New guy here - documenting my 1:72 VIIC/41 Atlantic Version

[maillemaker]

So, inspired by Foxbat here:

viewtopic.php?f=60&t=82592&p=433178#p433178

And here:

https://modelbrouwers.nl/phpBB3/viewtop ... hilit=u995

I have undertaken to build this kit also. I used to be fairly into model building some 20 years ago, but have not done it in a long time. Last Christmas I got my son and I into 1/16 RC tanks, and I pulled out all my old modeling gear to do a custom paint job on a Jagdpanther.

Well, I have been playing the Silent Hunter series of uboat simulators for years and years now, and have wanted to build a uboat model. So, here we go!

My goal is to build the kit fairly stock, though I am tempted by (and scared of! ) those nice photo-etched AA guns!

I know Foxbat did a lot of corrections to the kit for U-995, moving some of the drainage holes. I am going to open them, but not move them. He also did a lot of surgery to splice in PE drain hole panels into the hull. I have decided not to do that but rather thin what is there and open them.

I also intend to open the side of the boat above the saddle tanks as Foxbat did.

I'm debating doing the "oilcanning" technique on the hull. I will probably do texturing on the main hull plates as he did.

Here is tonight's work:

First, I opened up the row of circular vent holes on the bow. I started by thinning the back side until I broke through the "wells" of the holes.

I'm using a Dremel tool with a sanding drum. It more smears/melts the plastic away than carves it. I go very slowly as I am terrified of breaking out through the hull. I would like to find the carving tool that Foxbat used!

Next I thinned the region behind the bottom vent holes in the bow. On Foxbat's build he replaced these with PE panels. After thinning them, I carefully cut them open with a sharp Exacto, and then used a needle file to trim them up. I'm mostly pleased with this.

Later, I will make a wash of 50/50 water/lacquer thinner, which is said to mildly melt/attack the plastic, and eliminate any micro-fuzz. I saw this technique by another uboat builder on YouTube.

Steve

[maillemaker]

I went back and (re-)edited the picture sizes; hopefully this time they take.

I'll re-post all the pictures from the steps to date. Basically I'm working right now to open up all the flood holes in the hull halves. I originally started out with a heavy-grit sanding drum on the Dremel tool, but this more melted away plastic than carved it. I then purchased some High Speed Steel bits off of Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LPHDZAE

And this gives me a variety of carving shapes to choose from. I find the tulip-bulb shaped one, like the one Foxbat used, to be particularly useful. You have to watch out though, because it is very aggressive and I have removed too much material a few times and resulted in too-thin and too-weak areas, resulting in some damage to the floods that I later had to repair. As if this was not tedious enough!

However, for the main flood holes, I have an approach that I think works better than Foxbat's method. Foxbat would first drill/machine the floods from the outside, through, and then thin. But you can avoid the drilling/machining step altogether by thinning first. If you thin until you hit the back wall of the fake flood recesses, then you can pretty much just poke the remaining thin web of material out with a dental pick. Run the pick around the perimeter of the cutout and it slicks off any burrs.

It is good to hold the hull up to a light as you go; as the hull gets thin the light shines through it and you can see where the vents are and how thin you are.

As you can see, it's easy to poke out the remaining web with a dental tool after you have thinned from behind:


Floods after opening:


Opening more thinned floods with the dental pick:


Thinning floods:


Here is the new HSS cutter I am using for most of my thinning work:


Here you can see that sometimes when you push out the thinned web it literally breaks off entirely:


Here you can see where I got too aggressive with thinning and as a result I damaged the floods during clean-up. I tried fixing with superglue but ultimately had to glue in replacement styrene.
When I broke this I was sorely tempted to buy the photoetch brass and go the route Foxbat did, but I kind of want to keep this a stock build and not sink a ton of money into it. Years ago I got out of modeling because the bar kept getting higher and higher and I felt like I had to constantly push farther and farther, to the point that nothing got done. I'm trying really hard here not to make "best" the enemy of "good".


