U-552 by yvesvidal - FINISHED - Trumpeter - 1/48 - PLASTIC - Type VIIC U-boat

[lambsbk]

Absolutely stunning Yves.

[torro]

this must be "the build of the year" !!!

[yvesvidal]

Folks,

 

I have narrowed my decision to the following build, for the time being: 

Thank you all for the many "likes" and wonderful support, all along the building of that massive and complex submarine. 

 

Yves

[CDW]

I'll be looking forward to your next project, but this one has far exceeded my expectations for a detailed U-boat model. Outstanding indeed.

[Don_]

Hello Yves,

 

I believe the Trumpeter U-552 kit has all the other U-Boat compartments... Have you completed the entire U-552 kit?

 

Regards,

Don_

 

PS - attached is a photo pf U-552, 2nd image (right) the wind deflector was added...

Edited January 6, 2020 by Don_

[Kevin]

enjoy your break, im about to take one as well, to allow myself more time to do more boat building   

[yvesvidal]

Well, the deep space "submarine" Discovery XD-1 is now completed: 

It will be a little while before I go back to the U-Boot but who knows..... the urge may come back, quickly.

 

Yves

[md1400cs]

Off track - you might have mentioned it before - Are you using an iphone or iPad for those great images?

[yvesvidal]

11 hours ago, md1400cs said:

Off track - you might have mentioned it before - Are you using an iphone or iPad for those great images?

None of the above :-) The Discovery pictures are from my Android phone. Everything about the submarine is from an old Sony camera, unable to focus at short distance.

 

Yves

[md1400cs]

On 2/22/2020 at 6:26 AM, yvesvidal said:

None of the above 🙂 The Discovery pictures are from my Android phone. Everything about the submarine is from an old Sony camera, unable to focus at short distance.

 

Yves

Yes - of course - "we" Mac fanatics keep forgetting that most of the world uses Android devices..🤔

[Katuna]

Alright Spaceman Spiff, chop chop now, enough of this space "ship" talk! I need some U-Boat inspiration to get me motivated again.

 

Don't leave us hanging, brother!

[lmagna]

On 2/27/2020 at 9:28 AM, Katuna said:

Alright Spaceman Spiff, chop chop now, enough of this space "ship" talk! I need some U-Boat inspiration to get me motivated again.

[yvesvidal]

I am not ready to come back quite yet.... Just thinking ahead of what is to be built: the Unter-Offizier raum and Kuche ! This compartment is located forward of the Diesel engine room and after the Control Room. Although at first sight it resembles the previous Offizier Raum, it differs from it by a lot of details. The Fuel tanks are not so large and arranged differently. They also share the space with water tanks, for the crew. 

This view shows what I am talking about. Batteries are in the same location, more or less, but the side fuel tanks are smaller on the aft compartment. The compartment includes sleeping berth, kitchen, restroom and some storage spaces: 

    

The Sleeping area is surrounded by one Fresh Water tank and by a Grey Water tank, used for cleaning. These two large tanks seat on top of the Fuel tank. Finally, we have a Waste Water tank located behind the batteries, on the lower level: 

As you can easily guess, Trumpeter has not provided any of these important details. Therefore, we will have to fabricate some walls and re-organize somewhat the original kit.

 

Below are the Trumpeter instructions as an appetizer: 

Yves

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2020 by yvesvidal

[mtaylor]

Is the Gray Water for cleaning or is it the dump tank from the urinals and sinks?  I'm curious as the definition may have changed to the toilet/sink water draining.

[yvesvidal]

The gray water was used to flush the toilets. The kitchen was equipped with two faucets, one with fresh water for cooking and drinking and another one with salt water for washing dishes and maintenance. Besides this, I am not too sure and would have to research it. If I find something, I'll post it here.

 

Yves

Edited March 5, 2020 by yvesvidal

[mtaylor]

I did some Googling in depth... gray is the water from the sinks, etc.  Yes, used to flush the toilets and some cleaning.  Black water is the water and waste from the toilets.  I wasn't aware that the subs used sea water for cleaning but then it makes sense as sea water was/is used on surface ships.

