An excessively ambitious 1/72 Revell Gato build...

[pbudzik]

After a little bit of thought, I think I would probably use a variation on what we do in model railroading when laying track with individual ties and rail. The ties are placed in a jig that spaces them out. A strip of masking tape is run over the top. The strip and ties are lifted out of the jig and glued down to the roadbed. Sort of the same principle here. The brown is a piece of wood or other flat surface. The gray rectangles are a couple of steel straight edges. Arrange your styrene strips between the metal straight edges alternating with shims (in green). Tighten everything up and cement some styrene cross-strips (yellow rectangles) over the top to hold it all together. It can now be handles almost like sheet stock. Trim and glue to place. Remove the strips and sand the surface flat.




Paul

[Channell]

OK, Gato vacation is officially over. The annoying pirate ship urges have passed too, having peaked on "Speak Like a Pirate Day" without me getting much done on the other boat... and always looming in the back of my head like harbinger of doom and glory is the Cobia... tempting me, daring me to make it the the most awesome 1/72 Gato ever. Mwuhaaaaa!!!

OK, that was a bit dramatic but yea, the urge has returned.

After clearing my head of glue fumes and submersible madness for a bit I finally have a revamped plan. Thanks everyone for your ideas on the deck; after doing a little bit of experimenting I am gonna try a version of pbudzik's idea. I am going to make "panels" of spaced decking by first laying out deck sections onto sticky paper with thinner 010" X 030" strips and spacers, then remove the spacers and glue cross beams onto the strips matching the crossbeams on the model. When the glue dries I should be able to peel them off and have perfectly straight and even decking without going crazy in the process! I can then finish up the edges later on by hand.

But first I need to backtrack a bit and clean up a couple spots where I cut corners.

First is the area under the forward deck (warning... it ain't pretty... yet):



After covering up most of my induction piping with the metal plates aft, I was disappointed by how little was actually visible. That, added to my haste to start planking led me to cover up the bow without really getting into any detail... but up front is a bigger space with more light penetration which turns out to be far more visible, especially through the open stairway down into the area.

I also added a hokey plastic "shadow" so there would at least be something to see in the holes behind the dive planes, but it's too 1 dimensional to be really effective.

It all just won't do for what I'm trying to accomplish here so I'm gonna go back and superdetail this area like I originally planned. That means scratchbuilding the dive plane and winch mechanisms, the 6 large compressed air tanks for launching torpedoes and adding a maze of braces and supports, plus another bulkhead aft of the forward torpedo loading tube.

The other problem area is the edge of the hull top along the PE where the planking will be. It needs to be scraped out and brought level with the PE; more evergreen strips along the edges of the same width as the crosspieces on the deck panels that I'm going to make should give me a clean and even final product.

Tonight was "deconstruction night", taking off the failed deck planking and forward metal plating (Luckily I got the plates up without ruining them ) More to come, hopefully next week.

[LE BOSCO]

Hi Channell

backwards, to better jump the obstacle good return to "business"
I will watch the new progress
cheers
Nicolas

[Channell]

sorry, trying to fix my pics and messed up... trying again...

[Channell]

I finally found some free time and made a little bit of progress this afternoon...

First I made some room to get into the bow area in preparation for building the diveplane mechanism. This area was in the bow piece of the model and I didn't scratchbuild the pressure hull top here so I had to get creative to fill it in given it's now in such a tight spot. I used a product called "Paperclay" which dries on it's own and still has some sticking properties to even it all out. I should have done this before I attached the deck!



While that was drying I scraped off the mess I left along the top of the sideplates and added evergreen strips to level it all out so the deck edges won't look like crap when I plank that section:



...and I did some work on metal deck aft:





This included adding additional parts from the Eduard PE, cleaning up super glue residue and sanding (still not done).

I also did a couple of hatches...

