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Hi Ray. The life span on my cardboard mock-ups is really short. Especially
when I start cutting holes and duct tapping more cardboard into place. My first
mock-up was a tube like the K boats. That's what got me started on the sphere
shape. I just didn't like not having room for a passenger to sit beside me. I
chopped the first one and re-shaped it into a kind of squashed hot dog, but it
sucked so into the burn pile with that one. I had taken some scrap sheet metal
and made a couple of different shapes as scale models to see what the different
shapes did when pulled through the water. The tube ( K boat ) shape was
the best for power usage but I liked the two dome shape and thought I could
streamline it enough to equal the tube shape. The next mock-up was a
little harder, being shaped like the two domes I have now, but a little taller.
The space was good but it was only 6 feet in diameter, and too tall. Oops! into
the burn pile. Next came the 8 foot version, That was really good, but after
cutting holes for windows three times, it was falling apart. ( got rained on
too.) At this point I was convinced I wanted to go with the two dome
shape. When it came time to actually buy the steel domes, I shrunk it down
to 7 feet dia. so it would fit on a trailer, so I made a quick 7
foot mock-up and after sitting in it, ordered the steel. Before the steel
arrived, I moved the windows again to the current location and have been with
that design ever since. My daughter gave me shit about not taking pictures of
all this stuff, so when the steel arrived, I started taking some. Sorry, no
pictures of the mock-ups.
If you remember my first sketch shown on frappr, it looked like a
flying saucer where the ballast tanks were like a ring all round the hull. Nice
thought but after building a steel model of it and doing water tests, it
wouldn't work. Too unstable. Back to the drawing board. I took the steel model
and made several different shaped tanks out of sheet metal for it. Some looked
really cool. One I almost went with was two bat wings kind of like a manta
ray. Back to the pool and that wouldn't work.I made a boat shape set of
tanks for the model. It performed well in the pool, and that's how I got where
I'm at now. All this messing around with stuff took almost two years. Now that
I've actually started building it, I'm refining the body a little as I go, and
am happy with the window locations. Still not taking as many pictures as she'd
like, but what the hell. I still have the steel two dome model out in the
shed somewhere. There was a picture of it on frappr, but I can't remember if
it's still there. Anyway, it's been lots of fun so far. I'll have it
ready for the 2009 convention where ever that will be. Florida would be
nice. Are you going to this years convention? Hope to see you there. My sub
won't be ready, but I'll bring what pictures I have. Frank
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