# Seaview Blueprints



## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Okay, I'm replacing my old Seaview drawings with a larger scale set with some updates. See post #51 for an explaination of these, along with the last two attachments. Here goes:


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

A few more new drawings:


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## X15-A2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Interesting, you would appear to have a very early version of the bow contours, sans dive planes. I have the set which was drawn later to show the revised bow contours for the Flying Sub version, which include the dive planes. Does anyone have sheets from Fox which show the stern fins? They are only sketched on the sheets I have.

I fully intend to retrace these and make a presentation set of model building plans for publishing on my web site (cloudster.com) so don't worry, those of you who have been waiting for this. My next drawing project will be the 2001 Moonbus and then the Seaview.

starseeker, thanks for posting those drawings!


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## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

Where is the 18' version? Doesn't it still exist?
How about some old fashioned pictures to help document the old gal?


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## X15-A2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Last I heard, it ended up in the "Planet Hollywood" in Chicago.


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## RogueJ (Oct 29, 2000)

Very interesting. I was recently watching the DVD set and was wondering about the plans that appear in the background (most notably in the "Ghost of Moby Dick" episode). I would be very interested in seeing how the production team layout the interior of the Seaview on those plans.

Rogue


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## Carson Dyle (May 7, 2003)

Chuck_P.R. said:


> Where is the 18' version? Doesn't it still exist?


It's in Paul Allen's science fiction museum in Seattle.


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Yes, it's dated 10/27/60. My revised bow is based on the pictures in every magazine article I ever came across, screen captures and more recently on the many, many pictures of both the Seaview and the severed nose that have been posted on the 'net. Given the wealth of material out there, it's very easy now to determine the near exact contours of the manta fins. The flying sub berth bulge (what???) isn't difficult to contour, either, as it's roughly square and has to fit nicely into the outline of the manta without ruining the Seaview's shape. It's actually easy to model w/o having the contours. In fact, that's how they made the Seaview. It started probably as one of the 2' Seaviews. Once the plaster minature got Allen's approval, it would have been sliced up like a loaf of bread for the art department, which would have enlarged the slices for the model makers. The model makers would have made changes, too, which is why I'm not worried about model blueprints being exactly exact. Because even if they are, they still won't match the finished minatures exactly.
Note the opening credits in the whale that swallows the bell story. I believe the same shot is part of the Season 1 credits, of the 18' Seaview on the surface. Count the missle hatches. I believe there are 20 instead of 16. (By the way, on the 4', the missle hatches were centered 10.0' from each other.) I believe there were at least 3 Seaview filming minatures with probably significant differences between each other. 
Damn, I forgot about the stern fins. At the point I made these drawings, a good 8 or 10 years ago, I was going to make them into a nice complete all-angle view for display, something you might see in Nelson's cabin. Then I scribbled on them a bit as I was modelling, then I got lazy and just used the photocopy reductions to make parts, and then I just made parts. And then one of these cats did something to the drawing that low resolution scanning hides. I never did finish the drawings. 
But they are enough to build a model of the Seaview that looks just right to me. 
For curiosity's sake, I'd love to see a scan of the blueprints the revised bow contours for the Flying Sub version. I'll bet there aren't any significant differences. By the way, despite how bad it looks in the drawing, that bulge right under the very front of the nose really is like that. It looks fine on the model. 
As far as I can tell, everything above the manta is the same between the 4 and 8 window versions. What changes the shape so dramatically is a subtle re-sculpting of the area right around the searchlight. And of course everything below.


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Oh, I had insomnia last night so rather than fight it, I got up at 4:00 and since my Seaview files were scattered all over the place, I decided to work on my blueprints a bit more, finish up a couple areas from the drawings, reductions, and templates I made for my models. Which consisted largely of adding the stern fins and doing a 2 window/eight window front end elevation comparison. Oh, the X's on the propulsion tubes on the bottom view mark the CL of the props - forgot to note that on the drawings. The length-in-feet markings are traced from a reduction, as was the little man standing by the sail, the flags, etc, in previous attachments. So go tape all these sheets together and if anyone can document any errors, or variations between various size minatures (look at the variations and asymmetries in Enterprises, Flying Subs, diving bells,Jupiter 2s within and between scales!) , I'd love to hear from you.


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

There. Just so nobody can accuse me of not being totally anal-retentive. I'd done everything else, why not complete it with the 8 window Seaview side view that I've also traced the exact location of the 4' Sv's superstructure, so anyone who wants can overlay and see how I moved the superstructure of the 4 window Sv's accomodate the full-size sets deck features and panel lines. This sheet of drawings now looks so totally cool that I should touch up some of the messy bits and track down a giant photocopier and see if I can't make a presentable (ie frame-able) copy for myself. Wonder how much a 2x4' photocopy would cost? Anyway, hope Seaview fans out there find these usable. And I hope nobody ever has to pay for craptacularly inaccurate messes again.
PS: The limber holes... They'll drive you nuts. On at least one 4', on the port side their tops tilt fwd, and another (or the same??) 4' on the stbd side the tops tilt back. On the 8' they seem to be mostly vertical. On the 18', they tilt. (The 18' has 20 missle hatches. Why shouldn't the limber holes go in different directions.) I placed mine in neutral in the drawings. Research the specific minature you're going to model if you want more accuracy.


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## X15-A2 (Jan 21, 2004)

The contour drawings were created before model building commenced. Later, when the bow was revised, the new contour drawings were created which were then followed by a whole new model bow section. The existing models then had their old bows cut off and the new ones were spliced on (this is visible when you examine their interiors, the fiberglass lay-up where the new bows were attached is quite obvious).

