The Ship Model Forum

Back at the IPMS USA National convention in Omaha (seems like years ago already!), I was given one of Tom's Modelworks new 3D printed USS Nautilus kits to review. You can find that review here.

Shortly after the nationals, I had rotator cuff surgery, which resulted in my being in a sling for six weeks. I'm now out of the sling and rehabing. I wanted to do a smaller project to get back into the swing of things, so I decided on the Nautilus.

First, I removed the upper and lower hulls from the print rafts. I had to be careful around the prop guards and the aft dive planes and shafts.

One all the print supports were removed and cleaned up, it was time for my least favorite part of the hobby - sanding:

I cleaned up the hulls after sanding, and didn't have a chance to get back to them right away. When I did, I noticed both halves had warped, especially the upper hull:


At first I thought, "ok, I'll just build it waterline" and I could secure it to a base. I even got as far as (roughly) test fitting the sail onto the hull:

I decided to reach out to Rich Harden at Tom's Modelworks. He responded to my e-mail right away and offered to send along a new hull, which he did. Great customer service!

The new hull was tweaked a little, per Rich, and I was very pleased with it. Not only was it easier to remove from the print raft, I thought the detail was a little sharper than the original version. After sanding the burrs from the print raft off (I decided I'd build her waterline, after all), I attached the sail and the dive planes. The dive planes are made for the full hull version. After they dried, I cut them flush with the bottom of the hull, using a nipper.

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Once the sail and forward dive planes were dry (and trimmed to fit the upper hull), I laid down some paint. According to the instructions, Nautilus was painted Measure 10, Ocean Gray. From Wikipedia (too lazy to source anything else tonight: "Measure 10: For submarines operating beyond the range of enemy aircraft. Submarine Measure 10 was Ocean Gray (5-0) on entire submarine above the water line, over all parts which were visible from the air including the numbers, capstan, running light boards and bridge rails. The radio insulators were to be dark and there was no boot-topping. Dull anti-fouling black paint was to be applied below the waterline."

First coat is on, second coat hopefully tonight or tomorrow:




Overall, a nice little kit. Detail is nice. The 6in deck guns are particularly nice, as is the propeller guards. And minor ding is that, with an optivisor on, I can see print lines on the sail.

More to come...

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Martin,
am sorry for the bad warping of both hull halves. Have you tried correcting the warping after some dipping of the pieces in hot water? There could be some degree of correction, am not sure how much but it could suffice for the lower half to match with the newly-arrived upper half. This is just in case you haven't tried already and if you have definitely decided to use only the waterlined upper half for your project.

So good that Rich has provided a new hull. This is what i call an excellent service! The primed upper half looks great. I'll follow this project w great attention.

Cheers,
SG

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http://www.3xblackcats.wordpress.com

Once Rich offered a replacement hull, any thought of trying to correct the warp went out the window!

Got a second coat of Ocean Gray on everything.



After that dried, I attached Nautilus to a base with acrylic gel medium.


Once the gel is nice and dry, I'll start working on adding the photo-etch railings.

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Looking good!!
Glad to hear your getting back to the bench

Matt

_________________
In the yards right now:
USS Utah AG-16
On Hold
1/350 USS Portland CA-33 1942
1/350 Trumpeter Texas with a twist

I have this same kit and it's coming along nicely. I corrected the warping with warm water. It worked perfectly. After using epoxy to secure the upper hull to the lower hull I masked the seam to minimize spread of filler and used auto body spot filler (no mixing) to fill the seam. It sanded out nicely and I'm looking forward to getting back to it as soon as I get out of my current rabbit hole.

It's been over a month since my last post. In between my job, a work trip to Seattle and PT, I haven't had much time at the workbench. Also, while adding the photo-etch rails around the 20mm guns on the fore and aft parts of the sail, I found they came up short. An e-mail exchange with Rich Harden revealed that, yes, they actually were too short. A small supplemental sheet of PE, with corrected rails, was sent a few weeks later, which precluded me from any further work, until they arrived.

The second set fit better, but the forward rails still came up a little short. Further investigation with Rich showed that the curved forward rail around this platform was specific to Narhwal, not Nautilus. I'll have to remove it and use some of the other rails on the PE set to correct, before moving forward.

Right now, here is where she is at: all the rails are on, as are the 6in guns and the PE braces for the barrel. I realized after the fact that those braces are a little too far back, but I'm going to leave them as is. The rails on the gun deck were a pain to attach. I ended up splicing them into three sections and adding them one at a time.



Next up - once I fix the rail around the forward 20mm gun - is to give a final coat of Ocean Gray to the model. Once that is dry, I'll start weathering (lightly).

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Well done! Pity for those curved rails to change. Wise idea to leave the braces as they are. "The best is the enemy of the good", they say. Looking forward to the weathering phase.

_________________
http://www.3xblackcats.wordpress.com

Haven't gotten nearly as much time at the bench as I would have liked, between work kicking my butt and a sudden bought of vertigo. Last weekend I got the final coat of ocean gray on her. This weekend I finally managed to feel motivated enough, and well enough, to do some work. Got the 20mm painted and installed on the boat. I've also been looking at as many pictures of Nautilus as I can find - I feel like there is some additional details missing that should be there, and I am considering adding some of those with brass rod and spare PE. Which, of course, will extend this "quick" and "easy" build even further....

Here she is after last weekend's paint session:


And today, after adding the 20mm guns.

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Added some additional detail. She's now ready for final touch up, then gloss coat.

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Looks like you are indeed back in the swing of things!!

Best wishes

JIM B

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....I buy them at three times the speed I build 'em.... will I live long enough to empty my stash...?
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com

Looking good!

Matt

_________________
In the yards right now:
USS Utah AG-16
On Hold
1/350 USS Portland CA-33 1942
1/350 Trumpeter Texas with a twist

Two+ month's later....

Between my high stress job sucking up all my energy, doing product reviews, the holiday season and "life", time at the bench has been limited. But, in the intervening two months, touch up was done, gloss coat was applied and finally, an oil wash was applied last night.

I'll let that dry for a few days, spray an initial coat of flat, add a little rigging, then give her a final flat coat.

While I had the oil mix out, I put down a wash on a few other projects (yes, I am a "modeling squirrel", easily distracted by other things)...

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Model has been rigged and dull coated.

Started working on painting the "water". Almost there....

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

She's looking very sharp, M. Nice to see one of these actually completed.

Finished painting the "water"...

Gloss coated said water, then removed the protective tape on the base...

And that's a wrap! Thanks for looking in.

PS: finished a 1/350 AFV club U-boat at the same time (Nautilus in 700 is just about the same size as the type VII C in 350!)

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Martin,

She sure does look good!

I was wondering about that U-boat, crazy at the size of these boats.

Matt

_________________
In the yards right now:
USS Utah AG-16
On Hold
1/350 USS Portland CA-33 1942
1/350 Trumpeter Texas with a twist

Very nice Martin!

I'm guessing you left some space for a name-plate?

Thanks for the kind words, gents!


Yep! That's what the cut out if for. Those are on order.

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery