| It reminds me of an obsession I had when I was young (maybe 12 or 13) where I kept iterating on a design for a mini-sub I had hoped to build. I must have checked out books on the history of the submarine about that time and became obsessed with the simplicity of the original Turtle submarine — operated with hand screws (propellers). Likely too I saw a homemade sub or scuba tow on the odd Popular Mechanics cover.... I had read enough to incorporate a lead ballast that could be released from inside the sub. I imagined props and motors based around those electric trolling motors you can get for a small fishing boat. I therefore incorporated a car battery into the design. Front and rear ballast tanks allowed me to control the pitch trim. I imagined a small electric automotive tire pump would suffice to force the water out of the ballast tanks. I obsessed over a mechanism to allow each trolling motor to be gimbaled from a pair of joysticks in the sub. I built mechanical models with paper drinking straws and toilet paper rolls to test the mechanics. I played with different seating configurations to minimize the size of the sub but keep it "operatable". It was a weird and impossible fantasy that never had a chance of moving beyond the drawing board stage. You know, especially for a kid with a single mother who was a secretary. But perhaps there was some intellectual and creative stimulation that I was feeding off at the time that made the effort worth it. Thinking about it now though, how obsessive I was, it might also have spoke to a boredom, isolation and maybe sadness I felt at the time. The sub might have been an escape for me. To see someone build a sub for real is kind of cool. But it also makes clear how likely my design would have just collapsed right away at about 10 feet depth. I mean, I planned on using plywood for the hull, ha ha. |
There were two big hurdles for a kid: acquisition of a side-shaft motor (lawn mower engines' shafts were vertical, so no dice) and acquisition of a clutch. I couldn't afford either of those. Nor could I weld.
My friend and neighbor, as it turns out, inexplicably had a snow-blower engine in his garage. Horizontal shaft, perfect! But I still couldn't get a clutch.
So I decided who needs to start or stop in a sane manner? I'd simply attach a bicycle wheel directly to the shaft of the engine, and use lawn-mower wheels for the other three.
Then I set about to build the frame, by hacksawing an old angle-iron bed frame apart and bolting it into a rectangle. I managed to cut the metal, but drilling holes in it for bolts proved to be essentially impossible.
So I built a crude platform out of wood and attached the wheels to it. The front wheels were bolted onto the ends of a board that I could pivot with my feet. Then I bolted the engine onto the back, with wood shims to make the bicycle wheel meet the ground at the same height as the three other wheels.
There were no brakes and no way to totally stop the engine. I propped the back up on some bricks and went to start it... and the pull-start mechanism broke. Probably saved me from serious injury or worse.
And that was that.