Here is a video clip of my Holland driving around and adjusting its ballast. Note how I can sink it, stop, and dive more and stop…and rise up and then stop. Then get neutral buoyancy and be on my way. This is a great example of my ballast system in action. However it takes a skilled practiced hand to use like this
So I made the new superscale propeller for the Kilo. As you may know, propeller technology is a very closely guarded secret. I only had a few photos to work with. I think this new propeller is a good representation of the 7 blade type used on the newer Kilo’s.
So below is the final product im highly satisfied with so far. A composite of brass, resin and fiber. Cast under high pressure and temperature. Forgiving like plastic, stiff like metal.
Real world testing will show… So far, I think it’s properties are fantastic, but We’ll see 
This is the prototype model prop {left} real sub is on right
Composite metal prop
Installed on new sub
The Kilo propulsion system is under evolution as well. My goal is to reduce parts count to the minimum in the driveline. This not only saves both me (manufacturer) and you money, but yields a way more smooth and quiet drive system. With my pull out rear hull design, there is no need to have universal joints, couplings etc. So why not a common shaft.
Shaft,bearing and belt drive are directly integrated onto rear bulkhead
The other end holds the cutlass bearing and prop
This new system will be installed in the latest Kilo’s
I have been making updates and improvements to the Kilo submarine. When the original Kilo was built, I also prototyped retracting diveplane and periscope systems. These systems were never fully finished until now. The system is hydraulic, and works exactly the same as the ballast system, but uses hydraulic “rams” for the periscopes and diveplanes. I really like how you can control the speed of the retraction/extension, to give that super scale look. These two components will be add on extras, and come full built and ready to install. Due to the trick nature of building these, I will not be offering them in kit form.
The Kilo retractable diveplane system
The periscope system, with masts extended
The periscope system and diveplane system
Click on picture to enter the Holland gallery!
My latest submarine model is of the very first submarine the Royal Navy owned and operated. It was designed by John P Holland, and built by Vickers in the UK in 1900. It is really advanced for its time! Mr Holland had all the ideas about how a military sub should work. He can easily be considered the father of the modern military submarines in operation today.
My model of this benchmark submarine was built in 1/32 scale and is about 25″ long. It uses all my signature sub features, like extremely detailed GRP hull with all rivets and hatch details, the pull-out rear hull with the WTC attached and the floating piston ballast system.
It is a pure joy to operate! the reason being that it has extreme maneuverability due to the diveplanes and rudder being located in back of the propeller.Along with my precise ballast system, this makes this sub a really fun machine to drive in even in a small pool!
Well here it is, doing its thing and doing it very well! I must thank Mr Al Gebhard for commissioning this model from me, as I had the opportunity to learn so much about early submarine design from this project.
Click on picture to view a Kilo photo gallery
This is one of my latest production submarines, and is the culmination of my submarine building and operation experience up to now. Here are the specifications:
This is my first modern type submarine model kit. It uses all the features of my previous subs, and has some new ones also. It uses a 3″ diameter lexan tube for the pressure hull, and uses 2-2″ diameter floating piston ballast tanks, one forward and one aft. This makes it so you can exactly trim the boat underwater to the desired attitude, and works extremely well. This system is essentially the same as used in the Seehund Only larger, and with 2 ballast pumps and tanks.
Like with all my other submarines, the rear part of the hull pulls out with the WTC tube attached for really easy maintenance, and no ugly hull seams to ruin the appearance.
New Kilo superscale propeller
The Kilo, with the top hull removed showing 3" WTC
Extreme surface details molded into the fiberglass hull
The twin floating piston ballast tanks
How the Kilo dives, surfaces and trims
As with all the other models seen here, I manufacture these either in kit form, or completely ready to run. Please check out the Kilo page on my website, and the testing video on Youtube
The Marder was a unique vehicle made by the Germans in WWII. Basically they took a standard G-7e electric torpedo, removed the warhead, added an extra section for the pilot in it’s place, and a small forward ballast tank to assist diving. The pilot peered out a distinct plastic bubble on the top hatch. A standard working G-7 torpedo was then slung underneath for the actual weapon. since a torpedo is really a miniature submarine in its own right, this was fairly easy to convert it for manned use.
The theory was that the pilot would lin up his Marder with an enemy ship, and let the bottom torpedo go. He was then free to escape the scene and turn back to base for a reload. Now thats the theory, in reality however was a different story. The marder came from the first icarnation, called the Neger. The Neger unlike the Marder, could not dive and had to run on the surface with the bubble sticking out. As you could imagine this is not a very desirable feature for a submarine sneaking up on ships. The difference between the the is the Marder has a small ballast tank in the nose, and has pitch controls for underwater use and is a true submarine.
