Hi team,
I spend a few hours these last few days to set up a relative simple conversion of the 1:350 AFV Club GUPPY II into a GUPPY III.
Attachment:
GUPPY II - GUPPY III.jpg [ 87.53 KiB | Viewed 7202 times ]
This is how I did it:
- I first cut off the deck with a razor saw, and cemented the resulting rim to the lower hull.
- I added 1mm wide strips to the rim, to make the sheer of the deck much less, only 2mm in the middle. This is to correct the basic error in all of the AFV Gato/Balao/GUPPY kits. Filing and sanding until the cut off decks fits nicely again.
- Then I cut the hull in half at its widest point, and added a 15 ft extension (13.3 mm on scale).
- I cut the deck forward of the conning tower, as the actual extension is forward of the command centre. I added an extension from Evergreen V-grooved stock, 030" spaced, to match the same deck pattern as the kit.
- Next I cemented the deck back on again
- Further I added the three PUFFS sharkfins, using the very detailed pictures from the USS Clamagore website.
http://www.patriotspoint.org/explore_museum/uss_clamagore/.
Note the three fins are basically the same, but are mounted on stubs with different heights, so that they are at the same level in the water. Also note that the forward fin has some additional details.
- Next I relocated the diesel exhausts, and lengthened the bilge keels.
- Finally I modified the sail, resulting width being 5.5 mm at the top and 8 mm at the bottom. The bottom needs to be corrected too: cut off a sliver, 2mm at the front reducing to 0mm at the rear, otherwise the sail will appear too high and canted backward.
At this stage you can still very well see what I did, further detailing and finishing having no secrets for anyone. I photographed the model along with my earlier GUPPY IB conversion. The latter will be finished as a Netherlands navy sub (S803) while the GUPPY III will be finished as S501 'Longobardi' of the Italian navy, ex USS Pickerel SS524.
Cheers!