hexnut

Lately I don't have much time to spend on this project, must work on my diploma thesis.
But nevertheless, I was able to do a couple thing, start planking the hull, finish the anchor winch (the pictures for these will follow in the next post/s), and recently in the nights I started to 3D print some practice things.
Recently I designed and printed Kort nozzles for this model.

I created them using "reference" ictures from google and some basic information from some web-pages. The results are from my perspective quite good and will use them on the build. The inner rounded sections are 51 +/- 0.1 mm in all directions, which is for this application good enough. The bottom slot is for the rudder support. The only thing that is necessary is to polish them and pain them red.
 
George

Finally the thrusters are complete  
The body is made of bronze, the drive shaft/worm is made from an M3 screw and the worm gear is made of brass. The final gear ratio is 1:31 and the driving engine should mahe max RPM of 28800, this then gives around 930 RPM on the propellers.

The basic parts of the thrusters; body, worm gear, the worm/drive shaft, and the engine.
 

the assembled unit, with the pair of propellers.
 

The stern unit painted red, and taped for grinding the exes material of the aluminium engine mount.
 

both units are finished, the frornt is glued together, the rear will be glued once inserted into the hull.
 

Enlarging the rear thruster hole, lots of dust...  
 
 
Also some parts came.. 
The pair of the main propellers, 50mm diameter blade design for kort nozzles, of course Left Handed (LH) and Righ Handed (RH).
And the speed controllers (ESC) for the main engines:

These are marine ESC's with maximum of 30 A of continuous current, the engines are rated for 28 A burst for ~30sec. As one can see the brush-less engine has 3 wires leading from the ESC into the engine. By changing the connection of two of those wires the engine changes its rotation, without any impact on performance of lifespan. 
 

Yesterday some goodies arrived, the propellers of the two thrusters, which are planned to be finished tomorow.

A two pairs, each thruster has a LH and a RH propeller. 

Continuation on the Hull:
Since the bottom was already attached and I got the order of epoxy, I started to waterproof the base structure of the hull.
 

Here is also added the deck for the electronics, that are going inside.

The stern view of the ship. With the view of the added servo mounts, one servo per rudder, this will allow for independent rudder movement.

The details of the servo mounts. They are made out of the remaining pieces of the hardwood dowel used to create the towing-rope anchor in the hull.
 
The Decks:
After waterproofing of the hull with epoxy, the main decks followed to be glued to place.

The bow deck is being glued to place.

The stern deck with the supports for the side planking and the inner supports for the towing rope leads. All of these supports were first glued to place by a drop of super glue, then secured to place by epoxy from the bottom side of the hull.

Dry-fitting of the bow supports. Now it looks more like a piranha fish, the a boat  

Front view of the bow supports.
 
The Bridge:
 
Next on the list is the bridge. Here I must say that, the kit is really elaborated. The non right-angle joints are made by scraping, I would prefer to have a modeling wood plane for this work.., the two joining parts. With some patience and a sharp scalpel this was easily completed.

The lower part of the bridge.

Details of the angle joins of parts. The inside of the entirety of these joints is to be coated with epoxy.
 

Glued lower part of the bridge with dry-fitted the upper part.


The Assembly of the upper bridge. the roof will not be glued, for I intend to make the interior of the bridge. For which I managed do find a few pictures on the web.

The upper windows are being glued, the roof is there just to make sure, that everything fits OK.

 

Finished control room exterior. Now it will wait for the interior.

 

The last for now is the crane.
 
P.S.
If someone is still following I do apologize for the long pauses in the vlog. I have lots of work in school right now, I hope to update this build log more often by the start of August.

The Hull
 
Since I am still in the process of making the thursters, the work on the ship is quite slow, usually I just glue a plank or two in the stern area.
This is the one of the handful of places where actual planking is being used, most of the hull is "planked" by large pieces of pre-cut 2mm plywood, not that I am complaining, it's just that this way is easy to do and fast...

Attaching the bottom parts.
 
Started the planking of the inner stern bend. Since I didn't post for a while, I already have finished the stern planking.


And here comes my first question for the more experienced members. Do you know of a trick of how to sand these kinds of surfaces? I think this is a convex surface, in mathematical terms. I used my thumb, and of course ended up burning it a bit...
 
The Rear deck
 
During these weeks I was also working on the rear deck, where a planked area of the deck is. For this I got for myself 18 meters of mahogany strip and 5 meters of lime strip. In the course of one day, cut the mahogany to 700 pieces and started the patient part of the process.

