Das Projekt des U-Boat Typ VIIC

[tore]

I would suggest black
Tore

[kurt]

Received my 88 barrel and periscopes from Schatton-Modellbau, very nice.  Just got a copy of the Kagero 3D book for the type VII, it's a very nice book that ties the entire subject together very well. Still no PE to work on those darn holes!! That's okay in a way, because I don't have the time at the moment to work on the boat. Still.....

[kurt]

Today my PE from ModelBrass came, it was worth the wait, now I the WEM set comes I be ready to roll.  I don't want to start with the bottom holes, because it looks like it would be to delicate to be handling while working on the upper areas. 

[NZSnowman]

Here a little known fact about the sky periscope. The top of all new sky periscopes were white! Almost U-boat Captains would have them painted light gray before going to sea.

[tore]

Simon, interesting and new to me. I really don`t understand the reason for white sky periscope. Mostly the colours of the top was various shades of grey, like on the picture below, I think most of the colours were darker than on this picture though, but I believe it depended very much upon in which aereas you were operating.. We carried out some tests and figured out that dull  dark grey, almost black  with a shade of dark green was the optimal for the water we were operating. But I guess it was the wake of the pericope which probably was the worst problem.
Tore

[tore]

Periscope colours.
An interesting instruction as to the colours of the periscope can be found in The Submarine Commander`s Handbook  ( U.Kdt.Hdb) of 1943 issued by the German High Command reading as follows : "125..32. For the colour of the periscope, a dirty grey such as is used for the body of the submarine itself should be chosen, as this colour is the least to detect in all conditions of ligth. Green paint, or stripes or checkered pattern are very conspicuous in a poor ligth."
Tore

[kurt]

Today I received a pair of beautiful brass props made for me by Keith Bender of Propmeup. He made them up from a set of blueprints of the real boat.  I will try pickling them to resemble bronze.  Wish the pesky WEM PE would come, GRRRRRRR.

[tore]

Propellors.
The VIICs propellors were made of different materials, I believe the early versions were all of cast bronze whereas the later versions were cast steel. I don`t know excactly when they changed, but all our VIICs ( end 1942 and later) had cast steel and weren`t shiny at all. An easy mistake as to the fitting of the propellers is the direction of the revolution, the ahead revolutions for both is outwards seen at the top, which means seen towards aft clockwise for the port and anticlockwise for stb.
Tore

[kurt]

I located a CMK Turret set on the internet so I'm waiting on that. Still waiting on the WEM PE set for the flood holes, etc.  They just billed me so that means they're on their way across the pond so hopefully it won't be long!!
Kurt

[Rokket]

The CMK is good. And the WEM flood/vent set SUPERB!!!

[kurt]

Wink, your modesty is amazing, superb doesn't begin to describe...... Finally received both WEM set, including the superb one by what's their names? I guess I will have to start to drill and scrape, and scrape and drill soon.
 
Kurt

[Rokket]

oh ya, I'm biased...

Yes, drilling and scraping...fun fun fun!