HrMs O-1 by FreekS - FINISHED - 1:32 - RADIO - first Dutch submarine 1906-1920

[FreekS]

Piet,

 

Thanks! I do believe though that the K-XIV to K-XVIII class also did not have bilge keels. Not on my model at least!

 

Freek

[FreekS]

Dear friends,

 

Started painting the boat, in colors close to the model in the Dutch Navy museum in Den Helder (and that I just happened to still have from K-XVIII!). Using normal brush - airbrush did not existing 1905!. "Tjetten" it was called.

 

In spite of professional blue masking tape the waterline needs some correction.

 

 

 

 

Freek

Edited August 2, 2014 by FreekS

[Ian B]

Hi , I have only just seem this build log and just wanted to say I really was fascinated by the video clips of the subs in action....well worth posting

[ianmajor]

Freek,

 

That is fabulous. Shame the masking tape let you down.

 

When do you expect to be chasing the other subs in the pool with it? I can't wait to see that.

[FreekS]

Well, Ian, thanks for your interest in the maiden voyage of hr ms O-1. I am going much faster than my first sub (since i actually follow à fairly conventional build strategy instead of the hair-brained "bread and butter" strategy I used onnhr ms K-XVIII). There are several interesting dates in the diary, including August 16 in cologne with a very distinguished U-boot building club. Also a pool run in Belgium in September. But first I plan I have to finish most of the additions so I can then start to glue 2 kg worth of lead shot inside the hull and balance her fore and aft to a gram or so, in a plexiglass "fishtank" I have.

Trimming will be a challenge as I have a "dry hull", and so while I can move weights, I cannot also reposition floating foam pieces in flooded areas of the sub.

 

But then the pictures I have of her sometimes say "O-1 with crew and torpedos moved to the back so the mouth of the torpedo tube can be seen. It's not like this boat had a firm waterline.

 

Thanks for all your interest - I will be sure to post pics and videos of a maiden when it happens!

 

Freek

[Piet]

Beautiful job Freek!  Yeah, a shame about the tape glitch but you'll fix that I'm sure.  Yeah, "tjetten" is the Dutch way of writing the Indonesian word for to paint or painting.  Paint is spelt "cat" in Bahasa Indonesia, where the c is pronounced as tj.  

Looking forward to your videos with the O-1 in action.

 

Cheers,

[FreekS]

Thanks Piet,

 

My farther was born in Indonesia (well Batavia in Nederlands Indie at that time), so he was one of the Dutch that your father defended!

And my wifes mother comes from Surabaya!

Its nice to see y'all ( now where did I pick up that term) being even more impatient to getting O-1 wet that I am! But as Piet points out, these old submarines had many details on deck and since I will have to trim her with lead shot to within a gram or so I want nearly everything mounted before I do so.

 

Now working on the deck, where two of my pictures show a nice wooden planked deck, similar to what K-XVIII had. making that is simple and fun work and then comes the hinges to the doors in the deck to load Torpedo's and such. They won't be functional and that's good as my metal working skills are nearly non-existent!

 

Cheers

 

Freek

[Piet]

Hi Freek, great Scot man, your parents were totoks too ???  Wow, small world, I was born in Soerabaja (Dutch spelling) way back in 1934 and left in 1947.  I learned to speak Indo from our live in maid / nanny.

My dear bride Gwen was born in Batavia in 1941.  Yep, my father and thousands with him did a valiant try to stop the Jap onslaught.  

 

Cheers, 

[FreekS]

 

 

Starting mounting the deck covers, and the first set of planks on the deck. The rope is about 0.4 mm, so maybe. 1 cm in RL.

 

the rope is tightened by a 12 mm long tightener, I bought 6 but looking at this picture I think it's a little too big for this scale. I may look for another solution for this. Any ideas how to keep this tight Unobtrusively? The hinges for the deck covers are still missing

 

All for now

 

Freek

[Piet]

Beautiful detail work Freek.  Yep, that's what's what's called a turn buckle in aircraft jargon.  That'll be a challenge finding a smaller one.  Could check with some of the places that sell very small hardware.