The strips, 3x1 mm mahogany and 1x1 mm lime.

The detail of the glued planks, the black stuff is PVA mixed with black color. Was trying this method out, turns out, it is quite a good one, except the amount of sanding needed to get it finished.

In the process of sanding...

The almost finished deck. A few more hours of sanding at fine grits, and at least 3 coats of semi mat lacquer, and it should be done.  
 

Made some more progress this weekend, got the rear superstructure PE all done and painted:
 

 

 

 
Something I did that I don't see many other Bismarck builders do is paint the roof of the main hangar in dark grey (the same color as most all steel deck areas of the ship). I decided to do it because you can see it was painted likewise on the actual wreck... makes sense as this area would be walked around on to access the smaller boats that will eventually take residence here. I also put a huge amount of tedious work in on the many PE vents here; they were a bear to complete but look good. Here's the scariest one before installation:
 

 
Anyway, there will be some touch-up to do still on this section but the next project is going to be the funnel and forward hangars. After that I'll return to do the smaller details such as the guns, railings/stairs and storage boxes that litter the superstructure. 
 

I went on to plank the sides and the machinery wells at the bow and stern.  There is only 18 inches of freeboard so not many planks show.  I have started to add the rubrail as shown on the plans.

Wefalck,  have you seen the Alaskan gold dredges? I attended a model railroad convention, back in June and this was one of the structure entries.
 

Thanks for the sympathy, gentlemen !. In the end, I persevered
 
Binnacles
 
WESPE-Class was originally equipped with three binnacles, one on the bridge, the mother-compass on a sort of pole in front of the engine-room skylight, and the third one in front of the emergency steering-wheel at the stern. In the 1890s a fourth binnacle was installed on a platform atop the engine-room skylight, but is left off here. As SMS WESPE was built in 1876 the original binnacles lack the conspicuous compensation spheres, that were only invented in the 1880s by Lord Kelvin. Also other type of compensation gear is not visible on the lithographs and the earliest photograph. A photography of the early 1890s shows a much more substantial binnacle in front of the emergency steering-wheel, which preumably now houses the compensation gear and also sports the compensation spheres. Originally, the compasses must have been illumanted by petroleum lamps, but from the lithographs it is not clear, where these lamps would have been attached. At least there are exhaust funnels on top of the binnacles, which have disappeared in later photographs. This seems to indicated that electrical illumination might have been introduced, when a dynamo was installed on board in the early 1890s for a search-light.

The binnacles as they appear on the early 1880s lithograph
 
For the model the individual binnacles were redrawn from the lithograph in order to serve as a basis for working sketch to guide the lathe- and mill-work. One needs to keep in mind that the total height is somewhere between 10 and 15 mm.
 
Redrawn binnacles, broken down into individual components to facilitate machining and painting
 
The columns presumably were made from mahagony and were turned from brass rod before being transferred to dividing head on mill to cut the octogonal shape.
 

Milling the octogonal section of the binnacle columns
 
The actual compass was made, as usual, from brass and so on the model. Body and funnel did not provide a particular challenge, not considering the small size. To the contrary, the glass hood with its narrow frames of perhaps 15 mm width on the original. The body was roughly turned from Plexiglas and then transferred to the mill. Here the octogonal pyramid was milled. Using a 0.3 mm ball-head burr narrow grooves were cut into the edges and these grooves filled in with brass paint.
 

Set-up on the micro-mill to shape the octogonal pyramid of the glass hood
 
 

Milling the faces of the octogonal pyramid
 

Cleaning up the faces after painting the edges
 
Once the paint had thoroughly dried, the faces were very lightly milled over, which resulted in sharp narrow brass strips at the edges. This is a technique that I copied from making engraved scales.

Each binnacle is made up from four parts
 
Originally I had the crazy idea of placing a miniature compass-card underneath the Plexiglas hoods, but even without it, assembling the binnacles was fiddly enough.

The binnacles provisionally assembled, pending the painting of the stands (apologies for the poor quality picture and the missing match for scale)
 
To be continued soon(?) ...
 

Hi all –
 
Sorry to have been away so long.  I somehow developed a bit of writer’s block. 
 
Yes, I know that I am one of the last people you would think this would happen to, but there it is.  I could name half a dozen possible causes, and maybe they all ganged up on me at once.  But I got a bit of energy at the NRG conference, so I am trying to push through the molasses of my mind and post again.   Mostly just captions for photos.
 
