Author Topic: 1/72 revell U-boat U-96 [start 23.may.2011] (Read 21658 times)

Marko · « **Reply #15 on:** 25 May , 2011, 13:15 »

and here the other half:

the darned fracture went all the way through, while i was correcting it, so now i have to repair it ASAP

unfortunately i ran out of plastic cement, in order to get the matters worse, my tamiya extra thin is even 90km away at home, so i have an option to wait till i get it, or to buy the new revell contacta tomorrow.

Marko · « **Reply #16 on:** 26 May , 2011, 13:44 »

a little bit of todays work. I managed to glue up the broken bit. And i decided to let it dry completely overnight, just to be sure, so no work has been done on that half. For that matter i decided to remove the main channel along the hull on the other side, notice that one part is especially rough, but that will come out anyway, to be substituted with the PE part from the flood PE fret. Final shaving of the flood gates and channels will be done once ill have the extra thin glue with me

the other side has been thinned out where necessary:

and the tools i used today:
-proxxon to thin the back side
-heavy duty OLFA knife to do the main cutting
-various needle files
+revell contacta and some duct tape, to hold securely part in place when drying

Marko · « **Reply #17 on:** 27 May , 2011, 12:39 »

cheers guys,

a goodie, that arrived today:

in the whole afternoon i managed to carve out the other flood channel:

here is the comparison to the other one.

Note, i used a smaller ball milling bit on this one, and it came out better, with minimum file retouching. If i had to do another one, it would be waaay better - well probably

. There is also the remaining duct tape visible, since i applied another drop of contacta, and i sprinkled and mixed it a bit with the dust that came from the carving the channel, it will give me some extra reinforcement, till i get the torpedo gates in. Far as i have been informed, the modellbrass also arrived, so with a bit of luck ill go home tomorrow to get the remaining flood gates PE, and those extra tools that i currently don't have here.

i also noticed in the process, that my starboard hull half is a bit warped, i just hope it is in tolerances with the other parts...

regards,
Marko

iceonaboy · « **Reply #18 on:** 27 May , 2011, 14:42 »

You are doing a great job Marko. I am impressed with the amount of aftermarket kits you have invested in. One that particularly interests me is the conning tower detail set. What does this actually entail and who makes it? I am quite interested in obtaining something similar, cheers, Leth

Marko · « **Reply #19 on:** 27 May , 2011, 15:10 »

Hi Leth,

many thanks for the compliments

you probably mean this one?
http://www.cmkkits.com/en/ships/u-boot-vii-exterior-set-part-i-turret/

it is produced by cmk, and it contains resin and turned metal parts. It contains parts for both guns and detail bits for both periscopes and various bits and pieces in the tower and bollards. Im not that sure anymore if it is worth 24 euros that i paid for it, and taken into account that cmk shop sells it even for 32,5 that is even more outrageous. Though i took it because i got quite a bit of discount + free insured shipping if i took all the sets from cmk shown on the picture (actually i skipped the exterior detail set 2, since it contains nothing more than a raft with a torpedo), yet i still got the discount with free shipping from the generous seller. you can even see the instructions on the page i gave you the link, there are also all the rest of the sets in their shop.

And yes, im impressed too of that how much invested into it. I guess i really shouldn't

however if you plan to do the exterior only, try to get as many as possible, since they do make a difference, and they give you another level of plastic kit building, maybe that's the reason why invested into it, and probably i wont buy any other kit for a long long time

regards,
Marko

Rokket · « **Reply #20 on:** 27 May , 2011, 23:30 »

Marko, coming along excellent. Don't worry about the stress fracture! I did the same thing, and it's Dougie and me who designed that AMP set! I was also worried that it would be hard to bend the right shape to drop in and match the bow, but actually it was easy, and no user-complaints yet.

I like the accessories you have chosen, and love that you are thinning behind all penetrations. Keep those pix coming.

iceonaboy · « **Reply #21 on:** 28 May , 2011, 13:24 »

Thanks for the info Marko, much obliged.

I am still in the early stages of my own 1.72 VIIC build and so, am still open to suggestions about aftermarket kits. I have the Nautilus wooden deck and Eduard PE for the the kit, and I have now aquired two VIIC`s and two VIIC/41`s. I am unsure as to whether I should get wooden decks for all of them or go for the brass PE decks. I like the wooden deck, but the hassle of getting it from the states with freight and customs is a bit of a put off. I am waiting with excitement for Wink and Dougie to announce the arrival of their lower flood hole kits (hint hint)

, cos I am having real problems with opening them neatly and I want to just cut the lot out.

Marko · « **Reply #22 on:** 28 May , 2011, 17:02 »

Thanks Wink, i thought it might pose a problem after all of that carving,thinning and fitting, though its noting serious, especially when cheeks will be installed with the epoxy glue. I have already pre-bent pieces along the kit parts when they were still on. I still have to do the final shaping by hand, and roll it our to get pretty much smooth curves, with the minimum indentation in the vertical way between rivet lines, since stressed skin will be incorporated too.