My model of the Marder “manned torpedo” came from my desire to have a very small “desktop” submarine with real larger sub performance. Since I already had the tooling to make 1/22 scale torpedo’s for the Sehund. This was a fairly easy project, actually very similar to how the Germans did it considering I was retrofitting an existing torpedo. The main hurdle was to find servos small enough to fit it’s tiny 1″ diameter body tube. I finally found some super micro 2.5 gram servos that would fit and the project was underway. A Castle Berg micro receiver sits in the forward part of the tube in front of the servos which are soldered directly to the receiver for space saving, and a Mabuchi 130 motor powers the sub. Batteries are contained in the lower torpedo tube, along with some ballast weight
The Marder is one of my favorite submarines I have produced. It’s very small, and people have a hard time believing that it actually works when they see it sitting there. And work well it does, It’s a fantastic performing little submarine!
The guts of the Marder
The marder doing it's thing in the test tank
Shortly after I built the large 79″ 1/22 scale type II, lugging it’s huge and heavyness around convinced me that it would be great to have a small sub, but with real submarine performance, like a real ballast system. The logical choice at the time was why not make a “midget” submarine. So to match my WWII sub motif, I looked at what the Germans built in WWII to match the typeII. I settled on the Seehund because it looked good, and was in general an interesting design with a lot of cutting edge features for the time.
So I set to work on this midget. Since I wanted it to be very close to 1/22 scale, the same as the previous type II, I started with searching for a tube the correct diameter to start out with that would make it the right “beam” or hull width. Luckily enough I found that a 2″ ABS plumbing pipe was the exact beam I needed. So it was a matter of making the bow and stern and the keel. A lot of work, Bondo filler and sanding, sanding, filling and more sanding turned this scrap piece of pipe into a master for a midget submarine hull.
I went through several incarnations of the design for the”WTC” or the guts of this little sub. One challenge of designing models is the need for complete access to all it’s vital working parts. A small model, coupled with the owners relatively LARGE fingers didtates the need to make access open and easy. I finally settled on the design I use now in all my submarines. The rear part of the hull slides out from the front, you remove the clear WTC tube and you have access to everything. Also you dont ever have to mess with the propeller driveshaft, and rudder/diveplane pushrods to gain access.
Here is the Seehund. The performance of this little sub is amazing, partly due to the “Kort” nozzle or rudder that is around the propeller. This thing is like driving and R/C fish, turns very tight and is generally a ton of fun to play with.
An interesting note is that the prototype of this is the only sub I have lost to date. The prototype had a strange ballast arrangment, well lets just say it never surfaced again and is in the bottom of a deep crater like pit. Lesson learned.
The first Type II hull built by me in action
This is the first working submarine I built. It’s a German U-boat type II that were used pre-WWII mostly, and is a small coastal type submarine. This specific model was built by me is 79″ long, and weighs 70 lbs.
Being my first submarine, I made a ton of mistakes and learned what works underwater and what does not. The plug or master for this model was made with foam and plywood bulkheads. The inspiration to build this sub came from the then excellent video game sim Silent Hunter.
Basically the hull from the sub was made from fiberglass, and the actual watertight part, called a “WTC” or Water Tight Cylinder” was from a large tube I had lying around. This being my first was what you would call a “Junkyard Wars sub” meaning that I used anything and everything I could find that would work for the purpose. Paint cans for ballast tanks, pieces of copper tube, plywood and all sorts of scrap was used. talk about learning! I had servos in the water sealed with tool-dip, old antenna motors from a BMW for the drive motors and just all sorts of junk in there.
I stuck with it after MANY problems, failures and breakdowns and finally got it running and under control. I think I had every possible problem you could have with a sub in this model. I took it apart and put it together so many times that I actually wore the screws out. but I persevered and got it to the point where it would work reliably.
A lot of progress in my submarine building has past between this and my latest model submarine kit, My 1/72 scale Kilo SSK
The latest T.rex
Well I figured I might as well start with my first model I actually built to sell. This is my 1/12 Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur skeleton model. The actual inspiration to build this model came from reading Michael Chrichton’s book Jurassic Park Back in 1998. I have always been fascinated with dino’s and that book put me over the top. I thought that a scale model of a T.rex skeleton would be a fantastic display piece. However after searching endlessly on the net then there was nothing available like that
So I started collecting all the images and drawings of T.rex skeletons I could find. At the time I lived near UC Berkeley, and I found out that they had a full size T.rex casting in the lobby of the paleontology department. After several trips there I had enough documentation to start on the T.rex model. Having never really t something before at the time, I was suprised how naturally it came to me. I started at the feet and worked up. While in the process I learned a huge amount of how their {and our} skeletons actually work.
Most parts of the original model, called a “master” were made from regular pottery type clay. This clay with it’s sand content allowed me to “distress” some areas of the bones to really give that fossil rock look, it even yould crack some adding to the appearance. The downfall of using it was that some parts were super brittle. While in the process of this undertaking, I soon thought how much a waste it would be not to be able to make more of these models. I was pretty sure that there were some other people who would like one too.
After I completed the sculpting, I then made molds from silicone. This was another first to me and there were a lot of tricks to be learned. After using 15 gallons of this stuff {at $100 a gallon} I had a complete set of molds for the T.rex. The rest like the dinosaur, is history. I have sold about 100 of these skeleton models over the years. The model has gone through some revisions over the years to increase detail and accuracy.
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