 

She's looking really very nice and hope that she'll perform as good as she looks.

 

Cheers,

[ianmajor]

Freek,

 

Beautiful work.

 

If you want smaller turnbuckles you could try model railway suppliers. Castings are produced down to a couple of millimeters in length for use on the truss bars under the floors of long bogie carriages. It is possible to make good representations by using pieces of brass tube that telescope together (which is how I have done it).

[FreekS]

With 1.3 kg lead shot glued in the hull, so that the tech rack slides just overtop. With the lead the boat now weighs 3.2 kg (sorry, i don't calculate in pounds!), and based on the displacement I expect the total weight to become 3.8 kg, including 200 gram or so of water in the dive tank/bag. The boat has not been wet (as the paint is still wet) but next step is to carefully balance the boat with the remaining lead shot in a tank, and of course check for leaks. Exiting!

 

[Piet]

Holy chiwawa Freek, that's a lot of cannon balls!  Sjors, Mobbsy and Kevin may want to abscond with some of them    Better hide them quick 

I'm looking forward to the test report!  btw, 3.2 kg = 7.055 lbs; 3.8 kg = 8.38 lbs and 200 gram = 7.05 oz.

 

That's a lot of weight!

 

Cheers,

[FreekS]

Given the wealth of targets on this forum, I loaded some more shot - now nearly 2 kg on board and total weight of the boat is 3.8 kg; exactly the nominal weight of the RL-boat divided by 32 to the power 3. Seems the hull shape is pretty good to drawing.

 

By the way - I was given the drawing set of this 1905 boat by Fred Huygen, who unfortunately passed away a couple of weeks ago. He built many per-war Model Dutch submarines including Cornelis Drebbel , a beautifull oar powered sub from the 1760s and O-13 - still on patrol, for which he built the model for a TV documentary about her disappearance off the Danish coast in 1941. Both my subs were inspired by Fred's work. Yesterday was a large submarine meeting in Cologne, and we missed him.

 

Back to the present. The pic below shows the wet testing of the boat to determine the volume of the dive-bag. The stern is lying in a container of water, and using the transmitter and some kitchen scales. I could determine the dive tank is only 120 ml. That's much less than the 300-400 I need to get the boat anywhere near the waterline when not submerged. I thus ordered some more of the tough plastic sheeting to try make a bigger one.

 

 

The shot is pretty much distributed to have the boat level under water (keeping a reserve bag of 250 gram shot in place of the dive tank - which I can reduce if I manage to make a bigger one. As seen in my bath, the boat lies a bit deep and not perfectly level. It's pretty stable though.

 

 

I took both my boats to the world famous submarine day in Cologne, unfortunately my K-XVIII refused to dive after a nice round on the surface - pump seems to have failed or developed a control glitch. And with so many large (5 foot or more), and FAST subs in the water I was not comfortable trying my small boat with its minute reserve buoyancy. Rather do some more bath work! However here were some of the visitors.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2014 by FreekS

[Piet]

Hoi Freek, so sorry to hear that Fred Huygen has passed away.  He was a great help to me with some detail issues.

 

Your 0 1 is looking great in the tub, hope your larger dive bag will fit.  Fantastic shots of the subs at your meet.

 

Cheers,

[FreekS]

Hello all,

 

I hereby cordially invite you the maiden voyage of hr ms O-1, to take place in a swimming pool in Zutendaal, Belgium this coming Sunday!

 

Over the past weeks I remade the divetank , so I now have a 300ml bag rather than the 120ml before. Spent significant time with the boat in the bath to balance it, and Im fairly happy with the result. Under water the boat seems to be level with the tank pumped full, and above the water, while it does not quite reach the painted waterline, the decks are nicely above the water. Subs always have 'variable' water lines anyway.

