Rev. U.S. Willmanarth of the Science Pirate Syndicate built this novel submarine about 1880~81. This is it's earliest incarnation - it
was rebuilt in 1889 to add a pair of 14 inch torpedo tubes to the nose. Its peculiar structure was derived from the Reverend's
intimate knowledge of the seafloor. ( He's part Deep One on his mother's side ). The massive jaw, shown here about to chomp
down on the Transatlantic Cable, was originally constructed to dredge methane clathrates from the sea bed, process and compress
the gas internally, and project it out of the 'snout' on the bow, typically in the path of an oncoming merchant ship, which would
then drop like a stone into rising froth. The Reverend's crew of largely amphibious Innsmouthers would then swim out and loot
the sunken wreck. After a couple of harrowing near-misses when "
Bubbles" * was nearly crushed under a descending victim,
the boat was used to tap or cut the increasing number of telegraph cables littering the Ocean floor.
This has been nearly complete for several months - I just had to finish off the base, and give the whole a spray coat of Alclad
'burnt metal', which looks like a tolerable shade of brass to my eye. The bulk of the hull is the inverted fuselage of a 1/48 scale
Revell AH -64, with the bow snout coming from a 1/1000 scale Starship Enterprise ( the engineering hull, I think they call it. )
The base is from the 1/20 Seaquest DSV 'Stinger' kit, with kelp fronds sculpted from Aves epoxy putty, to disguise the doubled
curve of heavy copper wire ( pounded fairly flat on the garage floor ) that supports the build.
I'm calling it 1/72, more or less :)