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Hi Hugh. Yes, the foam will be carved out after the fiberglass fairing is
done. The mold will have ''release'' applied to it, so just chunking out the
center part should make it easy to get the foam out. Any little bits that get
stuck can be melted with acetone and flushed out ( like the tip of the fin
) with water in my hi-pressure washer.
The main ballast tanks will be made out of stainless sheet metal. Probably
12 or 14 gage. With internal baffles and stiffeners, they should take a
little pressure but not much. Maybe 10 psi or so. Any more and they would
expand/warp out of shape. At that thickness, with the steel structure and
fiberglass fairings, I hope to survive a minor collision, Might lose some of the
body, but the tanks will dent pretty good before they puncture.
The air inlet/outlet will be just one tube for each tank, I"m using a 1
inch tube/valve, while the bottom will be open to the water through a 3
inch hole. It was suggested I put a short length of tube on the bottom hole as
well, to keep the water from sloshing into the tank and that made sense to
me.
The valves will be inside the sub, so the air must pass through the sub to
fill or empty the tanks.
I will be installing a hard tank inside too, but don't know yet how big.
That depends on how much room I have, how much variation in buoyancy I need, and
how much extra lead I can pack inside.
When you say ''relief'' valve, are you meaning relief for your main/soft
ballast tanks? I don't think anyone is doing that, but I'm always open to new
ideas. Do you have any pictures? There's so many subs being built now, Hell, We
could have our own Navy! Good to hear from you, Frank
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