Here's the engine room emergency hatch:




... and the not quite finished aft torpedo room hatch:



I did quite a bit of work to the original hatch here. The original was molded into the kit deck and looked less than convincing; I "liberated" the hatches from the old gato, added a new spring made from wrapping tiny wire around a brass rod and replaced the ring with PE. Here's a before and after pic:




Until next time!

[Channell]

We had a major snowstorm today, nothing to do but take on what has become the most frustrating part of the build for me... planking the deck. I got some GREAT ideas from y'all and wanna say thank you for all of them! This is one "detail" that really had me pulling my hair out.

Anyway the deck is finally taking shape and it looks like it's gonna be a success this time!



I started by making a posterboard template of the deck in the exact shape of the area to be filled in and marked with the locations of the deck supports (from underneath as the deck is being assembled upside down). I then taped it to the non-stick side of a sheet of clear contact paper and taped that to a long board sticky side up. Then I started laying .010 X .030 evergreen strips; one flat and one skinny side up, then one flat, ect. from the center out.





I made them all butt up straight with a ruler and started pulling the skinny side up strips out as I worked my way out.



Next I laid .010 X.060 cross strips out, matching the locations of the cross beams on the boat.



...then carefully peeled the assembly off the contact paper...



...giving me a very clean and relatively straight deck surface. Some parts of the strips (especially the ends) did pull off along with the contact paper despite my best efforts but they will glue back OK. I will probably have to do the remainder of the sides by hand but I exhausted my supply of evergreen strips (it took 7 packages just to do that!). It shouldn't be too difficult from here out anyway.

I will also cut out the various access doors before putting it on permanently. Here's a general view to give you an idea how it's going to look:

[Christian M.]

Some told here you are insane ... well, until now only thoroughly in detail. Insane will be, when you make next time a Gato with a cut open side and scratch build interior + figures and so on inside.
I'm no submarine builder, but because a mate of me makes in moment this large 1/72 Japanese submarine from whomever it is same way thoroughly, I will rate your job here as great!

[codythecatt]

And I thought I was bored! nah ... "insane" doesn't even come close to being an appropriately descriptive word. (this is my first peek at this thread)

Let me guess:

1. Not married ... or soon to be under the grounds of spousal abandonment?
2. Retired ... or living off the dole and have relatives that buy you kits just to keep you out of their hair?
3. Insomniac ... or a major caffeine (?) addict?
4. Obsessive/Compulsive ... or just locked away for such behavior?

or

5. Just bored spitless ... or spitlessly bored?

My guess is part B of all of the above!



(JUST FUNNING WITH YOU! lol this post is just for fun ... but it is truely scary! )

[Channell]

And I thought I was bored! nah ... "insane" doesn't even come close to being an appropriately descriptive word. (this is my first peek at this thread)

Let me guess:

1. Not married ... or soon to be under the grounds of spousal abandonment?
2. Retired ... or living off the dole and have relatives that buy you kits just to keep you out of their hair?
3. Insomniac ... or a major caffeine (?) addict?
4. Obsessive/Compulsive ... or just locked away for such behavior?

or

5. Just bored spitless ... or spitlessly bored?

My guess is part B of all of the above!



(JUST FUNNING WITH YOU! lol this post is just for fun ... but it is truely scary! )

Hmmmm....

#1 No and maybe, but hopefully not (I just ordered the 1/200 Bismarck a few days ago, you see...)

#2 I can retire in exactly 31 years, provided they don't raise the retirement age by then. As far as rich... why yes I am. You'd have to be to afford all the X-acto blades I've gone through so far. I personally own 14 real surplus diesel submarines which I use to maintain my completely legal and moral Latin American trading empire. I even own a 5 million acre ranch on Mars. Shhh, though... I'm trying to stay incognito!

#3 Guilty and double guilty. Might as well add alcohol to that list too.

#4 They can take my life but they can't take my FREEEEEEEDOOOOM!!! You don't want to know what I had to do to get all those X-acto blades into my cell... Um... I mean my palace.

#5 Well ya see, some men seek satisfaction in the bottom of a bottle of fine beverages, others with beautiful women, and yet others with anti-psychotic medications and even fewer by building excessively ambitious model ships.

