1/100 INS Veer (Tarantul I)

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:52 pm

*** New posts from Page 4 onwards, Tuesday, July 8th 2008 ***

hello everyone,

It has been a couple of weeks since I registered with this site, and I should say, I am really impressed by all the work done by all you modellers here. Not only impressed, I am really insired to build something on my own since I have a couple of weeks of time for myself (summer holidays). After doing a bit of research, I decided to model INS Veer (Tarantul I) in 1/100 scale.

You may ask why I chose that ship and the scale, well I wanted something not too big that I can put in the pool in my apartment, but not too small that I won't be able to add any details as my skills are limited. INS Veer is a guided missile corvett, and the length of the hull is 56 m. At 1/100 scale, the hull will be 56 cm, which is the size I am looking at. 1/96 seems like a popular scale, but diving by 100 makes it easier to conver the actual dimentions to the scale, so I decide on that one. Also, I wanted a ship with less details and components as this is my first scratch built hull. And, why Indian Navy colors? Because I have been on board some of the Indian Naval Ships when I was a teenager, and that is how my facsication for ships grew.

I am a full time student with a meager budget! Hence, this project is going to use most of the stuff that I already have, and scartch built parts as much as possible. The hull will be made out of balsa, with fiber glass coating. The super structure will me made out of styrene of various thickness and some rigid crylic sheet that I already posess.

I could not source a resonably priced plan of the Tarantul. I went ahead and bought a 1/400 plastic kit made by Mirage Hobbies from http://www.squadron.com. My idea is to use this as a template to build a larger model. Found out that I oderdered Tarantul III instead of Tarantul I! I decided to go ahead and use it since the hull is the same.

I also downloaded a boat load of photos of Hiddensee from various photo sharing sites like http://www.webshots.com and http://www.flickr.com. Since Hiddensee is also a Tarantul I class ship, I am going to use these photos as my reference material for building the details.

And now some newbie questions.
1) For a model that is 56 cm (22 inches) long, what type of propulsion system do I need? The ship has two propellers and has a maximum speed of 40 knots. What size motors do you recommend for scale speed?
2) I do not have an airbrush. Do you recommend using a spray can or would it be better to use a brush? And what colors?
3) I already googled for information and photos of this ship. If you know of any other source of material (things like personal photo albums, news groups or threads etc), please let me know. It would be very helpful.

This is my first scrath built hull and my first scratch built radio controlled ship model. Just wanted to make a point as how inexperienced I am at this, so any advice will be greatly appreciated. Also, you will have to excuse my limited writing skills and loose usage of nautical terms! Your anwsers and thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Kalkura

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:58 pm

Here is a picture of INS Veer (Courtesy of http://www.bharat-rakshak.com)+

ARH · Post by **ARH** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 6:06 pm

Hi, You have made a good start by coming here, we will try to help as much as we can, the motors for the model will be very small due to the size of the hull, as for language, your doing very well, you dont need to know all the terms, most will understand, ARH

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:13 pm

Thanks for the kind words ARH. I enjoyed reading all your threads here.

I was also thinking small when it came to the motors, but couldn't decide on the size . Will 280 size motors work? I have a couple of them lying around.

Here is a picture of the Mirage Tarantul III kit that I am using as the template:

TommyL · Post by **TommyL** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:27 pm

Interesting nimble looking craft. Dont worry about spelling everything right also. I manage to mess all my posts up that way.

TommyL.

Avery Boyer · Post by **Avery Boyer** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:22 am

Interesting choice of subject. Can't wait to see progress. That's a nice photo too.

I was "Inspired" by the scratch builds on this forum, so i started a 1/250 HMS Queen Mary.That was 4 months ago.....

I just now got the last few frames cut.....

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:30 am

I did not mention in my first post that it has already been a week or so since I started on this project. I will have to download all the pictures that I took and post them here. I will try to do it as soon as possible and catch up with the build.

First, I traced the upper deck onto a paper and enlarged it in a copier to 400%. Since the kit is 1/400, this gave me the template of the deck in 1/100 scale. I also did some measurements on the hull using a calipers and some trigonometry yielded the templates I needed for the keel and the lower deck.

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:45 am

Cut the lower deck and the keel out of balsa sheet (around 3mm thick). The lower bulkheads are also made out of the same material. They are nothing more than right angled triangles.

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:57 am

Cutting the upper bulkheads was probably the most crictical part as I had to get all the angles and lenghts right. The upper bulkheads are made out of two parts, bottom and top. The bottom ones are shown in the picture.

The grains of the wood played optical illusion on me, making me to think that the angles are not symmetrical

. It took a while for me figure out what was going on. Also, I found it a lot more difficult to cut and sand pieces when oblique angles are included. Things are a lot easier when everything is right angled

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:03 am

Bulkheads guled onto the lower deck...

As you can see, my living roon is my garage and the carpet is my work table

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:12 am

Another view..

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:29 am

The bulkheads needed some corrections to be made. I really took my time here comparing the hull to my "template", making a lot of measurements back and forth. I knew that any incauracy here is going to change the way hull looks when sheeted, and I won't be able to correct it.

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:38 am

The rear end of the main deck makes a curve where it meets with the hull. The curvature increases towards the rear (difficult to explain, but I think the areal picture of the ship posted in the first page shows this). I used some 8mm balsa sheets to carve the shape.

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:39 am

Top portion of the upper bulkheads are in place.

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:50 am

Cut some holes in the lower deck for the ballast. Also, added some scrap balsa to provide extra area for the sheeting to gule onto.

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:53 am

some more pictures..

Avery Boyer · Post by **Avery Boyer** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 12:04 pm

Coming along nicely. How do you intend to cover the frame, and with what material?

Can't wait to see more pics

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 12:07 pm

First day of the build ended with covering the lower portion of the hull with 1mm thick balsa sheet.

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 12:16 pm

I used steam iron to make the balsa sheets soft and bend around the bow.
It was an easy job to do.

kalkurap · Post by **kalkurap** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 12:26 pm

Bringing the bow to look like how it is in the reference pictures took some trial and error. I had to patch the hull at different places using scrap balsa and shape it down carefully. If I have to do it again, I would start with a solid piece of balsa for the bow

Unfortunately, I don't have all the pictures of the process. I will post what I have...

The Ship Model Forum

1/100 INS Veer (Tarantul I)

1/100 INS Veer (Tarantul I)

Upper bulkheads

Pictures from day 2