thibaultron

Very nice work mate  really is a great setting for the  plane.
 
OC.

Like Egilman says, a dirty wash of some kind would give it a more used look. And some tire scuffs. Even our parking areas has scuffs and fluid spills (oils, fuel, whatever) The deck is too clean.
 
That being said, I do like the overall look.

Looks nice ! 

Blue deck stain was not used when there wasn't any to be had. In that case they went ahead and painted the decks 20B Deck Blue.... I'm assuming that you deck location is not in an area where they landed or launched aircraft. So no black streaks and wear marks down to the wood would be appropriate.... so you have a temporary storage or standby area of the deck, solid blue would be appropo....
 
The only thing I could suggest would be if you want a more combat used look, oil stains, tire marks through oil stains footprints, etc, etc... and maybe a bit of assorted patches of whitening/lightening to represent a faded deck...
 
but otherwise, outstanding job..... oh and a storage area would have tie downs. So call it a standby area.....

Looking good to me. I was was going to say that the deck should be blue, but then you painted it blue. Then I was going to say that some of the blue would be weather faded, but you then added a faded picture, then I thought that there could be newer looking replaced planks, (A common occurrence on American carrier wooden decks) and your next picture had different planks painted in other shades of blue. About the only thing left would be to add some chipped paint affect where bits and pieces of raw teak is showing where the paint is gone completely. (The paint they used was intended not to sink into the wood so that after hostilities ended and the need for blue decks as well the wooden decking could be returned to it's natural color. As it was done almost immediately after the war. It was not all that durable.) But you probably have already done that as well but have just not posted the picture yet.
 
So I have to say that it is looking pretty much perfect.

I may live by the saying that goes, "less is more". Don't want to get too carried away scraping up the deck. What do you think?
 
 

I'm debating whether to use the hairspray technique for the deck chafing or possibly to use a "windex" technique I saw on the net. It seems to me the windex method might give a more authentic look than the hairspray method which is a chipping look. I really want it to look chafed or scratched rather than chipped.

Here, the deck has been painted in a teak color, the deck drains painted in a steel color, then everything covered with a good coat of dull varnish. After the varnish has had a full day to dry, will apply hairspray then cover it all with a deck blue. Some chipping and abrasions will be made to simulate wear and tear on the deck, exposing small portions of the teak and steel colors.
 
 

Nice looking forward to the rest CD! Kevin

Today I set to work on a few of the details.   Throughout the day I continued to soak and bend planks, which I stored as can be seen in the photo to preserve the bend while working with the others.  The plank former has surprisingly lasted through multiple sessions, though does need to be babied a bit to keep from wearing out.   Careful is the word here.   I never did bother opening the last slot in the former as I just didn't feel it necessary in the end.  Preparing and setting planks takes enough time that Im not in any desperate hurry to get many ready at a time.  And any time I rush, I always fail, break or screw something up.   

During drying sessions, I turned my attention to fairing the hull and building out the oars and interior oarlocks.  The oars were a bit of a pain, but I can't say Im a huge fan of lots of detail work on tiny things anyway.   I might have have appreciated attaching laser cut flat pieces to dowels, as opposed to flat pieces to larger, thicker flat pieces and then spending an hour sanding it round without breaking the damn thing!  All in all though, I think they turned out well.    There are some final details to add later, but glad to have the bulk of this work done. 

Fairing went really smoothly and took almost no time owing to the excellent design and fit of the pieces.   It basically only needed a bit of work at the bow and stern and a little around the portholes and hatchway.   I then began adding a few planks in the prescribed sequence.   Having pre-bent them, this is also going quite well.   Time will tell how well they begin to fit together.   The instructions only detail minor beveling of the plank edges, and do not mention any blackening (caulking) to the plank edges.   I added it in the customary fashion, however, with a soft pencil.  I just can't imagine the vessel wouldn't have been caulked in some fashion.  

Today cost me about 4 hours time, the bulk of which was spent on oars.  Im sure there is a faster way, but I don't know what it is.  Files, chisels, sandpaper and elbow grease is how I know how to do it without something going sideways.
 
 
 
 
 

So far it has been pretty amazing.   

