1/100 Arkmodel Udaloy

[Neptune]

I finally got back now. Work will commence as soon as I get settled and adapted again. Together with some other (finishing) or new project.

[Dave Wooley]

Hi Roel Good to hear that you are back on dry land.
Dave Wooley

[GTDEATH13]

Welcome ashore, back to work, we need an update...

[Cadman]

I finally got back now.

Welcome home Roel. Good to have you back.

[Neptune]

Although a very bad spirit onboard, occasionally I do miss this type of weather and views...

However, once home I fell back into evil, I did start with the Crane cabinet of the Udaloy, but there was something else catching my attention a 1/700 build. I have this nasty feeling that at least I should start finishing that back log of unfinished 1/700s. The Baltiysk port is next after this one. Then I'll see. In the meantime I do continue with the Udaloy, although at lower pace than before. Here is a sheave I made for the crane cabinet.
I'll redo the crane jib also, as it's not perfect and I guess for a long term project like this one, everything should be as good as possible. Furthermore I discovered the crane on the Udaloy is exactly the same as the ones used on the Kirov class cruisers for the lifeboats aft on both sides. That means I suddenly have a lot more footage available, also of the well hidden top of the jib (hidden between the aft funnels on the Udaloy).
Another discovery I made is that the small platform on the sides of the bridge, which they use for mooring I guess, is on the older ships one level lower and more aft than on the later ships.

[Neptune]

Ok, so the Supply Boat is finished and posted in the Picture Post forum, with the name Maersk Fighter. Sorry for putting people on the wrong track with my wrong hull colour. It's changed to the Maersk Blue now.

Anyway, decided to keep the smaller stuff on the back burner and continue with the Udaloy.
The top of the crane is done now, so next is the new jib. Still figuring out the true sizes for that...
I also completed one antenna, with the second one in progress for that crane deck. These antenna's have a hydraulic hinge to hinge them backwards so that the crane can operate freely. It's practically the same system as they use on the sides of the hangare to put the antennas horizontal, the only difference is that they don't go entirely flat on the crane deck.

[Dave Wooley]

Hi Roel Nice Job you are doing there .
Dave Wooley

[Neptune]

After getting my ass kicked by my better half for keeping myself busy with stupid little details like antenna's I kind of woke up... I set out some goals which I should achieve before my next deployment and so I started.
The main goal is get the hull ready for the water and painted. So I started to solve the Rudder problem. This time I used Dave's method of putting a wooden board around the rudder stanchion to keep it supported (the model will be around 8kg when in the water, so the forces on the rudder will be quite large).
Furthermore I drilled the portholes, although I'm not sure of the diameter and height. They look like they are too high, although I guess after painting it will not be that obvious. I'm not sure about the diameter either. For now they are 3mm, guesswork from what I see onboard, not sure if 4mm would be better though. I'll have to add the eyebrows above them too, which glue should I use for that? I'll use Ron's method for that, turn some wire around a drill bit and then cut half circles from that.

Furthermore I glued the motors in, but after testing one, there was a lot of noise, either the shaft was bent, or the connection wasn't too well aligned. Anyway the engine fell out while turning the hull around. Very surprising to me as I never had any trouble with this type of polymer glue. Next affort I will use the two component glue again, that will be safer, although more difficult to apply....

Furthermore I'm also thinking about the trouble with the main superstructure, the panels are not really fitting on each other, so I'm waiting to fix the main deck and then I'll solve that problem. The crane and antenna's are on hold as I'm continuing with my Baltiysk port diorama during the long drying times of the two component epoxy glue!

One more remark on this class in general. I'm depicting my ship in 1992. So I'm using references from then and of course more recent stuff, which is more easily accessible. However now I noticed they even changed the porthole number and positions on this ship during the last years! So once again, be careful when you are building a Russian ship, and particularily of this class. They are all different and they tend to change a lot in time also!
Another thing I though of, the "hollow" stern section below the water is quite likely there to help in retrieving the towed sonar, given the fact that all the ships with such sonars have that hollow section, while the Sovremenny, without the sonar has a flat stern part below the water. Possibly this hollow section guides the water to keep the sonar more calm or something like that. Just a thought though!

[Neptune]

I've bought the Graupner X-408 4-channel transmitter for this ship now. Noticed there is some coupling trouble between the Robbe Rookie Speed Controllers and the receiver as the couplings of Robbe have a strange type of plastic extension on the side (which do fit in my Futaba Attack receiver). Anyhow, still have to buy some batteries too. Not sure which or what I need for this model.

While the inner works are drying, I'm also proceeding with the most problematic part of this model... The main superstructure. It looks all nice and well in the styrene sprues, but once you start assembling you do notice a couple of "discrepancies". Some parts just really don't fit. Others have to be cut due to their big thickness to fit.
A few levels have been added, although some parts are just dry fitted to see what it'll look like. I'm missing the bridge sprue unfortunately, so that complicates things too! In addition to a few windows which I'll have to add etc.

And it has come up which will be my next parallel project. I can't keep building on one thing, so I need something parallel to fill up the gaps. First I had the Maersk Fighter, now I'm continuing the Baltiysk Diorama (see progress in "Soviet Shipyard" topic in the picture post) and so here is what will be up next, I'll start with the small and big deck stuff before I go to the real "work" on the hull, by then I hope to have finished the Udaloy though!