Leth, if you don't plan to show the interiors, just skip on those, the turret and the tower from the CMK is so-so, there are bits of it which highly useable, like the periscope body and the base of the deck gun, etc. The basic problem of the any PE sets is, that none of them are complete, so you are almost forced to buy them all

And yea, Wink told me about the future VII PE set release, though i have already ordered modelbrass few weeks before that. If ill ever wanna build the 41's boat, i can use the remaining PE and resin bits, and get the future PE set for the VII from Wink and Dougie when available
Regarding the decks, go for the nautilus, and try to cross use them with the other PE bits, so as will i in my build.

A friend of mine built the VII/C with nothing more than a eduard PE, and still got severe 1st places and best of show awards, so in theory that is enough

i recommend to use:
-eduard PE (good starting point)
-Flood gates, torp cheeks from AMP (will give more accuracy and authenticity)
-WEM set (& WEM torpedo loading set if desired)
-schatton turned metal parts (feel free to skip it if you purchase CMK exterior part 1, note: turned metal quality here is better than the one from CMK)
-archer rivets (looks like great stuff)
-nautilus deck
-modelbrass / currently best lower flood gates
-yankeemodelworks PE for the vents, yankemodelworks upper pressure hull surface (not best, but saves a lot of work, unfortunately not money, still requires fiddling around with)
-CMK exterior part one if desired

about the decks, you may thin out and drill the stock deck too, but you will get really close to ruining it, since you have to thin them out sooo much...
under the line, use at least eduard or WEM set

about the kit, i didn't do anything today, neither went to pick up the modelbrass set, since we had an IPMS competition here, so i went to stock up with new blades for the stressed skin, a pile of evergreen sheets, strips and profiles for the upcoming steps

Marko

Marko · « **Reply #23 on:** 01 Jun , 2011, 09:59 »

Hi guys,

Time for a bit of update after few days. The time to get messy started just about now. I drilled the flood holes above the main channel few days before, but somehow did not come to publish them online

The PE is simply marvelous, and gives the model whole new dimension. As mentioned before, first i roughed out the holes on the kit, this gets really, and i mean really thin, and its still not enough, since i have to angle cut them a bit more to get the desired effect (pictures below):

next it comes the 2 component 5 min. epoxy from UHU, to glue all the four parts in:

after half an hour i decided that epoxy dried enough to file the edges of the brass parts off (darker edge of parts on borders). This will help blending in them with the squadron putty. Now its time to leave halves for a day to reach full epoxy strength. (and yes, the darned thing broke on the same spot again as the fracture before, anyways now the PE part and epoxy are providing the strength)

By the way, you can also notice some random scratches on PE parts. I made these with filing and sanding, since here and there were imperfections like little rivet, or donut like dots and spots, besides, ill probably have to remove all the surface detail on them while blending them in, and it actually doesn't matter since ill use archer rivets and welds anyway

regards,
Marko

Marko · « **Reply #24 on:** 04 Jun , 2011, 13:19 »

hello,

here it is, at last! holy grail for VII uboat

it comes sandwiched between two sheets of wood, secured with clear scotch tape, note the small portion with the details is bent backwards

here is the fret fully extended, now some serious chopping will be initiated.

i also took myself a second project, when ill have to take a break between resin cleanup (by the way, i did some work on command section, and its quite tricky to clean it, and even more trickier to line all major components up...)

and another full resin torture project (actually it has fiberglass fuselage), for the price of only 123 euros including shipping. resin ist cast superbly (aires/CMK class), contains masks, PE set, VAC-form canopies, so under the line, it comes quite cheap for what you get in the box, since its a full meal deal with exception of tools, colors and glue

. And i simply love the plane, so the kit is absolutely spot on

regards,
Marko

conus00 · « **Reply #25 on:** 05 Jun , 2011, 08:24 »

Hi Marko,
the PE set in your last post, is it the Modelbrass set?

Marko · « **Reply #26 on:** 05 Jun , 2011, 10:43 »

Hi Conus,

yes it is, check the Leth's thread about modelbrass contact for additional info.
http://models.rokket.biz/index.php?topic=777.0

regards,
Marko

Marko · « **Reply #27 on:** 05 Jun , 2011, 14:30 »

A bit of todays work:

i roughed out and filed the forward flood holes on both hull halves, currently im pre-bending the PE rear lower flood holes
basically what i did was, lined PE part lower holes with the kit flood holes, marked borders and started to drilling bunch of holes near edges. Then i've cutted em out with x-acto knife, then alot of filing action came into account, and so you can see the result:

next update will have the rear holes cut-out and thinning the hull to make seat ledges for the PE parts, and grinding away the rear portions angled to get thin hull effect, and of course cleaning the needle files

Marko

Rokket · « **Reply #28 on:** 08 Jun , 2011, 04:14 »

mmmm, the thrill of PE and progress!

Marko · « **Reply #29 on:** 08 Jun , 2011, 14:41 »

rokket, i agree, the PE sets really do spice things up a bit. Actually, these flood hole panels spice em up a lot! first to position them right, then align other half to existing one, and glue them in place, especially rear ones. i tacked the rear ones in corners with medium CA, and baked them with the zip kicker - activator, then applied epoxy resin around the edges - including corners, now parts are sitting and adhesives are bonding them together, front were glued in solely with epoxy. here and there i still have to grind and file off the excess plastic from the edges, but we are getting there slowly. And since i am chopping stuff out at the moment, ill hit the GHG ger