I've *almost* built my first model of 2020. I started this on New Year's day and hoped to have it all finished before returning to work. Sadly however my dad's little sister had visited the hospital just before Christmas feeling unwell, was diagnosed with cancer and went off the cliff rapidly and died on the 3rd January. Naturally that took priority over toy boats, but I've got the model well on now. Whilst the submarine itself is finished, I am going to try my first clear cast resin sea base for it which, if successful, will allow me to have my proverbial cake and eat it by displaying the boat in its natural environment whilst not depriving me of a view of 80% of the boat.
Like most submarines the kit was pretty simple, yet it is very complete. It is very nicely cast in light grey resin, and comes complete with a small sheet of photo etched brass, a turned brass 4" gun barrel courtesy of Master (I think?), and two generous lengths of brass rod.
Mine had a little shrinkage on the bottom of the keel, easily fixed with some filler, and a little shrinkage on one of the two optional 4" gun tubs which was easily fixed using viscous glue.
I needed a simple shim from plasticard to level the bottom of the conning tower (is it still a "sail" on a WW2 boat?) but it may be my own carelessness in removing it from the casting block.
There are colour photographs of P311 on the IWM collection which removes some colour uncertainty. The instructions show two schemes for HMS Tabard P342, one of which is PB10 which is possibly correct as Tabard was built late in the war with PB10 being introduced in 1944, and the other shows black with "MS4A" grey with white pennant number - this one smells a lot like a certain author known for a spectacular lack of understanding of RN colours. For various reasons, I believe that black and Home Fleet Grey should be considered the standard Home Fleet submarine scheme in the mid-war years, and that's what I decided to do. P311 was one of the first 2 Group III T-class boats and did not have a 20mm Oerlikon cannon, so its platform had to go.
The hull was a dawdle to assemble. The planes fitted nicely, as did the propellers. The propeller shafts are made from lengths of the brass rod provided. All of the photo etched brass gratings, hatches etc dropped perfectly in to position. They were all glued using my usual method of applying medium CA from a little pool in a medicine pill container with the tip of an acupuncture needle.
I used a brass pin to locate the conning tower on the hull.
At this stage I remembered the model was resin and I had to wash it. I started with a bath of white spirit and a paint brush, then moved on to a bath of warm water with dishwashing soap.
For the black I used Colourcoats ACRN17 Night Bomber Black and applied this straight onto the model (i.e. no primer). When dry, I masked with Tamiya tape and sprayed the upper part of the boat with NARN20 507A/B Home Fleet Grey (the 13% RF version).
At this point we came off the rails a bit unfortunately. The supplied decals didn't like the Microset/Microsol combination. I'm not sure what setting solutions they do need. The former though encouraged them to adhere-ish but in no way attempt to conform to the surface, whereas the latter encouraged them to peel away from the surface and curl up. In the end, it took a whole day of careful supervision to get them on and even then there's some silvering so not a success overall.
They looked like this after around 3 hours of work
Once I got the decals as good as I could, I brush painted the deck using our NARN29 MS2 heavily thinned. I don't think this was the actual colour, but it's a little darker than our 13% RF HFG at its correct 9~10% and neutral in hue which looked like the IWM photos. It was also to hand and after the decals I felt a little less precious about things. I further thinned the MS2 and brushed some streaky weathering on the portion of the boat which sits above the waterline on the surface, and sponged on more underneath to try to break up the uniformity of the black a bit. The IWM photos show flash rusting all over the deck of P311 also, which I attempted to mimic using brown, orange and ochre chalk pastels. Rigging was applied using Infini Model 40denier (0.068mm diameter) black lycra monofilement rigging line.
This is a nice model kit - I'd recommend it. It was very refreshing just assembling and finishing something in a few days. It reminded me of making models as a low-teenager. A model aeroplane took Saturday and Sunday in those days, and one would be delighted with the outcome
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