[PSUBS-MAILIST] K-600 has been blasted

[Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles]

 Well Rick, that's a long story.  The K-600 is just a beefed up K-350 and originally intended to hold one person.  Take out that 2-foot midsection you see in the photo and you can imagine how it originally came out of the factory.  While using the K350 plans was convenient, Kittredge neglected to consider the weight of the thicker hull, tank heads, and ribs of the deeper diving K-600.  When he put it in water the first time it was negatively buoyant and slowly settled on the bottom.  I believe he used thrusters to get him back to the surface, but just barely so.  I remember him telling me that if he had weighed 5 pounds more he wouldn't have made it back to the surface.  He brought it to Bath Iron Works (nice to have connections from his Navy days) and had them cut off the back tank head and add two feet of hull to increase the buoyancy.  So that's why there's a noticeable mid-section "scar" on the K-600.  :) :)
Jon

    On Sunday, April 2, 2023 at 01:47:55 PM EDT, Rick Patton via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:  
 
 I didn't realize that the pressure hull was made up of three pieces of rolled plate. Wonder why the aft most piece is so short? Don't think all that heat put into the hull would be a good thing,I had my sub sand blasted in pieces before they were all welded together which made it alot easier. I think the reason I did that was that the hull had been fully welded and then sat for quite a long time while life was happening and the steel might have been hazing due to it being located at my shop which was a block from the salt water. I made an enclosed place to blast it knowing that it would be messy out of 2"X4",s and visqueen but it failed about half way through from the air blasting out of the nozzle.. A ton and a half is a lot of sand! Good job Jon.
Rick



  
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