637 Class (Stretch) 3D Printed Submarine in 1/72 Scale

[Phoscar]

Merci beaucoup pour toutes ces informations.

 

[qakeith]

Beautiful job. I just printed a 1/72 scale Los Angeles. Your keel blocks are perfect. I would love to do that vs. a cradle as in real life they are dry docked on blocks. Are those files available anywhere? Again, beautiful work.

 

[X Bubble Head]

Thank you!

As for making files available, I receive this question frequently. The short answer is, not at this time. The hulls I build are my own design and are not available anywhere, based on my submarine experience, sources of research information, and twenty years of professional modeling.

It will be several years before I make the sliced files, (not the original STLs which are my IP) available for those with 3D printers. I've seen too many instances of piracy, so it isn't going to happen. I'm neck-deep in designing the rest of the (many) Cold War nuclear submarine classes, which take an inordinate amount of time to research before the design phase even begins to ensure the highest level of accuracy possible. The designs take on average, six months to go from concept to a finished display model before I lock the design down and proceed to the next.

Keel blocks are easy to create using any basic modeling program. They are ideal for 1/72 scale, but not worth the effort for my regular print scale of 1/144 which is easier for the submariners I gift them to place on mantles and shelves at home. I hide the fasteners inside a pair of pedestals with threaded inserts inside the hull - just like the 1/72 models, only those fasteners are hidden inside a pair of hollowed-out center keel blocks.

If you purchased your 688 STLs from RCSubs, then you bought the best! Oto is a stickler for detail and the SHTs on the exterior were added after my urging to take his fine models to the next level. Everything he sells is designed for resin printing maximizing ease of production, (minimal sanding) and highly accurate small details. He protects his files by leaving lots of through-holes in the hulls with the PE brass he supplies to cover them with each order.

I'm humbled you would ask and again, thanks for your interest!

CC

 

[Roger Pellett]

Do to sell your models? I might be interested in a 637 Class SSN.

Roger

 

[X Bubble Head]

Hi Roger!

If you mean model files, please read the above post.

If you're asking if I build custom models for sale, I don't for two reasons.

1) Custom work takes away from the time I spend designing and test-printing new hulls. The price for custom models would be prohibitive for all but the most wealthy buyers out there. Submarine model-builder companies offer "museum-quality" (a term very loosely used) models constructed from mahogany with minimal detail for between $85-$100 an inch, depending on scale. Throw in an acrylic cover and other upgrades and the price goes up. At 1/72 scale, the price is even higher.

Sturgeon Class Submarine Models

The 37 boats of the Sturgeon-class (also known as the 637-class) are a class of nuclear-powered fast attack submarines (SSN) in service from the 1960s until 2004. As SSNs, Sturgeon-class submarines were designed to primarily perform anti-submarine warfare operations. Seven different primary...

sdmodelmakers.com

$1195 for a 12" hull

This company is cheaper:

USS Pogy SSN-647 Submarine Model, US Navy, Scale Model, Mahogany, Sturgeon Class

Sail again with the crew of the USS Pogy SSN-647 in this handcrafted wooden submarine model. Each piece is carved from wood and handpainted to provide a piece you’ll love.

squadronnostalgia.com

Hope this helps!

 

[Roger Pellett]

Thanks. I was asking about a completed model.

 

[qakeith]

Thank you!

As for making files available, I receive this question frequently. The short answer is, not at this time. The hulls I build are my own design and are not available anywhere, based on my submarine experience, sources of research information, and twenty years of professional modeling.

It will be several years before I make the sliced files, (not the original STLs which are my IP) available for those with 3D printers. I've seen too many instances of piracy, so it isn't going to happen. I'm neck-deep in designing the rest of the (many) Cold War nuclear submarine classes, which take an inordinate amount of time to research before the design phase even begins to ensure the highest level of accuracy possible. The designs take on average, six months to go from concept to a finished display model before I lock the design down and proceed to the next.

Keel blocks are easy to create using any basic modeling program. They are ideal for 1/72 scale, but not worth the effort for my regular print scale of 1/144 which is easier for the submariners I gift them to place on mantles and shelves at home. I hide the fasteners inside a pair of pedestals with threaded inserts inside the hull - just like the 1/72 models, only those fasteners are hidden inside a pair of hollowed-out center keel blocks.

If you purchased your 688 STLs from RCSubs, then you bought the best! Oto is a stickler for detail and the SHTs on the exterior were added after my urging to take his fine models to the next level. Everything he sells is designed for resin printing maximizing ease of production, (minimal sanding) and highly accurate small details. He protects his files by leaving lots of through-holes in the hulls with the PE brass he supplies to cover them with each order.

I'm humbled you would ask and again, thanks for your interest!

CC

Yes, I got the 688 stl's from RCSubs. The print came out flawless, can't wait to start assembly and painting. I will try to figure out something for the keel blocks, I have no 3D programming skill, but I'll get there somehow. Thanks for the reply.