The accuracy of the tolerances in this kit sound remarkable. Looks like this interesting, little model would be a great starter kit for someone looking to try their hand at ship modeling for the first time.

I agree.   Such a clever thing if your dealing with simple curves like this.   Perhaps not so easy to design if you're planning for complex hull shapes and curves.

That pre-former plate is really clever. Very very smart to offer this kind of tool in the kit.
 
Yves

Well I started into this evening and must say this little kit is a real pleasure to work with.   My only real complaint is the size of the tabs where the pieces need to be cut from the laser cut frames (look for them in the below image, keep in mind this is about 2.5" in diameter).   They're very tiny, and almost hard to see unless you look really closely. Otherwise the pieces are designed and cut so well that they literally fit together perfectly with very little, if any, modification needed.   Ive never experienced this kid of tight tolerance in a kit, nearly always expecting some degree of sanding.  In fact, I would say that if I took the time to sand away the char, in areas where it is more or less unnecessary, than it surely wouldn't fit together as well as it did.  

The instructions are pretty clear, with a few little idiosyncrasies that one quickly gets used to.   There are some very specific, if not oddly described elements that one must pay careful attention.  For instance, the manual often orients you the pieces according to which side the laser would have first began the cut.   Its oddly described and took me a minute to suss out exactly what was meant.  Otherwise the color pictorial companion does a splendid job almost on its own.    So well in fact that I sort of got the gist just looking at the pictures and referred to the narrative if something wasn't immediately clear. 
 

The first step was to kit the window box to the frames and set them in place over the "keel."   Then to to construct the upper hatch frame.  This was followed by setting the inner deck which was of a very nice quality.  All these pieces fit so perfectly, it was real joy to assemble.   Minimal adhesive was required nearly all the way through.

Then it was onto the interior ladder, which was probably the best made little laser cut ladder Ive had to assemble.  It went together so well, fit so tight that it really didn't need any adhesive at all.  It cleaned up nicely and with a light layer of wipe-on poly throughout the interior features, looked rather handsome. 

Then to fit the cross-members which were also extremely well made, with very tight tolerances.   They too, fit together and so effortlessly tight that I opted to forgo adhesive and just added a bit to the joint areas after assembly.  
 

Then after assembling the bow and stern parts, which were comprised of a sandwich of a nicely finished veneer and single piece of plywood, I was able to fit them into place with no trouble at all (again with little adhesive required).   The two pieces are guided together through the use of wire dowels so positioning them was idiot-proof.  
 

There is some beveling here and there, and some fairing to do overall but honestly it is very little and the instructions are quite clear (as is my experience) that this is best left until the very last minute and after careful review of the hull to ensure that you do not over sand.   There are guides that give some indication when enough is enough, but also the design is so simple it can't be too hard to determine when you done the job.  
 
The next step is some preliminary planking, and the provided timber comes pre-spiled.   Tomorrow will tell how well a job has been done with this.   What I do appreciate is the clever plank former that is provided.   You simply boil some of the planks and fit them in wet and leave to dry.   It will take about three sessions to get all the planks dried and I found the former to be almost perfect.   After fitting the planks two at the time as instructed I found that the final set of planks would absolutely not fit without damaging the edges of the planks.  So Ill just go with less and see if I can open that final slot a little with some sand paper.  
 


One little unhappy plank couldn't fit comfortably, so it was left out.  
All told, to this point I have about 3 hours into it. 
 

,The great COVID event has left me with very little time (so far), but I got a little time in at the bench. The supplied mast tops had holes too large to use. And I hadn’t checked them when I made the parts for the masts and prepped the supplied parts. Only when brought them all together did I notice. A recurring theme.  
 
So so then went to make my own. I took a several stabs until I figured out how to drill the wood without splitting it.

Many thanks Bob for a great recommendation.
 
Ordered 12 March through your ebay link, delivered to the UK today (21st) very well packaged and no import duty to pay! Excellent service, particularly in the current situation. I'm looking forward to staying in and reading it - nothing else to do now all the pubs are shut 😟.
 
Derek

I'm following. Maybe the carpenter built it, after comsuming the contents!