[yvesvidal]

Here is an excerpts of the U-Boot Manual, regarding Fresh, Grey/Wash and Salted waters:

1)  Sea water installation.     To provide sea water collection in the galley, there is a branch off the cooling water manifold in the diesel engine room, which leads to the valve and a tap in the wash sink.     The warm sea water installation branches off from cooling water head tank in the conning tower casing and leads to the wash basins in both W.C.s and to the wash sink in the galley.     The discharge line of the auxiliary drain and trim pump branches off to the deck wash line.  A shower head can be connected to this line, attached to the net protector, and stowed again after usage.       2)  Wash water installation.     Wash water is stored in the following tanks:             1 wash water tank (listening room)             1 wash water daily supply tank (aft W.C.)     As reserve tanks there are:             Torpedo compensating tank 1             Torpedo compensating tank 2     Wash water tank and wash water daily supply tank are connected to the fresh water filling and extracting line.  Tanks are filled through the intake at the upper deck.     The hand fresh water pump is used for filling the wash water daily supply tank from the wash water tank.  A hand wash water pump provided in the forward W.C., to which a suction line can be switched by the selector cock to the wash water tank or to torpedo compensating tank 2.  Extracting the wash water from torpedo compensating tank 1 takes place by means of compressed air.       3)  Fresh water installation.     Fresh water is stored in 3 tanks (3.870 m³) situated in:             Fresh water tank 1: Galley, port, under the floor             Fresh water tank 2: Control room, port             Fresh water tank 3: Officers room, stb.

The fresh water tanks are connected to the filling and extracting line through the fresh water selector cock.  The line leads through the hull valve at the upper deck and inside the hull branches off to the emergency drain connection.  The hand fresh water pump in the galley takes suction from selected tank and discharges through the control valve either directly to the tap in wash sink or through the filter.     The water supplied by the distilling unit in the control room is collected in the distillate tank and is moved through the control valve either directly or through the filter to fresh water tank 1 in the galley.     All fresh and wash water tanks have sounding pipes and dip sticks.

Edited March 12, 2020 by yvesvidal

[CapnMac82]

On 3/4/2020 at 4:02 PM, yvesvidal said:

 

 

Yves

 

 

 

"Rear Soldiers Living Room."  Trumpy always makes me wonder how they source their translations (if at all).  And through how many permutations.  Like was it Geran to Korean to Mandarin and back to English? 

[mtaylor]

Thanks Yves.   That explains a lot as I'm not familiar with subs at all.

[yvesvidal]

I started working on the kit again, and realized the extent of the disaster for this particular compartment. A lot of surgery and modifications will have to be done if we want this section to have some kind of semblance to the prototype. I suspect that this section was designed during a national Chinese Holiday and that their Rice based alcohol was flowing liberally....

 

Anyway, the first piece to get a massive cut is the back wall. For some unknown (to me) reason, that wall protrudes outside of the pressure hull to reach the sky, right under the deck.... Go figure.

As you can see below, once in place this is what it does. I assume that the ingress pipe for the engine and some air tanks are supposed to hide that mistake, but this is not very serious:

And so we cut..... and we will file later on.

Second crazy thing, the molding of that bulkhead. This is the forward bulkhead separating the kitchen/sub-officers section from the control room. In my world (and the world of German engineers) there is a fuel tank going through and a water tank terminating at this location. So why are we getting a bunch of big bolts? I suppose it is an artistic license from the Trumpeter.

And so we file.....

Third incongruity: The floor for the batteries. The kit calls for a slanted floor, giving a nice inclination for all the acid to spill. In addition, the proposed floor is flat and not staged as the forward batteries compartment was. Finally, that floor only holds half of what it should, in term of batteries. So we are going to need some surgery, de-construction and re-modelling.

 

 First, I am using the floor of the second set of parts I have to build something that resembles the drawings (go back a couple of posts earlier for details):

Then I am cutting that floor in three sections, in order to create a stepped like floor with three levels: 

This is all glued back with styrene strips (your best friend with Trumpeter kits)....

Et voila. We now have something that looks more like the blue-prints.

Next, we will be butchering the bulkheads.

 

Yves

Edited March 12, 2020 by yvesvidal

[Katuna]

Well done,sir. Glad you're back. When you crack open the kit again and these glaring mistakes hit you in the face, it makes you wonder "why" sometimes. But, such is the challenge of a detail-oriented modeler.

 

Curious to the answer you get over a that "other" forum. Like what you've done with the battery shelves though.

 

Welcome back!

[mbp521]

Yay!  Glad to have you back!  Looking forward to more of this masterful build. 

[lmagna]

Welcome back Yves Looking forward to following your progress again.

[yvesvidal]

A little update to show a lot of work. I spent my evening fabricating a compartment for the batteries. Something that looks more prototypical and that may explain how this submarine was designed and built. Only drawback, it will be hard to see once it is finished, but the satisfaction to know that all is there is priceless.

Basically, we have an entire box fabricated to hold the 18 Battery blocks. Some blocks have four cells, other only have three. On each side of that battery box, fuel tanks. I am skipping the fabrication of the wasted water tanks, as it is impossible to see from outside.

Here (above) we have a view of the fuel tank (lower position) with a window cut on the battery compartment, and topped by the water tank, arriving almost aligned with the top of the bunks.

 

Below, the small window to the aft batteries room will not allow me to depict a sailor filing up electrolyte in the cells, as I did in the front batteries room. I may skip the first row of batteries as it will completely occult the inside perspective. I still have to build the pressure hull, which will be used to finish the fuel tank in the front.

With the deck installed, we can say good-bye to the 18 battery modules..... Well, at least, it looks more realistic than the Trumpeter kit approach.

Finally, the complete sandwich, showing the rather large volume dedicated to the fuel tank. Next, we will be cutting the front bulkhead to open the fuel tank and the ballast tanks on the side.  After that, we can start painting all the walls and bulkheads, batteries and put everything together.

Yves

[Katuna]

That's looking great. There a lot of that covered up detail on this thing. Like you said, you know it's there. That looks so much better than the kit.

Edited March 13, 2020 by Katuna

[yvesvidal]

I have finished working on the fuel tank, located on each side of the Officers/Kitchen compartment. The goal is to create a tank which is as close as possible to the prototype and that will reach under the Control room, as indicated in the blue-prints. It is a tedious work with a lot of adjustments. The bulkhead is completely opened and a round enclosure is fabricated: 

The module is dry-fitted into the hull: 

I have created a cut in the side water tank, to allow a better view in the kitchen, pantry and toilet room. Batteries will be sitting underneath.

On the picture (above), you can see the round enclosure that will extend under the control room, to form the largest past of the fuel tank.

 

Now, to paint everything and start installing all the batteries....

 

Yves

[popeye the sailor]

if the battery cut away in only on one side,  would a single row of batteries would show that it's full?...just fill in the cut away opening.   the fabrication looks great...I noticed that the bottom can't be seen through the cut away in the hull.  another thing to think about is how the batteries are serviced.  yea......I know.......with no openings in the bulkheads there's a lot to be considered here.....you've put so much into this model.

[yvesvidal]

Small progress on something that will never be seen again: The batteries!!!

I did not install the last row as it would prevent all visibility into the compartment.

A tiny LED has also be mounted on the bulkhead to provide some light and attract the interest of the audience.

Once the deck is in place, that vision of a large number of cells all lined up will disappear.

 

The Trumpeter approach is to tilt the floor of that compartment and show three rows of batteries, leaning dangerously to starboard. I guess, they made the decision to show in a simplistic way what each compartment was used for. It is commendable but I am looking for something slightly more realistic with my model.

 

Yves

Edited March 18, 2020 by yvesvidal

[Osmosis]

Yves, I just found this build log. What a fascinating project. I followed your Moebius build and look forward to following you throughout this one, even though I am a little late to the party. It will take me a couple of days to catch up as I plan to start at the beginning and read every word.

 

Best regards

[G.L.]

Yves,

Years ago I visited the type VII submarine in Laboe, Germany, but now, thanks to your log, I really discover that boat in all its details.