The models built included the 18', 8', 4', 2' and 1' sizes. I don't believe the 2' was used for FX work, instead it simply existed as a set decoration prop. The contours on all the models is probably highly consistent from example to example, this consistencey is just the natural result of building a model from a contour drawing however the textural details you mention do change, fins, hatches, limber holes, etc.


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

I guess it depends on what you mean by contours. If you mean contours to be the plans that I posted, yes that's where they started. Rob't Lewandowski described the genesis of the Seaview in the June 1985 Scale Modeller. Seaview was designed by Allen, Jack Martin Smith, LB Abbott, and Herb Cheek, among others. Seaview started its genesis on paper as various shapes until Allen and Smith and the others were happy with the design and how affordable it would be to build. Then models were made out of clay. "This would allow observation of the minatures in their full size and the ability to make needed corrections to the form. Once the clay models were completed and examined, the next step in construction began. Each size of Seaview was sculpted in wood and plaster by Herb Creek's minature prop shop. After winning Allen's endorsment, fiberglass hulls were produced from castings."
If you mean contours like my post of the Seaview's nose at six foot increments, those were most likely from the clay mockups sliced as I said like loaves of bread. Before the days of computers, nobody designed anything the way animators can do wire frames for spaceships these days. Until the 1980s, car manufacturers made cars by forming their full-sized bodies in clay and slicing them up. NASA in the 60s did the same thing with experimental shapes for wind tunnel testing. Remember, your car has five or 6 computers much more powerful than the one that Apollo 11 used. There was simply no way to first draw a contour for every 6' increment and then create a model, car, X plane, missle from it. 
Granted, once the slices were sliced and diced and copied, it would have been relatively easy to enlarge them as needed. But it isn't just the details that make the 4" look different from the 8'. The 4's have always looked subtly different than the 8's. The 18, we never get to see it, really, not like the others, so who can tell? If only David Merriman's friend's contour measurements from the 18' were available somewhere... 
Why would the Seaview be any different from the Jupiter 2 or the Flying Sub? The different sized versions of those never matched each other upon close inspection. And just ask any Trek modeller how close the 3' matches the 12'. And they came from the same plans, too.
As for the limber holes, they were probably fairly delicate and easily damaged. In close ups you can see where they as well as the prop intakes are applied slightly proud of the model's surface. I'm thinking that they were replaced from time to time (didn't a diver in a monster costume once rip the nose off an 8'er?), and after the first couple weeks into an Allen production, budgets always dropped to nothing, they were patched rather hap-hazardlly, I'm thinking. As for the different angles of the limber holes, that could be explained by both a dyslexic or underpaid prop man and/or the added difficulty of making angled limber holes. I think they went vertical because they were easier to produce.


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## heiki (Aug 8, 1999)

*Aurora Seaview BluePrint*

Ok,

I've managed to reduce the 33meg TIFF file down to about 1.6meg JPG.
Various notes on this show the research occured in 1965.
Gotta wonder which source sub they used after reading the previous posts.
http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/medium/SeaView.jpg


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Actually, that's not a bad drawing at all. It's a little fuzzy to read but it seems to show an length of 2'? What you might have there is an authentic rendering of the 2' Seaview. Which may have been the source of the Aurora/PL kit. What I find really interesting is the incorrect (for the larger versions) shape of the... side keels? - what would you call those things that stick out of the hulls lower sides? - and the anolomous (ho, boy, sp??) manta-shaped detail within the manta fin. Both of these were faithfully reproduced by Aurora, and I've always wondered where they came from. Plus the angled rear fins. In an article in an ancient Starlog re: VTTBS they had a photo of a Seaview in/from Allen's office that I swear had slanting lower rear fins. In your plan, it does not appear that the conical propeller housings flare in a straight line out of the hull flares, as they do on the larger Seaviews. In issue 37 of the late, great, resurrected and now sadly unaffordable (for me) Sci-Fi and Fantasy Models, there is are two pictures of the 24" plaster desktop model (ie early concept model for Allen's approval) that show the propulsion cones flaring out of the hull rather than from the hull flares. So that too really was an accurate detail of the 2'. (The lower fins on that model are perfectly horizontal, but the model has been restored; possibly that feature was incorrectly corrected during restoration, based on all the info now available about the larger versions.) Either your plan is something based on the Aurora Seaview or I'm thinking it's quite possible that that is the real 2' Seaview and the Aurora kit was based on it. Which would be very exciting. Sigh, it would be ironic if we all spent so much time correcting the Aurora kit and it was a faithful rendition of a legit Seaview. 
Now that I cracked out my Seaview drawings and have completed them, I'm enjoying it so much that I'm going to go back over some of the older parts of the drawings and clean them up a bit. I'm not changing any dimensions or shapes or anything, I just want to replace some wobbly lines, get rid of thick marks where I traced over my plans onto carbon paper over plastic, just make them look a little better, maybe add a few dimensions where I have them. When I'm finished, I'll edit my previous posts and replace any that might look better/be clearer with versions marked with an "R", as in RSeaview1.jpg.


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

I was just cleaning up and happened to glance at my Flying Sub plan. It's dated 5/10/65. If there are 1965 revisions on the plan you have, I bet they were re-doing the SV for the Flying Sub hangar. The manta within the manta might have been an early idea for either the hangar or it might even show an outline of an early proposal for the FS, esp since as doors that shape seems impossible. I'm even more convinced now that you have something important in the development of the SV.


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## heiki (Aug 8, 1999)

*Aurora's BluePrint for the Flying sub.*



starseeker said:


> I was just cleaning up and happened to glance at my Flying Sub plan. It's dated 5/10/65. If there are 1965 revisions on the plan you have, I bet they were re-doing the SV for the Flying Sub hangar. The manta within the manta might have been an early idea for either the hangar or it might even show an outline of an early proposal for the FS, esp since as doors that shape seems impossible. I'm even more convinced now that you have something important in the development of the SV.


