My fellow Redskins.
Speaking for the great white father in Washington and all the American people, let me say we respect you savages for your native ability to instantly adapt and survive in whatever godforsaken wilderness we move you to.
Out There.....
Sign Here.........
are you keeping a written record of problems, processes, etc? would make a good web page for other modelers.
coolness. i'm saving them for when my turn comes. my skills must get better.
ok, white man, just do not forget shiny rocks and firewater. and model supplies.
Actually, the kit fits together very nicely - the only problems with my example are that some of the more delicate railing and detail parts broke during shipping, but nothing that I wasn't already planning to replace with brass in the first place.
The biggest glaring deficiency in the kit (besides all of the flood holes not being open...) are that the saddle tank vents are missing. that's really noticable if you know your way around a U-Boat. They can be very easily scribed in with a template, or added from one of the many sets of etch out there for this kit. I've used drill bits in a pin vice, my X-Acto, and a micro surgical scalpel to open all of the floods
- including the decking.
Speaking of etch - no single etch set out there completely captures all of the available details, and only one contains the saddle tank vents - the White Ensign one, I believe. To really get a nice comprehensive set of etched U-Boat details, You have to spend something on the order of $150 for three differnt sets and then pick and choose...and end up with a LOT of duplicate parts. You could also do it by sanding through until the holes break out - I tried that initially, but it wasn;t going fast enough for me. Also, the deck parts get mighty thin if you try to sand through the backside.
Also - since the decking was wood (which I initially was skeptcal about on this variant of the Type VII because of the hole pattern) a photo etched deck probably won't look as true as the route I've chosen in hogging out the plastic; I may scuff the plastic a bit to simulate grain
- TBD. I've seen the available wood decks - I think they're a bit thick...should have been laser cut from 1/64" ply, IMO. And they're pricey at $40.
One item I wasn't initially planning to use was the outer pressure hull kit from Yankee Modelworks...was going to scratch build. Then I got lazy and ordered (x2) it...
i had read that, that was why i made the $500 u-boat joke. you'd think one company could do it all, but this is the real world. (always hear steve diggle singing when i think that phrase....)
so this is a later war build? was it late 43 they switched to wood? my model and version history is insufficent.
would that be a difficult scratch? or merely tedious? when my skills are adequate, i will still look for help.
You don't know how close I came...
I read something that made a lot of sense - that the wooden deck didn't freeze over as rapidly as the steel one while operating in the north Atlantic...also when I looked closer at photos I could see that the deck with this hole pattern was in fact wood. I forget the year/Type they made the switch, but I've since concluded that the stories that the switch was made for lack of steel are probably bunk.
Something else I discovered was another predominant wooden deck pattern
- so either one of the two available wood decks may be wrong for a particular boat.
Fairly easy to scratch build, I think. Just lots of tubes, etc. The available pics of the kit are a handy ref:
IMO, just opening up the limber holes in the hull won't be enough to really let the detail be discovered...gotta do the deck, too.
they're in a lot of places, but they are all off the ballentine/marshall cavendish sort so suspect of being quotes of one source. i'm going to hit the library for real sources.
yep, hit the books.
bookmarked!
gotta make the tool to make the tool to make the part...
-ee smith spacehounds of ipc-a really good read.
Just finished the aft deck section! Now I gotta do the midships deck and I'll be done with this insanity...
Then I can actually paint and glue something(s) together...after I get that pressure hull kit...oh, well...I can paint a few things.
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