 

[qakeith]

Thank you!

As for making files available, I receive this question frequently. The short answer is, not at this time. The hulls I build are my own design and are not available anywhere, based on my submarine experience, sources of research information, and twenty years of professional modeling.

It will be several years before I make the sliced files, (not the original STLs which are my IP) available for those with 3D printers. I've seen too many instances of piracy, so it isn't going to happen. I'm neck-deep in designing the rest of the (many) Cold War nuclear submarine classes, which take an inordinate amount of time to research before the design phase even begins to ensure the highest level of accuracy possible. The designs take on average, six months to go from concept to a finished display model before I lock the design down and proceed to the next.

Keel blocks are easy to create using any basic modeling program. They are ideal for 1/72 scale, but not worth the effort for my regular print scale of 1/144 which is easier for the submariners I gift them to place on mantles and shelves at home. I hide the fasteners inside a pair of pedestals with threaded inserts inside the hull - just like the 1/72 models, only those fasteners are hidden inside a pair of hollowed-out center keel blocks.

If you purchased your 688 STLs from RCSubs, then you bought the best! Oto is a stickler for detail and the SHTs on the exterior were added after my urging to take his fine models to the next level. Everything he sells is designed for resin printing maximizing ease of production, (minimal sanding) and highly accurate small details. He protects his files by leaving lots of through-holes in the hulls with the PE brass he supplies to cover them with each order.

I'm humbled you would ask and again, thanks for your interest!

CC

I originally said that I did get the stl files from RCSubs, I did not, I got them from the Nautilus Drydocks. I had never heard of the RCSubs website/company.

 

[Kurt Konrath]

From a non-bubblehead, what is the long tube on the port side going aft for?

My only sub experience was visiting the old WWII sub USS DRUM (SS-228) at Battleship Alabama Museum when I was on vacation. Got to see the up close and personal bunking with a fish in the forward torpedo rooms of the old subs.

 

[X Bubble Head]

From a non-bubblehead, what is the long tube on the port side going aft for?

My only sub experience was visiting the old WWII sub USS DRUM (SS-228) at Battleship Alabama Museum when I was on vacation. Got to see the up close and personal bunking with a fish in the forward torpedo rooms of the old subs.

That's called a towed array stowage tube. A very long tow cable is stowed inside the ship on a reel, (called a cable storage drum/level wind unit) and the several hundred foot array lives in the stowage tube when not deployed. To deploy the array, flushing water is used to push the array out until drag does the rest. Payout speed is controlled from Cable Drive unit located just below the seals designed to keep seawater out of the "people tank" and is powered by #3000 hydraulics along with stowage drum. To retrieve the array, the CDU and stowage drum reels everything in until the counter that measures feet returns to zero. Deployment and retrieval operations are monitored and operated via the Control Indicator. This shot is from a shore-based training facility.

Unlike Fast Attacks, Trident submarines carry two complete towed array systems. When equipped with a smaller diameter array, called the "Thinline" towed array which is much longer than the usual TB-16 "Fatline" array, it is stowed outboard on a much larger Cable Drive Unit, shown in the second OK-542 photo. The inboard cable equipment for the thinline is nearly identical. I went to the depot-level repair school for both handling systems (OK-276/OK-542) and lead the installation of the new thinline system on the first three Tridents we serviced at Bangor. EB built the rest into the subsequent boats after Georgia (SSBN-729).

True story: A visiting fast attack submitted a work request to us for a leaky seawater seal above their cable drive unit. Being a SUBSAFE boundary, there was a butt-ton of QA paperwork involved. Every SUBSAFE job goes into the "Book of Life" at NAVSEA forever.

I had the lead on this job as well. Once the array and tow cable were offloaded onto our TA Barge, (which was moored behind the stern) I had the shipfitter shop drop the valve stack and re-work the seals in their shop. Once the valve stack was replaced, the tow cable and array were on-loaded. The ship went out for a one-day sea trials and the crew reported it leaked worse than before! We prided ourselves as being the best submarine repair facility in the fleet, so this was not only embarrassing, but now had high-level visibility.

We repeated the whole offload sequence and the valve stack went back to the shop. It turned out the valve body had been machined to the wrong measurements when the ship was built at Newport . Being a SUBSAFE component, the valve stack had multiple signatures when it was originally built attesting that it was machined as per the design drawings. We documented the discrepancy put everything back in order, and the ship conducted another sea trials.

The CO reported not so much as a drop came through and gave us on the job formal Letters of Commendation since it had leaked since the boat was built. The discrepancy was reported to NAVSEA as required, and life continued.

About a month later, I received a phone call from the Submarine Force QA Boss and he said they tracked down everyone that signed off on the original SUBASE paperwork and fired them. Can you imagine getting canned a decade after doing a job you thought was okay? That's how serious the submarine force takes SUBSAFE QA and was a forceful reminder to never sign anything without eye-balling it yourself.