Fortunately, it did not slow down the actual building process, and the model has been completed, delivered and mounted in the museum.


So here are the boats –
Over the head of Madam Secretary, with double rolls along the sides.

These were canvas sheets used to raise the freeboard.

I worked with a designer to have them 3-D printed in 26 foot and 30 foot sizes

Their davits,  with PE tackle.

Mounted aboard ship

The larger powered launch

Midships boats tucked into the hull, with their external davits

The gang of boats on the forward deckhouse

I’ll try to post again soon.
 
Dan

Hello again to all –
 
Thanks so much for the compliments and commiserations.  Please don’t take my experience as the last word.  Many people that I have talked to, on the boat and after coming home, have had excellent river cruises.  Just my luck to get a rainy week.
 
Carl – don’t avoid America as a vacation destination.  Some of my favorite trips have been through the Southwest, with its geological wonders, herds of wildlife, and the ancient dwellings and modern cultures of our native peoples.
 
But back to the shipyard - - -
 
The next area of the ship to be tackled was the working deck at the bow.  As seen on the plan, there are two sections, bisected by a curved breakwater.  Six large bollards are mounted in the forward area, with two smaller ones in the aft section, which also contains a large hatch.  The chain for the large anchor at the nose of the ship comes up on the centerline, but then angles slightly to starboard to run around the chain winch which sits between the aft pair of bollards.

This agrees with this photo taken, I believe, towards the beginning of the war service.  Note that the lighter chains from the smaller winches for the side anchors run under the large anchor chain.

Contrast that with this photo.  It is clear that the large anchor winch has been moved back aft of the breakwater.  The chain runs through the breakwater and returns to the chain locker through a covered chute.

This configuration was retained during liner service.  After discussion it was decided to use this layout rather than splitting the winch in half. 

The breakwater was shaped, painted and installed with a hole for the anchor chain to starboard of the centerline.  Bollards are Bluejacket castings, cleaned up and slightly modified.  The smaller winches are Shapeways offerings, mounted on round bases and painted.  The light chains are the finest that I have, with a nominal diameter of 0.020” and more than 40 links/inch.

The fittings for the main anchor include a large Shapeways winch with an added base to raise it to the needed height.  The trough for the chain, the return chute, and the hawse pipe and chain brake are all scratch-built.

A small triangular platform was installed at the extreme bow with the hawse pipe and chain brake below it angled slightly to starboard.  The trough was cut and fitted over the side anchor chains to meet the breakwater.  The stud link chain is another Shapeways product.  I was quite happy with it.  It is very accurate and not expensive at all.

After the chain was installed the screw drive for the chain brake was fashioned from 0.032” brass rod and installed.  The handles are sections of PE railing.

Chain preventers were mounted, two on each side.  They are made up from the beads that I used for turnbuckles, ground to a shallow angle and mounted on small pads.  Short lengths of fine chain nip onto the large chain, although I did not mount preventer hooks.  That would have been a detail too small even for me.  Low railings are mounted on the bulwarks above the fairleads to help protect the soldiers and sailors who are seen in many photos standing on the fairlead heads and leaning over the side! 

In the aft area of the deck the large hatch was built up as previous hatches were, painted and installed.  Just forward is a companionway with a curved top that straddles the centerline.  On its top is a 4-seat boom crutch for the cargo booms that come off the foremast. 

On the troop ship side the gun platform was built up to fit over the breakwater and bollards so its deck matched the height of the bulwark.  Railings run around its inner edges, with a removable one along the bulwark.

The 6-inch gun has been temporarily placed on the platform to check location and height.  It is a bit of a shame that the photos show the large shield on the gun, which hides the truly fine details of the breech and the loading and aiming mechanisms.

That completes this area.  I am happy with it, although I see that the short piece of gun platform railing will have to be straightened.
 
Next I turned to the boats.  There are almost 100 of them, with several different davit types.
 
More soon.
 
Dan

I am working on the periscopes and other details of the conning tower. So, the progress are slow and small.
 
I wanted to share with you some interesting facts about the Trumpeter kit and the real need to invest into a Photo-Etched kit from Eduard or RCSubz. Below is the assembly of the Trumpeter kit for the attack periscope and stand for the UZO (surface attack Optics) and binnacle. As you can see, details have been simply omitted: 

In contrast, the RCSubz photo-etched set offers many more details with a challenging assembly: 


I have not looked at the Eduard set, but I suspect they do improve significantly over the Trumpeter kit. So, this is where I stand as this moment: 

Still adding some small parts to the Conning Tower: 


Yves
 

Some progress on the conning tower. There is still plenty to do with the periscope masts and their bases. As you can see, RCSubz offers a lot of small parts to improve the Trumpeter model: 

 After a coat of automotive primer: 

At the top of the sail, I added some railings for the crew. This part is missing from both Trumpeter and RCSubz, but is clearly visible on some of the pictures: 


I feel better about the hatches. It is not as perfect as the prototype but a lot better with the primer. Hopefully, the final paint coat will hide them even more.