Ten Years and Twenty Days
The Memoirs of Karl Döenitz

 
Frontline Books, London - 2019
Price – 520 pages – Non-Fiction
Order: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/
 
Brief overview
This is a reprint of the Admiral’s Memoirs from WWI through the end of WWII and a bit beyond.  Admiral Döenitz was involved in U-boats from WWI and progressed to being the overall commander.  After Hitler’s death, he became his successor, dealt with the surrender of Germany and spent time in prison afterwards so there’s nothing about his childhood or early years. Even Wikipedia only touches lightly on this.
 
CONTENTS :
Prolog
The New Task
Wolf-Pack Tactics
U-Boat Building Policy 1935-39
The Decisive Months of 1939
The U-boat War Begins: September 1930-March 1940
The Norwegian Operation and the Torpedo Crisis
The Battle of the Atlantic: July-October 1940
Organization of U-boat Arm and of U-boat Construction
The Battle of the Atlantic: November 1940-December 1941
America’s War Against Us Before December 11, 1941
Operations in American Waters: January-July  1942
Convoy Battles and Distant Operations: July-September 1942
The Laconia
Improvements in U-boat Equipment and Armament
More Convoy Battles and Operations in Distant Waters: October-December 1942
Commander-in-Chief of the Navy
Collapse of the U-boat War: January-May 1943
My Tasks as Commander-in-Chief 1943-1945
July 20, 1944
The U-boat War from May, 1943 to the End
Head of the Government
Epilog
Appendix 1: U-boat of the German Navy
Appendix 2: Defence of Merchant Shipping Handbook 1938
Appendix 3: Causes of Torpedo Failures
Appendix 4: The Second World War
Appendix 5: U-boat Building Programs
Appendix 6: Figures Concerning the German U-boat War1939-1945
Afterword
Index
 
REVIEW
My first impression was that this is a large and complex body of work given the page count and the small type.   It is, but don’t let that stop you.  It’s written from his memories, papers, and most importantly, his point of view as a dedicated military man, Hitler supporter, and unrepentant Nazi.  I had to do a bit of soul-searching on these last points as are there limits to what a military person should do when it comes to following orders.  There were some questions of his actions and his post-war sentence was based on basically "being in charge".   I’ll let other readers decide.
 
The book is well-written but a bit dry in that it’s more of “I did this”, “here was the problem and how I solved it” type of book.  While it doesn’t really touch on him as a person, it is very in depth on his decisions, thought processes, loyalties, and actions both strategic and in his daily interactions with his men and the leaders of Germany.  And I think those points make this worth reading if for no other reason than have insight as to what motivates leaders, civil and military.
 
I will say that this book isn’t for everyone as it is not entertaining, but factual and  pretty deep into his mentality. He seems to have written this book to justify his actions and to justify that he wasn’t a “bad” Nazi who didn’t deserve his prison term.
 
Spoiler alert:  The “Ten Years and Twenty Day” refers to his time in prison after the war, not his time in command.

Definitely following this.

The historical background provided by Master Korabel is lengthy by comparison to pretty much any other easily available resource and does provide a citation for the information they present.     They even provide a link, which is a great starting point.   I visited the link and found the cited article, and then processed it through Google Translate's document translation tool.  It looks like it might be a chapter or article from another publication titled: "The historical path of the creation, development and formation of submarines" by an unknown author.    Ill be looking a bit further into that, maybe if Cathead has some time to poke around the site he might find something useful.  
 
Russian Version
siry_nikonov.pdf
 
English Version
The historical path of the creation, development and formation of submarines.pdf
 
Should make some interesting reading, Im thinking of reaching out a bit deeper to the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts to see what else might be available.  

I suppose, this submersible is more or less the equivalent of the American Turtle: 

Yves

The kit provides pretty good English instructions, which is why - Im Told -  it took sometime since it was announced before it became available in the West.   They've been working on the translation.   

something not seen every day.........I'm in!   

Cool protoype, I've read nothing but good things about Master Korabel. I was a Russian major once upon a time and would love to be of help, though at this point I suspect Google is just as effective in most settings. Let me know if otherwise!