 

The pressure sensor inside the boat switches the pump off when the bag is full, and then the boat just dives. Trimming it with the pump leads to below nice image of a sub 'hanging on the periscope', that's what we aim for!

 

 

Freek

 

 

Edited September 17, 2014 by FreekS

[Piet]

Congratulations Freek, she looks stupendous!  What a great milestone and I'm sure that she'll perform well bot on the surface as under.  Am anxiously awaiting the videos and stills of the runs next week!

 

Cheers,

[ianmajor]

Freek,

 

Beautiful result. I wish I could be there for the launch. Instead I will have to wait for the videos that I am sure you will be taking of the event. I look forward to it.

[FreekS]

Well friends,

 

The maiden voyage of Hr ms O-1 went extremely well. The boat was pretty much perfectly trimmed in my bath and todaz was tested in the swimming pool in Zutendaal - beautifully clear water! I had a camera on a tripod under water, and one outside of the pool, and together these captured below 7 minute summary of a day worth of sailing.

Yes there were some other boats, but somehow I never saw those - and they 'surprisingly did not show up in pictures'. figure that!

 

I'm certainly happy with the boats performance, now I can get back to redoing the paint job and look for more details to include!

 

 

 

 

Freek (could not find how to embed a video!)

Edited September 21, 2014 by FreekS

[hexnut]

great model, amazing underwater video.

[mtaylor]

Amazing work on this, Freek.   I'm curious how the boats are controlled underwater since it doesn't look like there's antenna above the water.

[Piet]

Congratulations Freek with a successful shakedown cruise!  The video is awesome!

 

Cheers,

[Omega1234]

Hi Freek

 

Congratulations! I loved the shakedown cruise, especially the close up shots of the sub rising and submerging and also cruising along at periscope depth. They looked really cool. What I was also amazed at was the turn of speed and manoeuvrability; impressive.

 

So, when are you and Piet's O19 going out on patrol?

 

Strange, also, how none of the 'other models' in the water that day accidentally strayed into camera view...All I can say, is that if this were my sub, I'd do the same!

 

Seriously, well done!

 

All the best.

Edited September 22, 2014 by Omega1234

[ianmajor]

Freek,

 

Brilliant. I really enjoyed the video.

[amateur]

I guess you were pretty pleased with yourself yesterday

 

Jan.

[michael mott]

Very interesting, the video shots under water were great.

 

Michael

[FreekS]

Thanks for your kind words!

 

Yes I was very pleased with the boat and it's performance. The trim was perfect and the boat as stable as a rock!

 

Manoeuvrability also much better than expected, hull shape seems to make for a stable and fast boat.

 

Mark, good question on control. The key is a long wavelength transmitter, so the signal will penetrate water. My very old 40 MHz transmitter can penetrate clean water to maybe 5 meters. In US I believe 75 MHz is used. Most model plane people have moved to 2.4 GHz, which is a better frequency for high dat rate transmission, but being microwave won't penetrate water at all.

 

The antenna is inside the boat, under the wooden deck and I guess the wavelength that penetrates water does the same with water and plastic.

 

Freek

[mtaylor]

Thanks Freek.  I just find this RC submarine thing fascinating.

[FreekS]

After the "shakedown cruise", as Piet called it, some more details were added to the boat.

 

I redid the waterline, though still not as good as I want it.

Added supports for the deck, a forward guide bar for the anchor chain, cables on the mast and a flag in top.

Also copied one of Piets additions, the "pikhaak". Which was stored under the deck.

 

A flag was used by these boats on exercises so the "enemy" Could keep track of the subs movement and prevent collisions.

In the 1909 and 1910 Dutch Navy exercises the boat sank the armoured cruisers of the surface fleet!

 

 

the boat has now hads its second voyage, in de Vinkeveense plassen, nice and clear water in the centre of holland where this picture was taken. Again unfortunately the photographer did not capture the dozens of other models of Dutch Navy ships that were sailing around!

 

[Omega1234]

She looks really at home in the last photo; especially because she looks so realistic against the grey of the water. You must be very pleased.