Me? I seek satisfaction in them all.

[codythecatt]

ROFLMAO!

31 years? Just a young whipper-snapper pup!

Well, keep up the good work and excel in all the above!

PS: studies have shown that single folk have more time to devote to hobbies ... which might be the case if the Visa bill arrives before you can hide/sink the Bismark.

[Channell]

Some told here you are insane ... well, until now only thoroughly in detail. Insane will be, when you make next time a Gato with a cut open side and scratch build interior + figures and so on inside. ...

Ahhh! Don't give me any ideas! Before I know it, I'll find myself doing exactly that without ever even realizing it.

[LE BOSCO]

Hello channel


one my favorite thread ,restarts :thumbs_up_1:nice deck ,a great job of monk
Above all, do not be dissipated by the drakkar on your desktop
cheers
Nicolas

[Christian M.]

Some told here you are insane ... well, until now only thoroughly in detail. Insane will be, when you make next time a Gato with a cut open side and scratch build interior + figures and so on inside. ...

Ahhh! Don't give me any ideas! Before I know it, I'll find myself doing exactly that without ever even realizing it.

But I must not call these friendly guys in white suit and upper arms what others have has thigh? You know, they are these one who convince you to wear this nice jacket with long, but closed arms and which will be closed by them thoroughly behind in your back.

To be honest ... since these different 1/72 submarines came on market, I wait all the time that a manufacture made it as new kit or even one of you tough submarine builders starts to make scratch way.

[Channell]

Here's a couple more pics with the deck assembly permanently attached:







Some of my cross strips were off unfortunately but I don't think it's really gonna matter after the edges are on and the whole thing is painted black. All and all I am quite pleased with how it's turning out.

I attached the gun platform now because I wanted it to be in the deck (like the real ship) instead of on top of it (like the standard Revell kit). The fairwater will be the same!

I did the deck work upstairs on my front room coffee table instead of down in the model dungeon this time. No, I'm not a "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" fan, and yes, my mind is thinking too hard about the Bismarck.

[aurora-7]

Just found this build thread and it leaves my knees wobbly! It's great work your're doing.

I've just picked up the research again to do my Revell boat as the USS Tautog as she was at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack.

What would you recommend for reference on the interior of the fairwater? I have a Nautilus Models resin sail for a Tambor class but I need to hollow it out and do some interior 'decorating' for it.

What did you use for reference for you conning tower pressure hull layout?

[Channell]

Just found this build thread and it leaves my knees wobbly! It's great work your're doing.

I've just picked up the research again to do my Revell boat as the USS Tautog as she was at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack.

What would you recommend for reference on the interior of the fairwater? I have a Nautilus Models resin sail for a Tambor class but I need to hollow it out and do some interior 'decorating' for it.

What did you use for reference for you conning tower pressure hull layout?

Truth be told, my conning tower cylinder isn't exactly "right". I built it more for the needs of the model than to be strictly accurate; it's main purpose is provide a sturdy support for the deck both vertically and transversely, as there was a lot of play in it with so much of the kit engineering cut out. It is basically invisible under the fairwater anyway so it hardly matters!

Anyway, for research I read up a bit on the history of Gato and Balao boats, which is where I learned the forward end of conning towers is dished inward and the aft side is bowled out (Early gatos apparently had both sides dished inward and submariners were glad to get the extra room!) but that's as deep as I got on the subject.

As for the fairwater itself, I took the easy way out and chose to do the Cobia, the boat Revell used to design the kit. I'm otherwise sticking with their plan + the Eduard PE improvements and photos of the Cobia as she is today.

There are lots of Pics on Navsource and I recall seeing at least one of the interior of a prewar enclosed fairwater; if you choose to model it I don't imagine much would be really visible so approximations are a much less stressful philosophy!

But please do it! Do a build log too! I've decided it's a lot more fun to watch other people go crazy on a model than to do it myself!

