Making viewports (was: Visibility / Safety or Safety / Visibility ?)

[Phil Nuytten <72020.572@compuserve.com>]

Hi. Mike!
        Just for your info . .the hexagonal acrylic segments used to make
hull spheres were not hexes. .they were pentagons. I have a half dozen 
pieces of the type used for 'NEMO' and the original 'SEALINK' . They are
cast dished and then sawn to oversize pentagons, then milled to final
tolerance. Jerry Stachiw once described to me how they were positioned a
fixed distance apart and then the interstice filled with an acrylic gel and
allowed to polymerize - unbelievablely elaborate ( in light of today's cast
hemis') One of the guys who first figured out how to cast monolithic, huge,
acrylic  sections is an artist/sculptor - George Beasley- he wanted to make
big transparent sculptures and figured out an ingenious way to do it . .his
commercial company was Polymer Engineering Inc. - he eventually wound up
giving his process to Reynolds and Taylor ( SF) I met him because of his
interest in Northwest Coast Indian art - monumental carvings, etc. and I
had written a book about it . .imagine my suprise when he said, over
supper, " I developed the process that R & T used to make the hulls for
your "DEEPROVER" . .small world!!
        I saved the large acrylic segments to use as one of the many
displays in a new museum called th 'Deep Foundation' - it is important to
show some of the pioneering efforts, I think. They will mount next to a 72"
OD X 5" thick, highly polished hemi ( one that we used to make the sub
"Flatbed" in the James Cameron flick "ABYSS") to show the progress in this
area.
        
regards
Phil Nuytten