A Chinese DIY Submarine Made from Oil Barrels

Two years, $4,385, and some homemade ingenuity can get you this underwater ride

By Jeremy Hsu Posted 09.09.2009 at 10:45 am 8 Comments

Diving Stations Taking recycling and oil barrels to a new level China Daily

Chinese locals have already demonstrated a knack for knocking together homemade flying contraptions and robots. Now one amateur inventor has created a full-fledged submarine built primarily from discarded oil barrels and tools bought at a second-hand market.

China Daily says that Tao Xiangli made his underwater debut in a lake outside Beijing on September 3, 2009. The inventor outfitted his vehicle with a periscope, depth control tanks and electric motors, after spending two years and roughly $4,385 on the project.

Tin Can Submarine: An oil-barrel submarine heads out for a spin China Daily

Perhaps it's a hair less audacious than the farmer who wanted to test-fly his wooden copter. But then again, we don't see any escape system if the sub happened to go belly-up, figuratively speaking.

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8 Comments

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GTO

09/09/09 at 12:09 pm

That is awesome.

--GTO--

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meyaht

09/09/09 at 12:25 pm

Made something cool and has a great time with less then $5k. Creative and budget minded, just like myself.

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Tornado1

09/09/09 at 7:14 pm

I think 3" iron water pipes would make good torpedo tubes.

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patmanta

09/10/09 at 11:18 am

Having actually piloted a minisub of a tested design (K-250), you would not get me in that thing... not deeper than 10' at least.

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omarkoran

09/10/09 at 1:42 pm

LoLzz... Now thats a sub for ya.... I like his invention and bearly 4K. Mad creative.

ALIEN NATION

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Maxwell Jump

09/10/09 at 2:41 pm

Pictures of this with Iranian colors will be appearing in the Iranian press in 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.

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capnemo

09/12/09 at 2:35 pm

Tao has a counterpart on the other side in Texas. I did the same thing 25 years ago. My pressure hull was a used earth mover muffler tank and my ballast tanks were indeed 55 gallon drums. Glad to know I'm not the only nut in the world!

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genedoug

11/05/09 at 4:13 pm

I think it needs a bicycle pedal, and a really long chain. And I wouldn't take it down too deep.