Mike's Desk Top Projects

My desk and workbench.  I always have at least a small rubber mat on hand to minimize cuts, scrapes, and glue getting onto the desktop.  After 30 years it has not been completely successful.  This was my old desk when I was a patrol supervisor for Westec Security.  When the company remodeled the building they let us have the old furniture.  It saved them the trouble of disposing of it.

My little resin trucks are now in fire engine mode.  Years ago I got some cheap trucks at Dollar Tree and now I use their rear ends for these trucks.

Fuel truck and submarine.

Hot wheels van getting a new interior, the white and blue thing, the submarine and fire trucks and if you look carefully you can see one of the pick up trucks has had the glitter and Christmas tree removed!  That's a Johnny Lightening Lost in Space Chariot behind the sail of the sub.

Actually, it's just the glass dome part of the Chariot.  You can see another one of the vans waiting for an interior swap out in the lower right corner.  The submarine will be repainted, and decalled.  It has wheels underneath and I intend to use it as one for undersea exploration, sabotage, espionage, and commando raids.

I decant spray paint into these pancake syrup bottles to use for touch up.  This is the fire truck color.  By spray painting the spray paint into a bottle it allows me the perfect color match for small touch ups.  I get the bottles when I go to a local restaurant and dispose of them rather than try to clean them after use.
 

Spy Submarine

Getting ready to paint an Adventure Team submarine.

Primer painting first.  I got this sub and several others at a dollar store 20 years ago.  My intention was it us it for Disneyland.  Since I got more than I needed for that project this one got surplussed.

Since the sub model is probably 1/600 scale I needed to convert it to a 1/72nd scale model and so I added two hatches on the rear deck.  They are left overs from Paul Heiser Sherman tanks.  I think they make great submarine hatches.

The intention is to primer it with white primer, then paint it yellow, and then gloss coat it and add Adventure Team decals.

Here are some Strelets US Navy figures.  My plan is the submarine will be one of those that is use for clandestine operations, and has wheels on the bottom so they can wire tap undersea cables, or cut or repair them.

It's also large enough to drop off a few Adventure Team members to perform commando and spy operations.

Not a bad investment for a dollar.

After these photo were taken I sprayed on the yellow and it crinkled.  So now I am stripping off paint and trying again.  Stay tuned.  I suspect the primer was not fully dry the humidity or temperature were not optimum for spray painting.
 

Sharks and Stuff

Here is a Caesar Miniatures figure in 1/72nd scale that I consider to be James Bond.  I use him for scale with many models.  As you can see the green submersible is very small, only a few occupants would be likely.

All of the vessels in this set are pretty little but I don't like to waste storage space on vehicles that while interesting and useful don't have a whole lot of uses.

Imagine seated figures in this vessel, like most of these probably 2 to as many as 6 is about all you are going to get.

But for underwater and on water salvage, sabotage, espionage, patrolling, exploration and the like that's plenty in most cases.

Even this one is small.

In addition to the small shark in the truck you also get four other sharks.

The blue one is a sawfish which is a type of ray rather than shark.

They size well with 1/72nd scale.

The set includes this traffic light sign post.

An odd choice I think.

Three of these projectiles can be fired from the large shark shaped submarine but they fly about six inches.  Not very exciting.

 These large screws are part of the packaging but I think they are interesting enough to save.  I am not sure why, but I know they will be used for something, eventually, probably.

Red and Yellow

This submersible looks to be built for speed.

Big fins to slice through the water and a pointy nose.

Large fin behind the conning tower and powerful screw?

Or since there is no visible engine perhaps it's some kind of aqua jet?

Vertical thrusters also.

 Flat bottom with wheels.  I think a high speed reconnaissance mini-submarine.

Red

The red submersible

This is more of a working and salvage vessel.

It has a big saw on one side of the hull and a big claw on the other.

Single large screw on the rear.  Lots of portholes on the sides.

Big flat workspace on the deck to haul equipment down.

Wheels underneath for bottom work.
 

Blue

This submersible is similar to the green one.

The main difference is the propulsion. 

It has a more streamlined propeller system.

With side by side screws.

That should make it faster and perhaps able to turn around in a shorter radius.

Perfect for quick SEAL team insertion.
 

Submarine

Several times I saw this toy at Wal-Mart.  It is a kind of car carrier for die cast cars.

These vehicles and sharks all came with the set.

This is one of the submersibles.  These are about the size of a typical Hot Wheels car.

But these are all plastic, simple, and durable.
 

Sub and Manta Ray

During the Cold War and probably now, there were submersibles that were intended to fall to the sea floor and drive around usually on tracks.

They were designed to be able to do work on the sea floor, usually tapping into undersea communication cables or cutting them in time of war.

This is the Hot Wheels Yellow Submarine from the Beatles movie of the same name.

Once repainted I think it will work as an interesting mini-submarine.

At the same time I got this giant manta ray.  As a kid I remember seeing them jumping in the Pacific Ocean off of Rainbow Pier in Long Beach, CA. 

These massive creatures would jump fully out of the water it was an amazing spectacle. 

 Here with a submarine.