Riveting Development

In the course of working on the forward seams between the main hull and the removable upper deck, several rows of rivets were lost. And the thought of restoring them bit by bit with tiny drops of JB Weld reduced with lacquer thinner made me ill. Fortunately, through a wonderfully timed post at disneysub.com, a much more user-friendly solution was found. Tichy Train manufactures tiny plastic rivets in a size that works well with the 1/32 scale Nautilus.

To install them, one needs only to cut a rivet from the tree and drill a pilot hole in the correct spot. I used a twist drill.

At first I tried placing them in the hole with tweezers. But the plastic was very slick and they had a tendency to make a break for the floor and the plastic these rivets are made of has the unique property of instantly becoming invisible upon contact with concrete. I settled on dabbing them with a piece of masking tape and then sliding them into the pilot hole. A drop of thin CA secures them in place.

They come in packs of 96, enough to lay down a healthy line of rivets. I'm even looking at replacing some of the droplet style rivets molded into the hull. For the price ($2.50 per pack) you can't beat them.

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A Tip Of The Cap

Every r/c submariner knows headgear is an essential part of the patrol experience. I've long had a vision of the ideal cap to wear while running the Nautilus: dark blue low profile baseball cap style with the patch from Nemo's captain's hat embroidered on the front. Since the boat was so far off from completion I never got serious about having one made.

Until, that is, I saw a post on disneysub.com about the Nemo cap badge design. AlphaRed6 had a line on an eBay embroidery vendor who could make the design. I contacted Tracie Henson (eBay Seller ID: the_house_of_henson) and she produced the following results:

Cool, huh? Tracie did a wonderful job, answered all my questions, and made and shipped my cap immediately. If only finishing the boat was that easy!

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Side Keel Fastening - The Final Solution

In the beginning there were wheel collars. They slipped over the side keel pins which ran through the side of the hull into the interior. They held the parts in place, but there was slop. Not a snug, tight fit. But they slipped on and off with ease and allowed me to check the fit of a particular piece quickly.

But I wanted the side keels secure -- nice and tight against the hull -- when it came time to gluing. So, I bought a die and threaded a pin to accept a stainless washer and nut. This proved a handful when working on the pin in the part. As I worked, the pin slipped out in my hand and voila, another inspiration.

Searching through my bench I found a length of brass rod the same diameter as the pins and I began to thread it. My goal now was to replace all the pins with threaded rod. As the first threaded pin replacement was completed, rather than tapping the pin hole I simply screwed it into the side keel where the pin went previously. The slightly oversized threads bit into the plastic nicely. Trying the new arrangement I slipped on the washer and nut. It snugged the part right down to the hull. Unfortunately the nut was a little oversized and slipped a bit as I played with it but the idea worked in principle.

While contemplating the replacement of the rest of the pins, a picture of all the pin lengths and nuts running down the midline of the hull interior came to mind. Not too pretty. How to make it appear more uniform and precise?

Inspiration came again in the form of a hex socket head cap screw lying on the bench. It was stainless, and of the same thread as the new pins. I pulled another pin from the side keel and threaded the cap screw into the hole. Perfect! It was self tapping, secured the side keel tightly against the hull and would provide a uniform appearance to the hull interior.

I quickly purchased enough 4-40 stainless cap screws and washers to replace all accessible pins (two on the extreme ends, fore and aft, were too hard to get to with an allen wrench to tighten). With some final alignment sanding, all four side keel parts are ready to be permanently glued in place.

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