Hope that helps answer your question!

CC


The inboard handling system



The outboard stowage, cable drive unit for the Thinline array. The grooves match the array diameter.




Detail of the Inboard Cable Drive Unit and Cable Stowage drum. Note the "sandpaper" traction strips to grip the cable. The big handle on the right side is the brake. It is set to the off position which basically freewheels the drum when deploying the array under water tension or loading a new cable in port.

 

[X Bubble Head]

I originally said that I did get the stl files from RCSubs, I did not, I got them from the Nautilus Drydocks. I had never heard of the RCSubs website/company.

If you haven't checked out Oto's site you'll see there's no comparison in the level of detail, but that's the difference between a $50 STL and one that can cost three times more. In this case, you certainly get what you pay for! Oto also sells resin kits of his creations too. Highly recommended!

 

[X Bubble Head]

Yes, I got the 688 stl's from RCSubs. The print came out flawless, can't wait to start assembly and painting. I will try to figure out something for the keel blocks, I have no 3D programming skill, but I'll get there somehow. Thanks for the reply.

Keel blocks are really simple shapes that can be easily made from a rectangle with two bevels to separate the concrete base from the wooden top that contacts the hull. I highly recommend trying out any one of the free CAD programs available and using that as a first project. I typically model the identical blocks on one side, then create a symmetrical "hull" that matches the diameter of the dimensions of the printed file, then use the hull as a cutting tool to subtract the portion of the keel blocks that contact the hull for that perfect matching curvature (usually called a Boolean Subtract operation, common to all modeling programs.) once that's done, I mirror the port and starboard sides.

The center keel blocks are created the same way, but are again, shaped by the centerline curvature of the hull that acts as a cutting tool to shape their tops. Using a text stencil, I create 3D numbers and use them as "cutting tools" to indent and identify the bottoms of each block in sequential order since they're customized for their relative location referenced to the hull. "S-24" for example means the 24th block on the starboard side.

With all of the blocks in their respective locations referenced against this simple hull shape, I print the computer's screen and annotate their measured positions from each other on paper. When the drawing is done, I lay painters tape on the length of the model's base with each block's position marked. At that point, the painted and numbered blocks are placed next to the reference marks and bonded in place. The only keel blocks that differ are the two centerline blocks which are hollow at the positions I want to place fasteners to secure the model to the blocks where my two through-holes are drilled in the base.

Prior to placing the hull on the blocks, I bond thin foam pads to the tops of each block that compress when the mounting fasteners are tightened. These are designed to protect the paint, since the hull will likely be removed multiple times during final assembly.



My first keel block attempt several years ago on a 1/72 USS Nautilus model I presented at the annual National SubVets Convention in nearby Tucson as a centerpiece during th efinal night's awards presentation. I was shocked when offered $5k for it, but declined since it was a prototype. (I'm not in this for the money.) I received many compliments but the ones that meant the most were from former Nautilus crewman. When I asked, "How can I make this better?" They said I knocked it out of the park, which was very humbling and provided the incentive to build boats full-time during retirement. The operable bow planes used are custom-made from soldered brass components.

The two hollow centerline blocks had an "X" cut made to allow the 9mm fasteners to pass through while being lightly held in place during final assembly.


Parche's Keel Block Placement Drawing


Numbered Keel Block Location w/Painter's Tape.


Parche Keel Blocks Bonded - Identical arrangement for any 637-class hull


Boat on the blocks


Painted Blocks Drying - Much better than the previous Nautilus build.


All 90 blocks ready for installation.

If you really want to continue 3D printing submarines to a more realistic level of detail, I highly encourage you to try your hand at even simple 3D modeling of basic shapes which frees your creativity to take anyone else's 3D models to the next level. It's fun and easy once you play around with the software a little.

I specifically made it an eventual goal when I began my 3D modeling journey to build submarines for my company's presentations.







Years later, -once 3D printing became a thing, I jumped on that to create physical models.

Like anything else worth learning, you have to invest the focused time to succeed. Despite what you may see online proclaiming the ease of creating AI-generated 3D models from photographs, there's no substitute for the satisfaction of making your own and being able to edit them when you learn more about the process. I used to teach 3D modeling and could take a student from zero knowledge to being able to make simple 3D models from drawings in five days. Excitement creates momentum and for those who got into it and put in the required practice impressed me the most when I taught an advanced five-day course for them a year later.

There's no Staples "Easy Button" to learning 3D modeling, but it isn't that hard to create simple, 3D-printed shapes like keel blocks using a rectangular or square shape. Keel block modeling can be learned in a night or two of practice. It really is that easy!

Blender, EasyCAD, and many others are free programs with many tutorials available online to get you launched.

CC