Azzoun

Hello to you from New Jersey!

Great Topic - looking forward to the next update!

Thank you for the complements. There are a few places where the fiberglass may have some raised sections which will be sanded through, some are unavoidable. The main purpose of the fiberglass is to give the hull durability and rigidity. The interior epoxy coating and all the subsequent layers of paste bondo and paint will keep the hull waterproof even if the fiberglass was sanded through in a few places. The objective is to keep it mostly intact where you can. Hope that helps. Joshua

The next step for me in this build and I acknowledge, seems a bit out of order to drilling the hull but alas, I then coated the outer hull with a layer of fiberglass. The first attempt at this was a fail because didn’t adhere to the hull. I only coated the outside of the fiber mesh material with the Bondo resin and it mostly didn’t soak through to adhere to the hull. I was able to peal it away with minimal damage and start over. In the second attempt, I coated the hull, then applied the mesh, and coated again over top. Once cured, I obtained some Bondo two-part paste (Grey) and gave the whole hull a coat. Once that Bondo paste was cured and sanded, I used Bondo putty in a squeeze tube for the finer details (red). Eventually, this was the result. My next entry, I’ll discuss installing prop shafts and construction of the struts. Talk again soon, Joshua

It's your perspective - I can show you photos later that they line up better than you think .

The best part of being in a ship modeling club like PSMS is the help that is readily offered by all the members. In this case, the SubChaser kit was only designed for one propellor however that did not stop member, Fred Signor, from designing a jig which allowed him to align the outer propellor shafts. Fred is an expert machinist and he builds models with the level of care demanded from this profession. It was a huge benefit that he offered his completed work and experience to expedite our efforts in presenting our SubChaser models with greater historical accuracy. Attached below are a historical photo from the Subchaser.org, a snap of the process of drilling, and the finished effort. I've uploaded a short video of the tech session where we drilled the shaft holes and the fun we had doing it, the link immediately below! One has to wonder, how many ship modelers does it take to drill a propellor shaft? Enjoy, Joshua https://youtu.be/2hompjvZmZk

Hello! I decided to start a buildlog on a model that I've been working with off and on since the summer of 2022, the Dumas SC-1 Class SubChaser. Fate brought me the kit from the passing of one of our Philadelphia Ship Model Society ("PSMS") members, Jim MacIntyre, who started this kit and was doing a fine job to get the hull assembled. He had installed the main propellor shaft and strut, and epoxied the interior of the hull. This kit is a "club project" for the PSMS which had somewhat fizzled out but I wanted to revitalize it. At the time of adoption, one SubChaser had been completed and four others were in various stages of completion, mostly similar to the state at which I received this one. This is my first attempt at building a remote control scale boat model. The Dumas kit itself is fairly basic and I've already replaced or will be replacing many of the provided fittings however the instructions have been helpful and are well done. Thanks to various websites like Subchaser.org and various books that provide a fair amount of information on these ships. Subchasers were a hastily built craft in order to deal with "German U-Boat Problem" that was devastating shipping during WWI. The SC-1 SubChaser's primary weapons were depth charges either launched from a "Y" gun or released from racks and a 3" Poole gun mounted on the forward deck. They were equipped with a couple variations of listening devices and operated in squadrons of three that would work closely together to triangulate a submarine's location. Subchasers only succeeded in sinking two submarines however they were highly successful in creating blockades against submarine passage. Over 400 SubChasers were contracted to various shipyards across America and thus there are some variations in their construction depending on the manufacturer. SCs were 110' long but very narrow in the beam and according to accounts, were a very "wet" boat which wasn't happy unless it was constantly burying the gunnels into the surf. They were powered by three 220hp Standard Motor gasoline engines that could be started and stopped quickly utilizing compressed air. Their crew consisted of 4 officers and 20 men whose skippers were often young, upper class officers with experience in yachting. Several Subchasers were built in my home state, New Jersey, and combined with a book written specifically on the accounts of SC-93, "Hunters of the Steel Sharks", I've chosen that boat as my subject. Included below are photos of the book, the status of the model when acquired, my model next to models from other PSMS Club members, and some historical photos (courtesy of Subchaser.org). I found trying to find resources on building scale remote control ship models to be challenging to find best practice. Hopefully this buildlog can be a help! All the best, Joshua

I've got my cc ready!

Thank you!

And so here is the finished model and I was pleasantly surprised to win the Modeler's Choice Award at our recent Northeast Conference for the Power category.

I decided to rig the model after finishing the base as I didn't want to be handling it and inviting a moment for accidents. The base is a simple select pine - routed a groove around the edge. I purchased a plexiglass cover from shopPopdisplays and was very happy with the product. Rigging the model was a mix of using 8 ought thread and AK super fine. Many folks tout using EZ line however the AK product is half the width and is much less noticeable as a ribbon. Rigging this model was a challenge since it's difficult to see where some lines terminate. I cobbled this rigging from multiple sources including leveraging previously built models, right or wrong as it may be.

After the ship was mostly assembled, I went about doing some weathering by first applying the Tamiya panel liner which I initially found a little difficult to use. It was very oily and kind of just smeared applying straight from the bottle. What i discovered is if you use some enamel thinner and apply directly to the surface prior to applying the liner, it travels very nicely into the corners, cracks and crevices. Utilizing some AK rust streaking but tried to keep it subtle.

Hey there, It's been a little while I've posted to this log, I've since completed the model and it's nagging at me that I didn't finish this build log. So here's the catch up. Working through the build of the planes was fairly straight forward, although doing the PE struts was certainly fiddly. I used the Flyhawk plane carts. Unfortunately I don't show the decaling since almost all the decals were only for the planes. Once complete, I modeled to see how they'd look on the overall model. The paint scheme for the planes was top side as green with a white underbelly. Trying to tape mask this was extremely tedious and didn't seem very secure, so I switched into some liquid mask. The green adds a nice contrast to all the grey.

Pretty neat ship model company - I love Civil War era ships! Was hoping for a Choctaw!

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