Here is the BluePrint for the FlyingSub. I need to rescan it.
http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/FlyingSub.jpg


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## heiki (Aug 8, 1999)

*Aurora's blueprint of Seaview*

Here's a bigger copy of the Seaview. You can click on these links or right click to save these. You can zoom in and review the image.

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/SeaView1.jpg


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## heiki (Aug 8, 1999)

Please realize, these are NOT fan drawn blueprints of the Seaview or FlyingSub.

These are actual design blueprints that were used by Aurora in development of the models that were produced. These are the real thing. As goofed up by Aurora.


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## falcondesigns (Oct 30, 2002)

Has anyone notice the five vents on either side of the back between the engines?I was trying to upload a pic but its too big.


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

starseeker said:


> What you might have there is an authentic rendering of the 2' Seaview. Which may have been the source of the Aurora/PL kit. What I find really interesting is the incorrect (for the larger versions) shape of the... side keels? - what would you call those things that stick out of the hulls lower sides? - and the anolomous (ho, boy, sp??) manta-shaped detail within the manta fin. Both of these were faithfully reproduced by Aurora, and I've always wondered where they came from.


Previous _Seaview_-related posts have referred to them as "strakes," though they could also be called "bilge keels." And I assume you mean "anomalous."

It's also worth noting that the top/bottom view and side elevation from those plans were faithfully reproduced on the instructions for the 1975 Seaview re-issue. God knows what possessed Aurora to engrave those horrible, thick, way overscale and prototypically inaccurate panel lines on the hull!


starseeker said:


> If there are 1965 revisions on the plan you have, I bet they were re-doing the SV for the Flying Sub hangar. The manta within the manta might have been an early idea for either the hangar or it might even show an outline of an early proposal for the FS, esp since as doors that shape seems impossible.


I always figured the engraved manta-shaped outline on the underside of the nose was an early version of the FS bay doors. It's possible the doors were originally meant to open outward, like the minisub hatch. The rollaway doors that were eventually used seem terribly impractical — how could they be kept watertight? But then, we're discussing the Seaview and Flying Sub and worrying about _practicality_?


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

I've just replaced all my previously attached drawings with versions I cleaned up this weekend. I've added a bit of new material to the drawings. As I said before, get out your tape and put these together and you should have pretty accurate 1/196 Seaview plans. Just realized yesterday that I'm creating what I despise most: fan-produced drawings. I'm trying to tell myself that that isn't really the case here, that 9/10 of this is tracings from the original Fox blueprints, and that makes it somehow all right.
Anyway, if anyone can find any errors in these, please let me know! 
As for that Flying Sub plan, it looks like an exact, precise reduction of my Fox sheet for the 2' Flying Sub. Which still makes me think that you have a Fox plan of the 2' Seaview courtesy of Aurora.


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

I've just replaced all my previously attached drawings with versions I cleaned up this weekend. I've added a bit of new material to the drawings. As I said before, get out your tape and put these together and you should have pretty accurate 1/196 Seaview plans. Just realized yesterday that I'm creating what I despise most: fan-produced drawings. I'm trying to tell myself that that isn't really the case here, that 9/10 of all this is tracings from the original Fox blueprints, and that makes it somehow all right.
Anyway, if anyone can find any errors in these, please let me know! 
As for your Flying Sub plan, it looks like an exact, precise reduction of my Fox sheet for the 2' Flying Sub. Which still makes me think that you have a Fox plan of the 2' Seaview courtesy of Aurora.
And that's probably it for Seaview for me this spring. It's been a blast doing these drawings but it's been days since I worked on my Refit hangar decks. 
Whoever wants to do whatever with these drawings, feel free, as I said. I don't own the design. I'll leave the attachments up till I run out of attachment space, probably in a month or two. If anyone wants to snare them and take them somewhere else...


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## X15-A2 (Jan 21, 2004)

starseeker said:


> If you mean contours like my post of the Seaview's nose at six foot increments, those were most likely from the clay mockups sliced as I said like loaves of bread. Before the days of computers, nobody designed anything the way animators can do wire frames for spaceships these days. Until the 1980s, car manufacturers made cars by forming their full-sized bodies in clay and slicing them up. NASA in the 60s did the same thing with experimental shapes for wind tunnel testing. Remember, your car has five or 6 computers much more powerful than the one that Apollo 11 used. There was simply no way to first draw a contour for every 6' increment and then create a model, car, X plane, missle from it.


You are quite mistaken about this assumption. The process of "lofting" may sometimes begin with a model but by no means does it HAVE to. I create lofting drawings without the benefit of a model all the time, using simple drafting techniques, so I can speak from experience. This is something that proffessional draftsmen, like the ones at the Fox Art Dept. (or me), are trained to do. In aerospace, where vehicle shapes are driven by criteria far more stringent than simple "style", the shapes are created mathematically using conics (WWII) and now using a newer method, which I don't remember the name of just off hand. In times now past this work was done with slide-rules (you forgot about those) before computers came along. Even before the development of these mathematical methods, compound curve shapes were created on the drafting table graphically, which is how I do it (I have experience creating lofting drawings on both the drafting table and PCs). It is very much like "sculpting" on a drafting table and any artist/draftsman worth his salt has the ability to do it (and to adequately visualize the final result). So no, it is certainly not a "given" that a model was created first. That method is actually more difficult if you are trying to create an exterior shape which must be integrated with a given interior. On the drafting table/PC all relationships between interior and exterior are obvious, on a model they are not. Admittedly the studio was not concerned with that aspect of the design in this case, I merely mention it to point out that the model-first method can have its draw-backs.


