yvesvidal

Et voila.... There won't be any updates as I am travelling for the next three weeks. Have fun building models.... Yves

Beautiful work Jack. You have been busy. I bet it was tedious, but the result is splendid. Yves

Working on a few details for improving the stern. 1) I installed the "Clutch" to hide partially the neoprene tube. After painting, it looks a lot more palatable: 2) I redid in brass wires (0.8 mm size) the two stern railings. These will be a lot stronger and I should be able to attach the two lines going back to the conning tower: Before filing..... and after, installed: Now, to paint them. Yves

The shrinkage that you see, could be due to the strips being wet during the installation and drying/shrinking later on....? Since you will paint the hull, you can always use Bondo, lots of sanding, primer and a few coats of paint and varnish. Yves

Finally!!! I was starting to wonder when you would be de-constructing.... 🙂 It has been a long time without it. Yves

Great models - Beautiful videos. Yves

I am not sure... I would be tempted to say a submarine moored...but the hull seems high. Yves

Moving along with the "extremely delicate" insertion of the rear torpedoes module. Delicate because we have the commands of the rudder to insert, the rear torpedo tube and the two propeller shafts. Before it, I had to install the rear deck light and wire it. Again, no coming back is possible, without damaging the bulkhead. I verified that both propellers are turning as they are supposed to (contra-rotations in the proper direction): So, we basically have the two ends of the submarine pretty much completed. I broke the plastic railing surrounding the rear deck light on one side. I am going to replace these plastic parts by brass wires shaped and soldered. This stuff is supposed to withstand the tension of the lines coming from the sail and the plastic part will not resist the rest of the construction. I also need to find a solution to hide the ugly couplers between the shaft and motors. In retrospect, I wish I had not cut so low...but I wanted to show the torpedo resting underneath. We'll see. Propellers, rudders and diving planes. I wish brass props could be provided either by Trumpeter or by RCsubs. The Revell folks at 1/72 have all these goodies available on the grey market. It feels almost real... Lots of wires starting to pile up: Blue and white for the rear deck light and four wires coming out of the rear module for the motors and the lights. Yves

Ahhh... the glass of Riesling! Yves

I agree completely with you. The Baltic camouflage is also my favorite. For the PE parts, just make sure you use a good primer (not Vallejo). Yves

It is looking gorgeous. Beautiful work. You could almost not paint the model, as your assembly is so clean. Yves

Fabulous work and great pictures to explain your approach. That is a difficult deck, because of the convex shapes in both directions. Yves

Trumpeter's solution to the mechanism of the front diving planes. Actually not too bad and quite close to the prototype. Again, the kit implementation of the anchor windlass. 95% of it will be invisible. Can you pinpoint the original Vallejo primer peeling away from the PE parts? That primer is excellent on plastic parts but to be absolutely avoided on brass parts. Fortunately, all this decaying is not visible. Yves

Some light shots: Yves

Thank you for the suggestions and comments. Yes, I agree with Katuna that most kits (especially Revell 1/72 which is an excellent base) are over weathered. I can understand the impulse and creative juice (no pun intended) that can flow when you are starting such endeavor. I have not seen pictures of real Type VII-c showing such a distress on their hull, even towards the end of the war, when maintenance was limited to the essential and panic was starting to be present in the axle forces. So we will for now, discard solution #3. Solution 1 is what you will normally see in Museums: models are presented in perfect conditions and all details are immaculate. Solution 2, offering a "matt" finish with saline streaks and a tiny amount of rust and flaking was for me the best approach. The following picture shows the approach I took on the left, whereas the right part of the stern, shows the Museum approach with glossy paint (simply wet). The difference is striking. So, the entire hull has been finished, besides some details (rust and algae). I will be showing more pictures of it, in the future. In the meantime, I wanted to start inserting a module into the hull. And the front torpedo compartment is an excellent candidate for that decisive phase of the assembly. It is still missing the anchor winch and a couple of air tanks that I will be adding later on, once the module is in place in the hull. The torpedo hatch has been completed: a kingdom of rust sealed by a heavy door (missing in the kit). "Alea Jacta Est" as the Romans used to say: The compartment is glued and there is no coming back..... A few more pictures.... Now, to work on the anchor winch, air tank and the diving plane mechanism. Yves