[Channell]

WHAT I'VE LEARNED SO FAR:

I know there are a couple people out there who are going to work on their own superdetailed Gatos and have asked me a lot of questions both here and in private so I thought I would do a quick review of my work and ask the question: "is it worth it?"

"Old gato" is gonna help me a bit and hopefully illustrate how drastic the mods were on the Cobia.

My main "gimmick" on this build was scratchbuilding the pressure hull and "see through" deck. But was it worth it?

Completely rebuilding the exterior surface of the deck was Totally worth it. I'm not even done and the difference is really night and day. Without it, the standard solid deck is hardly better than a bathtub toy to my eyes. This is one mod that is really worth the pain and suffering to get a great Gato.

Next, scratchbuilding the pressure hull?

I'm gonna say not really worth it. I easily put a hundred hours into doing it and while it DID look cool on it's own, I just covered it all up and now it's gone.

Here's what a standard Gato looks like under the deck:







Here's what my modified hull looked like before covering it up:









Obviously a lot of work had to happen to get it from point A to B. But now that most of the deck is in place I can't see much of anything unless I shine a flashlight up the drain channels. From above, I can see flashes of light and shadows along the drain channels but that's about it. Besides that, the standard kit design is very strong and very VERY easy to get a straight deck out of.

My gato on the other hand? Reshaping the hull was easy part; the real challenge was to get the deck on straight, take out all the wobble and make it strong enough to actually stay that way should it be accidentally bumped or hold any kind of weight.

It took uncounted dozens of tiny supports to totally stabilize 3 feet of skeletonized plastic and it is still very weak compared to the unaltered kit.

If I was gonna do it all again, I would cut large rectangular holes along the top of the standard kit (leaving the kit engineering intact otherwise) and paint the inside of the hull black, or maybe even just smooth out the top of the kit hull and paint it black . I might have redone the extreme forward portion of the pressure hull but that's it.

I would still cut the deck supports out like I did:

This:


Vs This:


... and build the deck otherwise the same as I did. It would result in virtually the same effect with about 1/4 of the work. Everything else (with the possible exception of the area under the forward deck around the escape trunk) just isn't visible enough to add to the finished product.

If you want to superdetail a Gato, the Eduard PE set is a MUST! It provides so much great detail!

Likewise, it's really necessary to redo a lot of the molded-in stuff; the deck is the big one but the hatches on the kit deck need help too. The torpedo tube doors look crappy in standard kit form as well; if you aren't lucky enough to have an old gato to loot pieces from for you new gato there are other sources for resin doors and they wouldn't be too hard to scratchbuild either.

Outside, the molded "weld lines" are too large and conspicuous and should be sanded off and replaced or at least reworked.

My other big mod was "oil canning" the hull. I tried to stay very slight so I wouldn't get a "gato accordion" like I explained earlier and while it's hard to see in the pics or with just primer it really makes the ship look like a ship instead of a slab of plastic. This is a big job that I'm thinking will be worth it, especially when I'm done painting.

Hopefully that's helpful to you guys... as always I'm happy to provide assistance to those who are aiming to make great gatos. I hope I've helped to encourage the creation of a few "extreme Gatos" out there to give the hardcore U Boat builders a run for their money (or maybe get THEM to do at least a couple of American subs ). WW2 American Submarines are my favorite ships/boats of all time and they deserve to have a strong showing in the plastic model world, especially when we have something like the Revell kit to start from!

[J. Aguilar]

hi channell

Impresive work here


cheers



JAM

[Channell]

The deck is on...

5 months, a couple hundred hours later and the Cobia is FINALLY to the same point an average gato builder would be at after about 4 hours.


















Here's a real Gato deck to compare it with:



(source: http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/08241.htm)

There is still a lot of detail to add onto the deck but it feels good to have finally reached this milestone in the build.

Now the only scary part left is painting the beast.

[LE BOSCO]

Superb Channell, as usual you did well to to resume your deck,the effect is screaming of truth
congrats
Nicolas