The compass casing and the front of the sail will need some putty.

That's all for today, folks.
 
Yves
 

So, I went back to some of the hatches, removed them and sanded some more. I think the result looks better.
 
One side of the sail is finished and has been primed with automotive primer. The rungs and handrails were a nightmare to put together, due to the size of these tiny parts.

The deck is now glued to the finished side. I will work on the other side and will install the navigation lights with micro LEDs. A test fit on the main deck reveals a perfect alignment and position of the sail, on the wart.

I still have to add a lot of details on that deck and conning tower.
 
Yves

The monkey rail (at the qtr. deck)  is supported by stanchions...34 of them, 1 foot above the main rail.  I do not have a duplicator, so I bought a pack of 6 mm stanchions from Model Expo-online.  They need a center pin so I have to drill a hole drilled through to accept a .027" pin.  Final product below:

There were complications to accomplish this.  I need to drill a hole for the pin, top to bottom.  I need some way of holding the piece so the hole is centered.
The base of the stanchion is about .011+",  the cap is about .010+" and the narrowest part is about .05".  I'm far from expert with a mill.  If all the boring was done without moving the x or y-axis, everything should be centered.
To drill from the base toward the top, using the mill I made a jig with a .010" hole a little shorter than 6 mm deep so the inverted stanchion would slide into the hole (top to bottom), but the wider base would be a bit proud of the jig and held centered.  See inverted stanchion inserted in jig.

A #71 drill bit was used to bore a little more than 3 mm deep. (boring all the way through never came out centered on the other end).  All the pieces were drilled this way.
Next, how to bore from the center of the narrower top down to complete the hole?  In the jig, I bored another hole .011", wide enough to hold the (bottom of the)  stanchion, but the top was loose, so never plumb.  How to hold the top so it was centered on the drill bit axis?
I bored a 2.35  MM hole . in a piece of scrap lined up on the jig and reamed it out so the cap of the stanchion would just fit in.

The stanchion was inserted (upright) in the larger hole and the "scrap" piece was then placed over the cap, held in place so the drilling from the top down was centered on the drill axis.

After drilling a little more than 3 mm deep, it was removed from the jig and checked to see of the pin would be centered.  All were.

Back to the rails.
Maury
 
 
 

Worked a bit on the metal work for the hatch covers. 

Maury

Bulwarks are in and being evened and faired.  Note the strake above the covering board is a scupper strake (2.5" open to the next strake above).

Maury

I am now working on the sail sides. The transparent side always offers an additional challenge: harder to see what you are doing and the material reacts differently to the grinding and drilling. It is also more brittle so you have to be extra careful.

Same treatment as the opaque side: carving the admission vent, carving the lugs to hold the wood planks inside the sail, carving the navigation light openings. As far as the multiple holes near the greenhouse, I am not able to drill them using my Dremel. The material melts with the heat and the drill becomes bigger, even at very low speed. I will just mark them by hand and fill them with a wash later on.
 
The various decks inside the sail, are being completed: 

Trumpeter forgot to provide an opening for the antennae connection on the front of the sail. I have added a piece of tube that will contain the ceramic insulator, later on: 



And finally, a little teaser of what is to come: 

And more pictures of the wart, that will soon disappear forever: 



I hope you enjoy. I sure do!
 
Yves
 

I did wonder if a 3mm LED would fit. Fortunately I have some SM LEDs in green/red left over from a previous build so I will probably use these. They fit neatly between the strips of copper on Veroboard as below: -

A challenge to solder, but worth it.
 
By the way, is there a reason why you've left the Diesel engine compartment? I'm currently building this and would be interested to see how you handle the build and colours for the engine, and the PE table stand (PE5). I had considerable difficulty with this part and will scratch-build my own using plastic sheet. Good luck...although your skills are better than mine with the PE I think.
 
Sail assembly is looking good.

