Building Disney's "Nautilus"

Probably the most interesting fictional submarine ever designed.

The first movie I ever saw in a theatre as a child was Disney’s classic film “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”, the first, and as far as I know, only lensed version of Jules Verne’s novel. I remember being mesmerized by the images on the screen that captivated my imagination. My Father later joked (when I became much older) that when the Nautilus sliced through the water on an attack run he had to push my eyeballs back into their sockets and pick my jaw up off the floor!

A fellow named Harper Goff was responsible for designing the fictional ship for the Disney movie and was represented by several scale models of various sizes shot in a tank and “dry for wet” as well as partial sections built full scale for the actors to work on.

This model was made from a resin kit that was beautifully mastered but may have been a second or more generation casting as the parts did not fit very well and a lot of fudging and puttying was necessary to get it all to work out well. The kit was simple enough with relatively few parts but they all required a lot of clean-up and some modifications.

I also had to light it up and once again my custom-designed bus board came in handy. I made the “vent” hatches behind the bridge section removable to hide the switch and the skiff removable to access the battery pack. The pictures below should be pretty self-evident.

Enjoy!