smokey2 wrote:
hello everyone. Need some help from the experts on Gato Subs. I have one of Revell's 1/72 Gato subs and was looking on the internet for history of some of the subs. My question is do I have to stick with the four subs that the decals come with the kit, Flasher, Cobia, Growler and Silversides. I ran across the history of the Grunion and was wondering is it possible to build it out of the revell kit? I do have White Ensign Models P.E. along with Eduard P.E. What else would a person need to do the Grunion? Dan
smokey2 wrote:
Thanks Tracy. I did finally get to surf navsoucre and found a lot of info. I have also been following Channell build and looking to do most of the mods he has done. I did get a email back from Mario and in order to do the Grunion, to use his style 3 early as built set and will also have to scratch build the stern plane guard. Maybe for my first Gato sub will stick to one of the ones that can be built straight from the kit with PE on it, and my second Gato do it into the Grunion. Also on the Grunion since it was a very early sub probably have teak deck instead of the metal deck. Dan
It would take some fairly decent scratchbuilding skills but to me it doesn't appear like it would be too difficult to add the prewar shape onto Revell fairwater with evergreen strips and plastic sheet...basically just adding what was cut off on the originals. The aftermarket fairwaters are nice, but they cost just as much as the entire Revell kit!
You would also have to delete/move the storage lockers around as well, which wouldn't be too difficult. Revell's fairwater is pretty good quality too.
But if you do the pressure hull/scratchbuilt "see through" deck get ready to pull your hair out! I decided to stick with the Cobia because I (correctly) guessed doing such a mammoth job would quickly drain my patience and willpower, leaving none left to go crazy on a heavily modded fairwater. I didn't go into too much detail on my build log but it was a serious challenge to get everything straight and sturdy on such a big boat with the kit engineering all cut out, and I'm slowly resigning myself to the fact that all my work is gonna be barely visible anyway (even though it looks pretty cool with no deck on it now!)
One idea would be to compromise....Perhaps cutting out the deck support trusses from the kit deck (like I did, and also what turned out to be the "easy" part of the mod) but leave everything else underneath as-is and just painting it black (saving you the structural work that nobody will see anyway). Then do the entire deck in evergreen strips to represent the teak (a massive job all by itself) and mod the fairwater to it's prewar shape.
Damn, now I want to do it!