We are now working on the inner hull of the sail. That part of the submarine was built extremely stiff and re-unforced to withstand underwater explosions and air attacks.
The inner or pressure hull of a submarine has the shape of a cigar with a big wart on the top. You can also see the large opening just above the Diesel compartment, to allow the insertion of these giant engines (no, they could not pass through the main hatch access 🙂 even through the torpedoes chute 😞

Unfortunately, the inside of the sail will not be visible but I could not resist the pleasure of putting it together with all the provided parts: 

Here you can see the attack periscope that provided another point of vision for the Kaleunt or officer in charge of launching the torpedoes.
 
That periscope is finally mounted on the deck. It will be used as a guide to position very precisely the inner pressure hull of the sail:

Let's not forget the hatch lid: 

All the above will be of course, completely non-visible, once the lid is placed on the deck: 

The "wart" is glued with acrylic glue for a very precise and slow positioning. It will provide the correct orientation and height of the sail bridge: 

In the front is the observation periscope tube. A ladder will be inserted before gluing the sail deck, but will not be visible.
 
That assembly explains quite well, how the U-boot Type VIIc was built.
 
Yves
 
 

Few progress to report. Not much going on but very time consuming.

I drilled the opening for the fresh air admission for the starboard diesel and glued the PE grill. The position light was also opened. I am still debating how I will make it working as even 3 mm LED will not fit. I will probably use a micro SMS LED with a colored piece of translucent plastic for the lens. Trumpeter did not care to drill the large amount of holes on the side, either. I wished a PE part was available for that section of the sail, but RCSubz did not include it.

On the other side, a few more details have been glued: wood slats to protect the crew from the cold and shocks as well as anti-skidding steps for the vigil. Again, Trumpeter did not care marking the wooden slats with the three lugs to hold them to the side of the sail. I did it with a small drill.
 
It is worth spending some time on the conning tower as it is one of the highlights of a submarine. Most likely, this section will take many days and weeks before it is completed.
 
Yves
 

The creation of the Swiss cheese is almost over: 

There is not much plastic left on that part. But the light test reveals that all has been cut accordingly: 

Time to glue the PE on top of the plastic skeleton and to add the hatch lid: 


Again, the RC Subz photo etched part are a very nice and close match to the Trumpeter parts. They definitely enhance the appearance of this model.
 
Yves

A few progress, as I am turning the sail floor into Swiss cheese. Again, the fantastic PE set from RCSubs is perfectly designed and provides a very nice fit: 


Nice instructions from RCSubs too, a lot easier to follow than the Trumpeter manual, which is rather vague: 

When I am done, that part will just be a skeleton.
 
Yves
 
 

Decisions...decisions!!
 
I am about to start working on the sail or what is also called the "Conning Tower". The name "conning" comes not from the conical shape but from the English term of "to conn a vessel from a vantage point or from a high structure". On a U-Boot, that was not so high and conning made you very wet, when the sea was rough.
 
So, the Chinese Trumpeter screwed up royally. It is probably the biggest "quack" in the kit. The starboard of the hull is see through, but for the sail, they decided it was the Port side. Duh.... Was this intentional, was it a mistake? We will never know, but the consensus among modelers, is that they got it wrong.

Another problem is that the inside of the  sail port side is not available or represented, since it was supposed to be transparent. To show it properly, we would have to rebuild entirely, the little tub parts. Besides, I have no idea what the Port side looks like from the inside. Finally, the opening is really small and no larger than a small postal stamps. There would not be much to see.

Finally, I kind of like the sail being "solid" as it blends more harmoniously with the bridge and provides a more realistic depiction of the upper part of the U-Boot, than any contraption I could design and which would probably end up far from the reality.

With that being said, I think we are going to build that sail "solid" and focus on the visible and outside details with plenty of plastic and Photo-etched parts. We will also add some lights to increase the complexity of the electrical circuit.
 
The sail will not be glued on the bridge, until I figure out how the various periscopes, air intakes, antennas and access hatches work out with the control room, underneath.
 
Yves

Another quick update... I'm focusing attention on the aft upper superstructure lately. Some might question the practice of scraping off perfectly good molded detail only to replace it with tiny brass bits but I assure you, I am not insane. OK, OK... maybe just a little bit.   
 
Anyway, all the decks are installed and masked, tiny holes are drilled for bar steps and the photetch is going on. Tedious work as like the main superstructure level, there is A LOT of it. 
 

 

 

 
There's some debate on whether the aft section of the upper deck here was metal or planking; I decided to join the metal camp. Two flak guns would later be placed here but near as I can tell they weren't installed yet for my build's timeframe so I'm leaving them out.