That Irwin Allen had anything to do with the design is just a conceit on his part, all he did was say that it had to have big windows and big fins. His input was minimal, believe me. Jack Martin Smith only got his name on it because he was in charge of the Art Department at Fox. This was standard practice in those days, the dept. head always got top credit, followed by the person who actually did the work. LB Abbott and Herb Cheek? It doesn't seem too likely that the fellows in the Art Dept. would go running to the guys in the FX Dept. for design ideas, unless they were uncertain that something could actually be built/done (which usually is no concern, they simply expect it to get done no matter what) or they knew that there was someone there who had specific knowledge of use (like if one of the the guys had experience building ships or served on submarines, etc). Otherwise, I doubt that their input was significant either. I would expect most Art Directors to be loathe to go to someone else for design ideas unless they are forced to, it would be like admitting that they couldn't do their job.

Whoever was involved in the design process, it did not have to begin with a model as you claim. My main point here was to make that clear.


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## X15-A2 (Jan 21, 2004)

The modern method lofting is called "parametric cubics" (I checked with my buddy who is a lofting engineer).


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

According to a Mike Clark article from a June 1980 Starlog that I found when I was putting everything away yesterday, I probably WAS wrong about the clay being sliced and diced: ""Art director Blumenthal points out that close co=operation with...Abbott was observed during the planning stages of Voyage. Drawings were scrutinized by Abbott for practical use in minature photography and passed back to Allen for final approval. Clay renderings from Fox's minature construction department followed and then castings were made in plaster and wood for the final fibreglass treatment. Several copies of each were made, some with sectional cuts for use as guidelines for the next size up. Thre different scales of Seaview..."
So it was the PLASTER models they cut up, not clay like Ford and GM? 
I don't know, but that article is 25 years nearer the source, and comes from 
interviews with Blumenthal and others. It's always possible that the people who were there are all wrong...
Last word on the sj of Seaview from me: man, the limber holes are crazy. They are oriented in different directions, they are in different places - even on the same size minature, the 18" doesn't seem to have had the aft set, at least at some point in its career. Anything goes...


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## X15-A2 (Jan 21, 2004)

I totally agree about the various details, anyone attempting to blueprint them (as I plan to) faces an uphill battle trying to plot all the changes and inconsistencies. I know that I won't be able to do it, instead my drawings will be representative of the many changes but not a complete compendium of them. And I have no illusions about showing the defects in the models such as the asymmetrical manta fins on the bow of the 8 foot model (the result of damage that was poorly repaired I believe, based on what I saw on that model). There just isn't any good way to catalog them, based on photos or frame grabs from the show, and unfortunately the original models are not available study.


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## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

I hope you'll decide to do them in 3-D and then cull the blueprints from the models.
There are some reasonably priced build-up services that can turn your 3D files into an instant model.

Plus you can then also pull so many different perspective views from the object without having to redo all those calculations and lofting them manually.


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## Steve Mavronis (Oct 14, 2001)

Have you guys seen the custom built 8.5 foot Seaview model
on the FXmodels site at http://www.fxmodels.com/seaview.shtml yet?

I think it is the best model of the TV version I've seen, plus it features a
complete interior detailed and lit control room! Here is one picture of the
model. They say it is 1/48 scale. Go to the site to see more!


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## X15-A2 (Jan 21, 2004)

That is a stunning model of Seaview, very cool.


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## Nova Designs (Oct 10, 2000)

Holy cow! That's amazing.


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## Seaview (Feb 18, 2004)

Yes, I've seen that 1/48 scale model before; simply AMAZING! I really wish it were commercially available
(and affordable)! :thumbsup:


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## Steve Mavronis (Oct 14, 2001)

For anyone attempting a control room interior the pictures there are a great resource! I also think they have the TV version window size and position dead on to the look that I remember from the show.


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Steve, I didn't plan on revisiting this thread for a while, but it looks like it's going to rain, and here I am. About the control room, these are from a sheet dated 5-7-65. Hope they're readable at this tiny a file size. And, damn, 11 was still too big. I'll retry it in a minute.


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Rats, couldn't get 11 small enough to post, so I stuck a sheet of blank paper across 1/2 of it. The other 1/2 is on another attachment anyway. Hope these are useful. Same caveat: I'll leave them here until I need the space. Grab them, cut and paste, AutoCad, distribute them anyway you like.


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## Brent Gair (Jun 26, 1999)

I know this is off-topic for this particular thread but I'm posting it as an indication of the problems faced by modeling subjects from Irwin Allen shows.

I just posted this on another site in response to a comment about locating the hatch on the Spindrift.

The top photo shows the original filming miniature and note the relationship of the windows and the stripe compared to the main hatch. The stripe passes through the mid line of the hatch.

The second photo shows the full size set. Note the lower position of the stripe on the hatch. This most closely matches my model.

The bottom photo shows the same detail on a Fox drawing. The Stripe is even lower.


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## X15-A2 (Jan 21, 2004)

I would hasten to point out that the basic form of the hull is probably pretty consistent from drawing to model to mockup, it is the spotting of the hatch and window cutouts that changes.


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## jbond (Aug 29, 2002)

To get even more off, yet sort of on, topic, I've heard from a good source that the Product Enterprises Irwin Allen diecasts will be much more accurate than the prototype images that have been shown so far, so there's still hope for these...


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## Carson Dyle (May 7, 2003)

Although Irwin Allen miniatures are famous for their various and sundry inconsistencies they are hardly alone in this regard. Compare, for example, the blueprints of the Proteus to both the full-scale mockup and large miniature and you'll discover a number of discrepancies between the three -- although, as Phil points out, most of these are relatively minor and detail oriented and not indicative of any significant variance in the overall profile/ contours of the design.