Here you can see my attempt to strenghthen/fix some broken floods with superglue. Didn't work out.


Ended up super-gluing in styrene to fix the webs I had broken out:




Front floods opened and thinned:


More floods:


Comparison of an opened hull half with the non-opened half:


Thinned side:


More thinning:


More thinning:


Open vs. closed:




Here is what floods look like when I don't screw them up.




Still more thinning:


Still more thinning:


This is 2 days of work so far.

Next up I'm going to oilcan the riveted panels and roughen up the welded panels like Foxbat did.

Steve

[maillemaker]

More work this afternoon.

I have opened up all the drains and vents, and have started "oilcanning" the riveted plates, and texturing the welded plates.

Bow floods and drains:




Midship floods:




Stern drains and floods. You can see I did a much better job on the other half's drains than I did on the first half:




More floods:


This is the tool I am using for doing the welded plate textureing. It's a diamond grit Dremel bit. I just lightly go over the entire plate with it. Occasionally I intentionally let it "grab" which leaves little dents in the plate. Then I go over the whole plate with sandpaper to smooth out the texture. I'm somewhat skeptical that this is authentic on a 2-3 year old submarine even though the current U-995 hull looks this way. It was also allowed to deteriorate before restoration. But I like the effect on Foxbat's boat, so I'm going with it.








Texturing goes pretty easily. Oilcanning is a pain in the arse. It's relatively easy to use the curved Exacto blade to scrape out the hollow, but sanding and not knicking the rivets is going to be tedious!

Steve

[maillemaker]

More progress:

The hull halves so far:


Making a pattern for the continuation of the saddle tanks inside the deck casing:


Mark contour with pen:


Made a stiffer pattern from manila folder material:


Here is the tool I am using to texture the welded plates of the hull. It is a diamond-crusted Dremel tool. Easy to control and does a nice texturing job. If you let it "dig" just slightly in places you get nice, convincing, scale, dents.


To smooth out the oilcanning effect, I use sandpaper and back it up with a sliver of rubber eraser. Simply fold the sandpaper around the sliver of eraser and you can easily sand in between the lines of rivets:


I'm almost done with the oilcanning. Then I'll texture the remaining hull half. Then it's on to the ribs over the saddle tanks behind the casing.

Steve

[maillemaker]

Here is more progress:

Progress on the hull halves. Oilcanning and texturing complete:


Patterning the saddle tank extensions inside the hull:




Cutting the saddle tank extensions out of .030" thick styrene:


Saddle tank extensions in place. Notice I made tapered pieces for the front of the tanks as well.
These actually extend much farther into the hull than necessary. Once the pressure hull roof is in place, only a small lip will remain.



False pressure hull roof positioned in place:


Deck positioned in place. I have removed most of the "box" attached to the bottom of the Revell deck, leaving only support frames, except for the hinge portion that the snorkel will attach to.
You can see the roof of the pressure hull and the portion of the saddle tank inside the deck casing.




You will notice that on the schematics of the Typc VIIC that the saddle tanks do not actually follow through to intersect the pressure hull. There is an angular down-slope just inside the casing that angles down to the pressure hull. I decided not to try to model that. The only place this will be seen is through the snorkel opening.


This is the effect I am going for:


In this photo of U-995 you can see the hydraulic motor for the snorkel, the saddle tanks, and the roof of the pressure hull, and how they intersect.

Steve

[maillemaker]

More progress. I have trimmed up the saddle tank interior extensions and re-created the missing weld bead across the top of the saddle tanks using stretched sprue. Torpedo doors in place.

Next step is to make and place all the ribs along the saddle tank tops.

Here is the state of the hull so far:


Here you can see the trimmed saddle tank extensions and the replacement weld beads:


More weld beads:


Torpedo doors:



Steve

[Brett M]

Wow, that's a lot of vent's/drain's you've opened up. Nice work! I'm looking forward to seeing more progress, subs from WW2 are definitely an interest of mine.

[ModelMonkey]

[wing_nut]

All that tedious work has paid off.