[Dave Wooley]

Hi Roel good to see you back on the Udaloy build but how do you work on two models at the same time? if I tried I'd blow a fuse. I understand about styrene parts not quite fitting this can and is a feature of many large scale kits. I guess one of the benefits , if you could call it that of scratch building is all the mistakes and errors are down to the builder I have a trash can to prove my theory
Dave Wooley

[Neptune]

I always build two things at the same time, while one is drying, I continue another one. Mostly it's a mix, big, rough work with small detailing work, gives some change and in the end I'm building a lot of models, I have a lot of experience to catch up with if I ever want to reach a certain level near Ron, Bill or yours. And I guess that's what most of the readers of the Scratchbuilding forum like to reach! And of course I'm going again to another, bigger and quite busy ship for my next deployment, so no more modelbuilding when I'm onboard. Again a break of 3 months from building, that often gives me the motivation to build and keep building when I'm at home!

So, here is the work on the lower hull. It was time to get the stabilizers and bilge plates in place. THe ones provided were made of 3mm styrene, too thick and they were only about 4mm wide, which was way too small if you compare them with the huge Udaloy bilge plates. So I made them much wider and also changed the shape and length a little to be closer to the real thing.
Also attached is the electronics. One of the supports of the servo is fixed now, just have to glue the other one now, it'll be glued together with the bilge plates. After that I'll have to get a charger and batteries for everything. Now I just tested the motors with my 2 channel Attack 2ER, but I recently bought the Graupner X408 4-channel radio for this model.
This is what my lay-out will more or less look like, please give ANY comments on it, if you think it'll be ok, or if it's totally wrong... I have little experience in R/C so any help is really welcome!

The stabilisers are retractable on the Udaloy, the general base looks like on Dave's Kiev, so I'll have to add some base to the hull and see if I show them retracted or extended. After that I can finally start painting the hull. I'll also have to add the eyebrows for the portholes. What diameter do you people use for Portholes? 30cm (3mm in 1/100 or 40cm, 4mm in 1/100)??? For now they are 3mm, but it's difficult to see if it's big enough or not....

[Dave Wooley]

This is what my lay-out will more or less look like, please give ANY comments on it, if you think it'll be ok, or if it's totally wrong... I have little experience in R/C so any help is really welcome!

The stabilisers are retractable on the Udaloy, the general base looks like on Dave's Kiev, so I'll have to add some base to the hull and see if I show them retracted or extended. After that I can finally start painting the hull. I'll also have to add the eyebrows for the portholes. What diameter do you people use for Portholes? 30cm (3mm in 1/100 or 40cm, 4mm in 1/100)??? For now they are 3mm, but it's difficult to see if it's big enough or not....

Hi Roel One bit of advice is to ensure that the RX is located well clear of the motors and that access to all the electrics is straight forward and planned. The only other tip is to ballast the hull and run the model before you fit the deck if this is possible? , so if there is any need to relocate any of the internals it can be done with few problems. Your 3mm port holes sounds right.
Dave Wooley

[tweety777]

Looking great!
Funny to see your using the same ESC as i do, i like them.
They've saved me quite a lot of money for fuses.


Greetings Josse

[Neptune]

Yeah, pretty sturdy ESC's. One I used in my test ship, now it's one of these two.

Little work done on the hull. Those stabiliser bases of Dave's Kiev look a lot better. I really don't know how to get it done, this is already the second try and it even looks worse than the first try!
I also decided to try and detail the aft part a little more, not the hull itself, but those strange attachments they have on the Udaloys. Here is where I got. Not overly bad, but not good enough either. I'll try to get it better with some milliput. Anyway the rough shape is made with car body filler and a styrene base, which is attached to the ship. Now basically the underside of the hull is ready for painting, only the finishing coat on both these stabilisers (still looking for the right shape) and on the bubbles. Then painting and launching!

[Dave Wooley]

Hi Roel The detail around the props , I have not see this before . All looking good .
Dave Wooley

[Neptune]

This pic shows some of it.
The unit in the picture is Vinogradov. Mine won't be Vinogradov, but she also has the straight, light sort of, red below the waterline without boot topping. I bet you feel annoyed that you didn't receive my email a few months back, because I actually revealed to you as the only person on earth which unit and time frame I was building in!

[Atom44]

[quote="Neptune"]
Furthermore I drilled the portholes, although I'm not sure of the diameter and height. They look like they are too high, although I guess after painting it will not be that obvious. I'm not sure about the diameter either. For now they are 3mm, guesswork from what I see onboard, not sure if 4mm would be better though.

The diameter of the portholes have to be 400 mm (GOST) -- 4mm (1:100)

[Capit�o Norbert]

Hi Neptune great work on shafts arrangment!!
very well done

[Dave Wooley]

Hi Roel I wonder if this arrangement around the props is to reduce the noise signature . if so this would be quite different from the praire masker . This really intrigues me !
Dave Wooley

[Neptune]

Probably it does that. Basically the flat bottom of the Udaloy would give a lot of vibration noise, as common on flat bottomed ships. In addition it gives a better flow on the propellor, by doing so it probably reduces cavitation on the prop. I guess they started off with two of these large bulbous shapes, afterwards reduced the inner ones because of worse steering characteristics. Not sure if this arrangement would give better steering too, sending more water to the single rudder. It's either silencing or better flow/speed as main purpose (steering would be a secondary thing as the Sovremennies and Slava's have the same type of arrangement, two props and one rudder, yet they don't have these bulbous things)

A lot of probably's but I'm only giving some ideas here. I don't have anything concrete on this one but it's there for some reason. I'll have a look at some other ships for comparison, maybe I'll get any wiser from that.
One thing is excluded, it's definately NOT a towed array or any other sensor suite. The position and shape are pretty much excluding that.