Suffice it to say none of the vehicles in question were ever intended to be subjected to such relentless, exhaustive, and fanatical scrutiny. :tongue:


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## Dave Hussey (Nov 20, 1998)

Yup - and in the case of the Seaview and Spindrift, the ships were only intended to be seen on a relatively low resolution television sets, which were probably black and white and usually no larger than 19 inches or so. The various differences were likely not apparent to even the obsessive fans of the day who in those days did not have the advantage of being able to record the show and pause it to examine the details of the ship in different shots.

My preference would be to build the model to look like the way the ship is seen most often - and that is the full scale set on the show. 

Huzz


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## Admiral Nelson (Feb 28, 2002)

When is ************* coming out with his Seaview? He's about 7 years behind with what he said he was going to do. I understand he has the rights so what is he waiting on?


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## Carson Dyle (May 7, 2003)

Paul posted the following on a related thread about two weeks ago...




Super 7 said:


> To all interested: I am still "plugging" away at a 25 5/8" exact scale model of the 17 foot "Flying Sub Version" Seaview and Flying Sub.
> 
> MOST UNFORTUNATELY, two young men have died while working on the computerization of the contours of said models. The first, sadly of suicide at age 28 some two years ago, the second having never smoked, of lung cancer at age 39 this past September ('05) just after the nose section and decking molds were CNC machined.
> 
> ...


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## Steve Mavronis (Oct 14, 2001)

Here is more info on that FX Models Seaview:

http://www.edmiarecki.com/voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-se


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## Longfan (Jun 27, 2009)

*Old Seaview Blueprint*

Would anyone know the identity of the large compartment located directly under the conning tower in the enclosed picture. I don't believe that this was depicted in the series; however, could have been depicted as the under water aquarium in the 1961 Movie. Would appreciate anyone's help. Also, does anyone know where these old prints may be purchased ?

Thank you,

Longfan


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## Steve Mavronis (Oct 14, 2001)

^^^ Look at the bulge under the front hull to make room for the flying sub. They could have just had the keel like do straight back but I guess they were trying to illustrate the front manta fins. Cool movie screencap picture though, thanks for posting.


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## Longfan (Jun 27, 2009)

Sir,
Does the packet of information you obtained in 1968 show interior plans of the Seaview ? If so, does it show a large compartment underneath the conning tower that extends aft to the reactor room ? If so, could you please tell me the identity of this compartment. 

Thank you,

Longfan
(Voyage fan since 1965)


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## modelmaker 2001 (Sep 6, 2007)

Starseeker, have you pulled the plans from this post that you talked about revising? I don't see your plans posted nor any links to them...,


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## DX-SFX (Jan 24, 2004)

I was thinking the same thing.


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## Longfan (Jun 27, 2009)

Sir,
Do you have any idea if interior plans for the first deck of the Seaview exist. In one of my e-mails above in the thread, I show the official blueprint that was located in the Missle Room of "Deadly Creature Below". I have always been intrigued that there does not seem to be any interior plans of the first deck. 

Thank you,

Longfan
(Voyage Fan Since 1965)


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## terryr (Feb 11, 2001)

Check out this guys stuff. Don't know if it's accurate or his idea.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/modern_fred/sets/72157605213580719/?page=4


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Ran out of attachment space and had to nuke them. I haven't revised them yet (a couple small things I want to add) but what I'd really like to do with them is get them in to my new favorite industrial copy shop and get the sheet scanned as one piece, as I've done the Excelsior and Spindrift, so that it's posted in one piece and no one has to cut and paste and try to fit bits together, which never works well. 
I'll try for very soon in the New Year.


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

Here are the revised drawings. Actually, I've put most of them in posts #1 and #2 on page 1 of this thread.

A few months ago while searching through files on all the various Yahoo Lost in Space groups, on one of them I found a small and fuzzy image of the Fox blueprint for the conversion of the movie Seaview into the Flying Sub Seaview. I had searched for this information for decades and began to incorporate it into the Seaview drawings I had made from my Fox blueprint of the very early version of the movie Seaview. Several weeks ago a true (and literal) scholar and gentleman offered me a cleaned up copy of the full size conversion bp. Having always believed that too much of a good thing is just enough, I pounced upon it. 

So instead of cutting plastic, I spent all my spare time in the last two weeks re-tracing my original Fox blue and adding to it a tracing of the nose of the FS Seaview. Both blueprints are 1/96 scale and both start at station 0 and have the same station numbers so the overlay of the two blueprints fit perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. I took great care in the tracings, made them as exact as I could, within pencil lines, and even traced all the original lettering in the original hand. I left nothing out. 

In essence, here are complete Fox blueprints of both the movie Seaview and the Flying Sub Seaview. 

Blueprints are one thing. What the miniatures actually ended up looking like is another. The blueprints are scaled to 1/96 and the first Seaview built would have been the 4'3. As far as I know, none of them survive but I suspect they would have been very close matches to the blueprints. They would have been the given approval by everyone before the larger versions would have been built, at any rate. So if someone didn’t like their shape, that would have been fixed for the 8'6 and 17'. 

From looking at all the photos of the 8'6 (and there are some pretty good orthogonal ones of the surviving nose of the FS version ), both movie and FS seem to be an almost exact match to the blueprints. Which is no big surprise. That is not such a difficult size to work with. The only difference I see is the shape of the front fin of the 8'6 FS version. The fin seems to have a different shape from the blues as seen from the top. It also appears to be not as deeply curved on the bottom. That this might differ from the blue is not so surprising. Complex curves are difficult to render. Especially when there is no reason to be absolutely accurate. 

The 17' was huge. I know, because I’ve begun drawings of the observation nose and control rooms in 1/24 scale and for the fun of it I decided to draw the nose of the Seaview in 1/24 scale as well. It is HUGE.

And working complex curves in something this big would be a real challenge to keep accurate to the blueprints. And again, why? So the nose of the 17' FS (again, the movie nose does not appear to exist any more) is the most removed from the blueprints. The under curve of the front fins seems to match the blues closely. The shape of the fin from above is different from both the blues and the 8'6. And the profile of the nose from the side is much elongated and shows a much extended housing for the searchlight. 

The other difference between the 17' and the blueprints are the cones housing the props. (Note: props on nuclear subs are always 5 or 7 bladed, not 6.) In the blueprints, the contour lines clearly show the prop cones to center on the outside radius of the side keels. On the 17', the prop housings curve out from the side of the hull. On the 8'6, I have no idea how the prop tubes interfaced with the hull or keel. 

Unless otherwise noted, all these drawings are as-exact-as-I-could-make-them tracings from the blueprints. Where there are lines that confuse me or don’t seem right, I include them. I left nothing out. Where there are obvious differences between the blueprints and the miniatures, I made separate drawings. On some tracings from the blueprints, I altered a portion to show a variant and noted the alterations. I added to the blueprint tracings (primarily to the decks) details like hand holds and water outlet holes based on photos or dvds and showed variations between the miniatures and the full sized sets. Again, where I added details, I did not alter the tracings. 

I could keep working on these for weeks, adding finer and finer details, but really anyone can do that themselves. I left off noting things like the open missile tube/compressed air inlet and the socket recess for the FS hatch (between the upper back fins, and a toggle switch there, too). Those things were part of working the miniature, not part of the Seaview. I just wanted to present some hard to find information from which modellers could start doing whatever they want to do. I hope someone else has fun with these. I know I sure did. 

The first 9 attachments (with a very fuzzy overview of the whole sheet) are contained in the first two posts of this thread, back on page 1. Here are the last 2 attachments:


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## MickeyD (Oct 24, 2008)

*Re new plans*

Great work Starseeker! Keep up the good work. I find your drawings very informative and will be going over them and enjoying them for quite some time.


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

As soon as I posted my revised Seaview drawings here, I received a set of plans from a 3d party supposedly made by a person who had access to the 17' miniature. Now I have never heard of the architect of these plans before nor do I know if he (R. S. Knorowski) would want his work posted publicly. 
I will share this: at 1/100 scale, from the bottom front of the sail to the top tip if the back fin, his plans and my drawings match either perfectly or within the thickness of an 050 pencil line or two. If his plans are for real, then the 17' really matches that half of the Fox blueprint. At the nose end, his plan matches my drawing of the severed 17" nose extremely closely. Which means that the photos I made my drawings from are very orthographic.

Where we don’t match was a bit of stupidity on my part. That’s because the minute I finish a model, it ceases to exist for me. I haven’t thought of the 1/128 Moebius Seaview in months. Nor have I built my 1/350 yet. Yet the source of these kits was supposed access to and measurements from the 17'. And as I wrote in my build thread, everything that could be measured in a straight line on the Moebius kits matches the Fox blueprints exactly. That being the case, I do believe that Moebius really did have access to the 17' and that (except for any curved surface) did create a wholly accurate rendition of the 17 miniature. Including the length of the hull in front of the sail. 

D’oh.

How could I have forgotten that? 

In 1/100 scale, the plans I received perfectly match the length of the Moebius kit from nose tip to the front bottom tip of the sail. In the drawings I posted previously my “0" point for the 17' nose is too far forward. The nose should be longer. In 1/100 scale, based on the 17', the Seaview should be approx 51.75" from nose tip to tail cone tip. 
Having said that, let me backtrack: A reader in the Feb Fine Scale Modeller asks the length of a MIG 15, a real world object that exists in museums all over the world. The answer: 33'2, 33'3, 35'7, 36'3, and USAF 33'3 5/8. FSM: “Measurements can vary according to how the plane was measured (and who believes whom)... Will you drop plumb lines from the tail and nose? Not everyone does.” 
So depending how the Seaview was measured by the various people or machines measuring it (David Merriman, R. S. Knorowski, Moebius, Gary Kerr, me from the photos) none of this has to be “accurate” still. The fact that the measurements match the Fox blueprints in so many areas is encouraging to me, as is the fact that more than one source agrees on the shape and size of the front end (as long as they really are separate sources) and that they match the photos I was using. 

I really believe that this is a reasonable plan of the 17'.

The 8' 6 I still don’t know about. Until the two surviving halves and the deck of the hero can be fitted together (as long as there still are points on the parts that can be fitted together), or until any surviving other 8'6 is found, we still can’t be certain. (Near-series contemporary articles written about the Voyage fleet state that several of each size miniature (2', 4'3, AND 8'6) were built for specific uses. [A show as effects laden as Voyage - they’re going to trust all their effects to just one hero miniature w/o having an emergency backup or four?] But just one 17'.) That the blueprint for the FS nose exists, that it has the 0 line clearly marked, that the profile of the nose matches orthos of the surviving nose and matches the rest of blueprint gives me a lot of confidence that the 0 position reproduced in my drawing is accurate for the 8'6. 

Because it is less than convenient (if not impossible now) to take my drawing of the 17' nose shape and try to place it in the proper position on top of the blueprint drawing and because I forgot to include the very last sextet of rear water outlet holes (sigh), I thought I’d post a complete side view of the 17'. I’m again using my own drawings, since they are from end to end basically within a pencil line’s of R. S. Knorowski’s. I've placed the nose where both his plans and the Moebius models place it. There is a bit of a rough join where I tried to fit various drawings together. Along the horizontal lines under the sail. The rear lines are most correct, if you insist on perfectly cleaning up the joins. 

The Fox blueprint has 14 louvers on the prop tubes. The miniatures have 12. I arbitrarily chose to delete the forward two traced the others. On the Knorowski plan, it was the rear two louvers that seem to have been deleted on the miniature, placing the louvers on my drawing too far back by one pair. And of course the 17' did not have the ailerons (waterons?) on the diagonal fins. I forgot to erase those.


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## Fernando Mureb (Nov 12, 2006)

Starseeker
Thank you once more for the thorough and patient research work, which will be invaluable to us all. :thumbsup:
Fernando


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

David Merriman, your inbox is full, so here's the second half of a pm:
...Seaview has always been one of the loves of my life. Gary Kerr has been a wonderful resource for decades, priceless. And of course Fred Barr's great Seaview Soundings. But you have always been the true keeper of the flame, the Seaview's real curator. Without your passion for it, it might not have been restored. (Really, who else in the world could have restored the thing?) Without the restoration, it might have just disappeared like so much else. And then there would have been no orthos, no Gary Kerr measurements, no Moebius kit, perhaps even no Moebius, as that was clearly intended to be one of thier initial first big entries. Butterfly beating it's wings over Asia, man. 
I owe you decades of thanks, as does every other Seaview fan out there. 
And I also owe you huge thanks for all the Cultman articles that have become my etching, resin casting, and metal casting bibles. There is nothing at all out there like the information you're sharing. Nothing. 
THANK YOU!


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## Seaview (Feb 18, 2004)

And thank you, too, Starseeker! Those tracings are wonderful!


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## junglelord (Mar 6, 2007)

Seaview said:


> And thank you, too, Starseeker! Those tracings are wonderful!


Yes many thanks from me too.


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## junglelord (Mar 6, 2007)

Have you guys been following the 2010 Seaview?
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_9378637/anchors_9504516/mpage_3/key_/anchor/tm.htm#9504516


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## bigjimslade (Oct 9, 2005)

I was watching on old Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (color) episode. It was funny to see how the Seaview changed back and forth between the 2-level window and 1-level window version.


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## junglelord (Mar 6, 2007)

I would like to present the new Seaview
The mold has been pulled.
I hope to be the first one to own one.
It will be converted to RC.
Cheers
The Seaview II
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_9378637/mpage_7/tm.htm


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## Longfan (Jun 27, 2009)

*First Deck Details*

It seems that lots of energy and enthusiam still remains concerning our favorite Submarine and the series. I know that the SSRN Seaview Technical Manual by Frederick Barr showed a three decked Seaview. But, on some of the shows, like "Deadly Creature Below", a two decked Seaview was portrayed. The blue print shows the detailed design of the lower deck; however, does not go in to any detail regarding the first deck (See attached). Was just wondering if any thought has been given as to what a detailed first deck might look like ? The enclosed drawing shows some of the compartment, but not all of them. The Reactor Room exists, but where is the Engine Room ? Probably another of Irwin's inconsistancies. Thanks for listening. 

Longfan


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## moonbus01 (Jun 4, 2010)

For the heck of it, here is a shot of Herb Cheek holding a model of Cleopatra's barge from the Fox film Cleopatra. Don't know who the guy on the left is.


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## jbond (Aug 29, 2002)

I never noticed the attempt to justify the position of the Flying Sub hatch in front of the control room in that cutaway--of course in this they have the nose window yards in front of the hatch instead of almost directly in front of it as seen on the series, and the windows would be placed at the very top of the nose.


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## Longfan (Jun 27, 2009)

I agree with you. It seems that they should have done more in attempt to make all of the actual stage sequences as realistic as possible to correspond to the blueprints that were used. Some shows, like The Indestructible Man and The Price of Doom, have scenes showing a Gyro Room. However, no Gyro Room exists in the old "Blue Prints". We could go on and on with these inconstancies. A person has to wonder if these issues were ever mentioned to Irwin in efort to make the show morre realistic ?

Longfan


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## jbond (Aug 29, 2002)

I really don't think it ever would have come up. In fact I'm amazed there's as much of an attempt to make sense of the Seaview as there is shown in this cutaway. Even with Star Trek, I think it was the sheer implied size of the Enterprise that allowed people to "make sense" of the starship in things like the Franz Joseph blueprints--you could throw just about anything you wanted to in that interior. All Irwin Allen wanted I think was for people to be able to look at a big window on the front of the primary miniatures in his shows and think "Oh, there, that's where the people are." Any rationalizations beyond that were practically incidental.


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## bil4miller (Jul 30, 1999)

The two deck print was pretty much tied to the movie not so much the series. The flying sub portion was pasted on so to speak in the second season. Close examination shows the various sets (locations) used in the movie. From the 50's era observation deck, the ship's office where Barbara Eden's character took dictation, the mess room where Ms Eden shook her booty, the sick bay where Adm Nelson got all "Patton" on Frankie A., the shark tank, the reactor room with the magic intrusion mat, and the missle room. Just Irwin reusing his props and models.


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## Patternmaker J.D. (Mar 1, 2012)

I'm new to the forum, and I'm impressed with all of the knowledge and interest in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. I recently came into possesion of an original production set of Seaview blueprints when a member of my family died, and am thinking of selling them. How can I find out what they're worth?


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## packard400 (Apr 24, 2006)

I thought you might like to some screen grabs from the episode "Day of Evil"
It looks like they added an extra deck and a lot more compartments. I tried
to remove the distortions from the parts of the plans you can see. I wonder
if this set of plans is still out there?


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## kenlee (Feb 11, 2010)

bil4miller said:


> The two deck print was pretty much tied to the movie not so much the series. The flying sub portion was pasted on so to speak in the second season. Close examination shows the various sets (locations) used in the movie. From the 50's era observation deck, the ship's office where Barbara Eden's character took dictation, the mess room where Ms Eden shook her booty, the sick bay where Adm Nelson got all "Patton" on Frankie A., the shark tank, the reactor room with the magic intrusion mat, and the missle room. Just Irwin reusing his props and models.


