hawaiian Umu sand oven, if this idea is
possible. One nice thing would be there would be no
weld joints to ever fail and you wouldn't take as much time in
construction and welding your sub, and you could have thicker portions of hull
material in different spots with ease. I wonder if a guy could actually
dig up his backyard and build a small to moderate size 1 atm sub hull this
way. They used to cast cannons, which are a cylinder, why not a sub hull? Just a
concept idea I came up with.
An even easier idea might be to take a propane tank and encase it with
special concrete and make a concrete sub really cheaply compared to a steel one.
I like the whole molding, casting, pouring, your sub idea,
what a time and materials saver. Every day I look out back on my acreage
and see my two B52 wing tanks and think that if I don't wind up making a pontoon
boat out of them how interesting it would be to encase them
in concrete and make them 1 atm two person subs.
Does anyone know of any information, web sites, etc that might explain
about making a mold out of sand and pouring your own metal sub as well as info
on concrete subs? I remember seeing someone here was building a concrete
sub.
Bill Akins.
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