Personal Submarine Build

Nice update! I had forgotten about the sub!

Thanks. It's always amazing how much different stuff looks with some paint on it. If I ever get off the computer this morning maybe I can get some work done on it today.

I never seemed to forget about this project. I guess i'm just exited to see the final product even if its years down the road.

Yeah it may take awhile but who knows. I've been too busy to work on it. But I walk past the model all day at work so I didn't forget about it. I think I have most of it planned out in my head how I will build it. If I ever get a big enough space to do it. I need to just do a little more work on the model and I could finish it easy in a weekend. Then on to the next part.

Finally getting some more painting done. Working on a little at a time.


Exhaust painted

Just emailed three different companies that make custom pressure gauges and other gauges, to see if they would make a water pressure gauge showing depth in feet fresh water. I would like to have something similar the the depth gauge here with green, yellow, and red zones on the face. They can do custom labeling in the middle too, like a buisness name ect. So we'll see who gets back to me and if I can get a rough price for it. The gauge in this pic is the style found in WW2 german u-boats. This one is in meters of course. Salt and fresh water show slightly different pressures at different depths because of the difference in density of the water.

I guess i never thought of using pressure to measure depth. Pretty cool. One of the things on my bucket list is to visit one of those U boat museums. I think the closest one is in ohio.

The U-505 WW2 german submarine is in a fancy exhibit in chicago IL at the museum of science and industry. We captured it near africa in the atlantic in 1944. Also there are a good number of united states submarines here and there you can go visit. Not sure about the one in ohio. I think the uss silversides is in Michigan somewhere. They still run the diesels on that now and then. And the Torsk is in baltimore maryland. I was going down there to meet up with the volunteer group that works on it for awhile but haven't been down there for a bit now.

I think in fresh water, you multiply the depth in feet by .4545 to get the pressure at that depth. Or I may have it backwards somehow....anyway, it's something like that. So at 100' I think it's somewhere around 45 psi.

Alright, 2 out of 3 gauge companies got back to me and I ended up placing an order with kodiakcontrols.com. They make custom gauges. Temperature, pressure, flow gauges ect, for a variety of applications. So far they have been very friendly through email and got back to me very quickly. I was impressed that they got back to me quick and spent a decent amount of time finding out what I needed when I was only wanted one gauge and didn't have a big order. I didn't intend on actually purchasing a depth gauge at this point but...pretty much I thought it would be cool to have.

They make a custom face for the closest gauge to the specs you need. For example. I requested a 6" diameter gauge for depth in feet fresh water to around 300 feet. I could probably get a 6" diameter gauge somewhere, but the closest they had was 4". I decided that would be the smarter move as space inside the sub will be limited. 300' fresh water is equal to 130 psi. The closest range they had to that was 0-160 psi. And they said they could label it to 300' depth, but that would end up being at about the 3:00 position on the gauge instead of the end of the scale at 5:00 position. So I told them they might as well label it to the max on the gauge, so it will be labeled from 0-370 feet depth.

Also, I am having colored zones on the gauge to indicate safe, caution, and danger. Green from 0-100 feet. Yellow from 100-175 feet. And Red from 175-370 feet. They are going to make the gauge face on the computer and then send it to me for approval before actually printing it up. Pretty cool! On a side note, this may be one of the dumbest purchases I have made, getting a custom gauge made for a submarine I may never finish. But still, it's gonna look cool on my shelf till I get the thing built. Here is the spec sheet on the gauge (without the custom face yet of course) I will update with any further progress. I would think they should send me a picture to approve in a day or two.

They emailed me a picture of what the gauge would look like. The numbers and color zones look pretty nice. But instead of FT/H2O, I asked if they could label it as DEPTH FT. Should be good though.

I like it! Should look pretty cool on the gauge.

Thanks. The UPS....I was going to say guy but it wasn't. The UPS woman came today and brought me a box! Didn't think they would ship it out that fast.







Kodiak Controls Inc is who I got it from. They got back to me quick and we're pretty decent to deal with.

So next thing is to finish painting the model (which has been taking forever) and after that, start building the conduit skeleton full size mock up of the center section of the submarine. That way I can verify that I want to use the 500 gallon propane tanks and that everything will fit. Once the model is done, I will try to make a video explaining the basic idea and how I expect things to be setup.

Here's the website for the Euronaut submarine in Germany. It's a private submarine used for wreck diving ect. The site can be translated to english if you click on the british flag in the top left corner. There are pics from the build and some explanation of things. I believe it's currently the largest privately operated/built submarine in the world. Everything is nicely done and professional. They have refrigerated food storage and even a toilet. They say they can stay submerged for 7 days. Pretty cool.

http://euronaut.org/?fbclid=IwAR2d3JUhhgevpJoz-L0umDmZEtILNlhceYTtN0m3dBWETUf2oDnFUd6Tc88

WOW!!!!! That is just awesome, love the work and effort on research going into this one, hats off indeed.
I wish I never saw this in a way, my Dad always said don't encourage an idiot, hahahahaha and it doesn't take much to encourage this one.

Thanks. Not working too fast on this at the moment but hopefully someday I'll get it done.

Finally got most of the paint done on the 1/5th scale model a couple weeks ago. All that's left for that
is to paint the one remaining port hole black and also the black line to simulate where the hatch opens.
Zip tied some plastic gutter guard down to roughly simulate expanded steel. Next would be to start work on
the full scale skeleton mock up made of conduit which I made a couple of hoops for earlier. That probably won't
be right away though as I am thinking of building another tractor... But, at least the model won't rust too much
in the mean while. One of these days, I'll make a video explaining how the full size one will be made using the
model for reference.


Never did find a propeller that was the right size but that could be added anytime.

Neat old wagon in the background, sub matches it perfectly lol

Yeah It does look like a similar color in the pic. That thing will run about 20 minutes and then shut off, we haven't figured it out yet.

Vapor lock? Make sure none of the fuel lines are touching the exhaust.

If it’s fuel injected, look at the Cam and crank position sensors. The CPS went out on my impala and it drove me nuts. Once the engine would warm up it would stop working and would kill fuel and spark because of it.

I just clicked on the submarine in your signature block. OMG!! Any more progress on this baby?

I’ve been through the U-505, a very long time ago at the museum in Chicago. It was still sitting in the back yard then. It has a new home now, right?

Rumor has it that design work for the Baja Diesel Submarine still continues at Simplicity Racing & Shipbuilders HQ....

RichieRichOverdrive wrote:

Rumor has it that design work for the Baja Diesel Submarine still continues at Simplicity Racing & Shipbuilders HQ....

This is probably one of the stupidest and most dangerous builds I have seen on this forum, however it's really cool, I'd like to see what progress he's made so far wondering if he's even started the full scale one yet?