It is also obvious that the blueprint is of the eight window Seaview with the flying sub stuffed in as well.


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## Krel (Jun 7, 2000)

bil4miller said:


> the reactor room with the magic intrusion mat, and the missle room. Just Irwin reusing his props and models.


Nothing magical about it, just an old fashion pressure mat.

David.


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## SeaviewJim (3 mo ago)

I'm looking for a set of complete Seaview drawings to make a printed 3D version, maybe a super large one.


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## Newbie123 (Sep 7, 2016)

Five spelling edits later, here's a poster I made of the Seaview some time ago:








It's sourced from years of collecting every possible blueprint I could from the 'net, as well as from a set of bp's for the early 4' I received from Fox in 1968. Back in the day, Fox seemed to be shipping full scale copies of their bps to pretty much anyone who asked, and I received two large envelopes with a couple dozen bps from Voyage and Time Tunnel, LIS and Braddock, FantasticVoyage and Land of the Giants. Years ago I (as Starseeker) uploaded them all to the late Photobucket and links to them all here. There were of course three different sizes of primary miniatures, all updated from the movie Seaview into the TV version at the end of the first season, so six different variants. Irwin Allen fans are different from Trek fans in a lot of ways. Chief among them is that they won't share any information that they have. Most of the miniatures from all of Allen's shows exist in some form or other, but only once has a fan actually used a tape measure and shared a dimension, and that was when David Merriman had possession of the 25' Seaview, and allowed a friend to take all the measurements he wanted. The friend did draft a beautiful blueprint of the 25', but limited its distribution severely. For some reason someone sent me a copy. I'll respect the original measurer's wishes and won't distribute it. But It does match the blueprint for the pre-manta 4' perfectly. Finally a few years ago, I came across my grail bp: contours for the nose of the 8'.

Since the 8' was cut apart to use in City, who knows if both parts were left whole? But fortunately, the bps all contained a common station "0", at the tip of the nose of the 8 window, and several inches back of the nose for the 4 window countours. I've matched the station O's to put together my drawings.

This sheet is an amalgam of details from the different Seaviews, as regards the deck details and the free floods along the sides of the decks, and the sail position (which seems to have varied slightly between miniatures). I placed the sail to match the position of the handholds as they match the missile tubes on the full sized deck set. I included much small detail on this drawing, just to include as much detail from the various Seaviews as I could. I chose to use the TV version of the sail, rather than the full-sized, as I didn't want to include all the panel lines on the sail and the deck.

Also note that the free floods varied between miniatures and possibly over time. Sometimes they are vertical, sometimes they are slanted forward, sometimes they are slanted backward, sometimes they opposed each other on the same miniature, and at least for a time there were no free floods on the rear starboard on the 25', I think it was. So if anyone tells anyone that their Seaview model is inaccurate, just tell them to go jump. Gary Kerr's small Moebius kit is a beauty, btw. The big one is an utter disaster.

Anyway, hope this provides you with a starting point. (PS I just stole the image of the diving bell from the net today and added a bit and scaled and pasted it onto the drawing for you. Just for the fun of it. As you can see, everything scales properly except for the Flying Sub, which is probably about half as big as it should be if it were to contain its interior).

A big 3d printed Seaview? Sounds like a dream project! Cheers!


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## SeaviewJim (3 mo ago)

Excellent! Thanks for the input and your prospective. It would be great to have dimensioned drawings of course but can rescale a model. Should be a fun project.


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## Newbie123 (Sep 7, 2016)

I've never seen a dimensioned bp of any part of the Seaview. Fox just scaled them to station numbers.


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

Newbie123 said:


> Five spelling edits later, here's a poster I made of the Seaview some time ago:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If you (or anyone) have or ever find your original images you can upload them here directly as attachments and we have been promised (for what an internet promise is worth now a days) a permanent home and support for the site by VS Admin....

I am also still hoping that same day Photobucket is able to restore all the 'deleted' images, but less hopeful each passing year.


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## Newbie123 (Sep 7, 2016)

Hi, again. Blockhead here just realized that 2d doesn't translate into 3d magically, so here are a couple of remarkably cleaned up Fox bps (or one and a portion). The one is the contours of the nose of the 4' and 8' conversion to the TV version. The 17' was even more enlongated. I'll see if I have those contours.








And this one is a portion of the 4' bp showing the stern contours. As far as I can tell, the movie version stern wasn't altered from movie to TV, tho' there seem to be slight differences between the miniatures as to the back of the deck and the front tips of the V fins.








But these should be a good start.

Thanks, admin, for the info! I'll definitely try attaching from now on. Just discovered that Imjur automatically deletes content that hasn't been looked at in a while, so I have... no... content left there now? Sigh...

Equally alarming is that I started this thread 16 freakin' years ago?? No way. Just no way...


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## Newbie123 (Sep 7, 2016)

And this is a portion of my 1968 bp of the 4' miniature. This shows the stations (in feet), and also the usual quality of the bps. The station markings are the only dimensions on most of the bps, apart from a very ocassional small detail. Of course, I forgot how to do this: click on image to open in new tab, and enlarge it there.


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## Newbie123 (Sep 7, 2016)

Here are some of my drawings comparing the different miniatures, the 1/96 (4'), the 1/48 (8.5'), and the 1/24 (17').











































The "0" stations are marked on each version and to show how the miniatures were lengthed between the 8 and 4 window noses. I noted the major differences between each miniature, along with what variations worth noting between some of the 8' Seaviews.


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