building my diesel submarine at home

Hinzugefügt: 2026-06-06

[00:00:00]Hey submarine friends.

[00:00:02]Well, you can see the submarine is out of the water sitting in front of my shop. It's not in the shop because I can't do the stuff I want to do with my bird in here and I don't want to disrupt the bird. The chicks are doing great.

[00:00:16]They're feeding them like every 10 minutes.

[00:00:19]Hungry little buggers. Anyways, test results.

[00:00:24]So, what I found out is I had to add two more steel plates. So, they're added now. They're bolted and welded to the big plates.

[00:00:35]Uh they're not welded to the hull because this is temporary. I'm going to take these big plates off and I'm going to replace them with greater blades which are only this tall and they'll bolt right to the side of the keel and it'll be just cleaner and it'll look nicer.

[00:00:50]Same amount of weight. It'll just look better. So, I'll paint this. I'll paint the the steel plates that are there now just so it's not ugly. And I'm not going to paint the submarine cuz I have a feeling I'm going to want to make a couple of changes.

[00:01:05]Uh for instance, vertical thrusters. I'm going to need vertical thrusters and I think I want to put it right through the forward ballast tank, but I want to give it some more thought and I want to put the sub in White Swan Lake to try it out before I mess with that. Now, White Swan Lake is a beautiful lake.

[00:01:24]I'm I'm planning to launch it a week not next week but the following Wednesday.

[00:01:33]I have some things I have to take care of in the city, so I'm not available.

[00:01:36]But then I'm going to launch it. I'm going to leave it in the water.

[00:01:39]Might be in there for a month.

[00:01:42]Um maybe all summer, I don't know. So, anyways, I'm going to wait with painting it until it's really been tried out. So, I'll just touch it all up and just make it look decent. So, I don't know if you can see it, but I finished I did the body work around the shaft that holds the dive planes. So, that's done. And just going to touch up other stuff just so it looks good. So, test results.

[00:02:11]Holy cow, does this thing pull? I cannot when the submarine is engaged, like the propulsion is engaged, even at an idle, and I pull on the rope that's holding it, I cannot budge that thing with all my might.

[00:02:29]When I put it at operating throttle, I the rope is like tight. It's like It's almost like you could tightrope walk on it. It's just tight. I mean, it it surges a bit because the water is circulating in the pool, but it really pulls. So, the hydraulics are perfectly matched. I couldn't be happier. I mean, it took me three hydraulic pumps to figure it out, but and two motors, but it's working beautiful now. So, I'm totally happy with that.

[00:03:04]I made a guard a while back, an expanded metal guard that goes under the submarine, and I'll put that on as one of the many little things I have to do before I launch.

[00:03:17]Um another thing I have to do, I have to add a battery inside. I'm planning to go with lithium phosphate batteries eventually, but for now, I'm just going to use the lead-acid batteries. They're sealed batteries.

[00:03:33]Um it's money. Like, I've spent so much money. I don't want to spend another 2,000 bucks right now until I I know I like it and I'm happy with it and and if I actually need the lithium power. I probably do. But, let's just cool our jets here cuz I've been spending like a drunken sailor on this thing.

[00:03:53]Um I have to reinstall my scrubber and my O2 supply and all that, but I need to bolt my floor down because when I fill the vent the ballast bag, it lifts the floor because it, you know, it just finds the shape it likes. So, I have to bolt the floor down. Quick, easy job.

[00:04:14]I'll do that today. Then I have to paint the hatch, touch up paint some of this stuff, and install the scrubber. Oh, my bird is back. You can hear the chicks chirping away. You know they grow every day.

[00:04:29]So, what else do I have to do?

[00:04:32]Just little things. I have to install my my high-pressure air tanks. I have 14 of them.

[00:04:40]I bought one, and then the fire department called me and said, "Hey, do you want 13 uh certified filled tanks?" I said, "Sure."

[00:04:49]So, now I have all these tanks. So, I'm going to put two in the sub, one for emergency air for the ballast, and one for breathing in case I have smoke in the submarine, you know, electrical problem, fire, whatever. I need some I need to be able to breathe clean air. Also, if I have if the submarine is stuck on the bottom of the lake, it's entangled or something, I need to be able to ditch. So, I'm just going to hook up a scuba regulator to one of the tanks so that I can ditch from the submarine. I'm not a scuba diver or a swimmer or anything like that, but it's still good to have that backup.

[00:05:31]So, uh did I mention the weights are welded and bolted on?

[00:05:38]Will be painted. I'm going to replace those weights. So, I'm not going to fall in love with this. I want to replace them with greater blades cuz greater use greater blades that are worn down, they're about this tall. So, they will nicely go right against the keel, and I can just bolt them to the keel. Easy job. I just don't have the blades right now.

[00:06:02]Um I have to reinstall my lead weights up front.

[00:06:06]I carry 200 lb of lead weights.

[00:06:10]And I need them uh because when I put a passenger in the side of the submarine, I have two choices. I can take weights out of the submarine to compensate for the weight of the passenger, or I can use the variable ballast tank, but I want to dive with a full variable ballast tank instead of a half full Well, not quite half full. The ballast tank holds 350 lb. So, count on a 200 lb passenger. So, I would have 150 lb of water in the ballast bag.

[00:06:42]But, I want it to be full because if I'm tangled and I need a lot of lift to break free from an entanglement, um the easiest way to do that is to take that water out of the variable ballast tank, and I can do that at depth with the electric pump. So, I can pump the water out, and then I can use my holding tank air plus my emergency air to blow the ballast tanks.

[00:07:12]Um so, I can have like oh, 2,000 lb of lift.

[00:07:19]Especially if I carry some more of those air tanks. If I can find the room, I will I will carry as many of those air tanks as I can on board.

[00:07:29]But, I don't think I have the room for more than a couple without it becoming really awkward.

[00:07:34]And besides, that's pretty overkill.

[00:07:37]So, again, I I to launch in about a week and a half.

[00:07:43]As long as I get all these little projects done. You see the roof I put on it?

[00:07:47]I did that so that the forecast is rainy for the next week or two. So, this way I can have the hatch open and not worry about rain going inside the submarine.

[00:07:58]So, my wife helped me build that and we lifted it on with the crane cuz it was awkward. Plus, I have a crane sitting here. Why would I struggle with it when I've got a crane like 10 ft away [clears throat] from it? And the crane reaches 44 ft. So, anyways, that's how we did it. So, that's going to be it for now. So, ciao.