Hi all,

Well, this will be my first SBS here in Shipwrights so I hope I don't disappoint. I look forward to receiving as much as constructive criticism as possible as this is my very FIRST ever ship/sub.

Anyway, the work on this kit started with the construction of some of the major parts. Specifically, I started the project concentrating first on the kit-provided stand and then moved to the larger pieces like the hull, the bow and stern of boat.

Okay, so, as mentioned, I began with the kit's stand. I decided to rework it a bit as I didn't like the way it looked and how wobbly it was. There's quite a bit of clean up to do on these parts as well. Lots of mold seams and those pesky ejector pin marks. As you can see, I used some card stock to form the rectangular beam that is 'dressing' the kits parts that are underneath.





I also added a few round discs in specific locations to give the piece the impression of it being made of steel. Don't know if it'll work but will see once this is all painted.



Once that was done, I decided to tackle the kit's bow and stern. The fit on these items aren't terrible and it took just a few minutes to get them to where you see here:









More to come in a few....

Rob

Okay, next up is the hull. I took some time to think about how I was going to work this step as the pieces are super large. I read of some issues with flexing after the hulls are joined so thinking of that I began researching for a solution to the problem. I found this link http://www.scalespot.com/onthebench/seawolf/seawolf_build.htm and it proved useful mainly in terms of being able to see how others tackle the flexing problem

Now, in my case, I decided against bracing the interior as I thought it would take more time that I cared to spend on this one aspect and also because, while researching for information, I came across some useful information that pointed me to the use of foam to fill the interior cavity to add the needed rigidity to the hull (more on that later).

So, armed with new ideas, I decided to join the main hulls together,,,,



I used several rubber bands to hold both pieces and slowly worked my way with Tamiya's extra thin cement.





The fit is really not great here, specially on the forward sections of the hull so I glued a bit at a time so I could line things up to avoid any 'steps' in between the pieces. I could not, however, avoid a bit of a step on the forward portions (still don't know why but I figured it had something to do with those inserts used to line things up).





After the glue was set, I removed the rubber bands and, again, applied another coat of glue to both joints for extra strength.





Now, as mentioned above, I want to add some rigidity to the join area so as to avoid flexing of the parts while puttying and sanding. So, after finding some information on the use of expanding foam for filling the interior, I would need to cut open both ends of the hull. So, to begin the process, I took out my OLFA cutting compass and with it I 'scribed' the plastic.





I decided to only circle-scribed the areas to be removed as I want to use some of the other scribers as the plastic is a bit heavy for the compass.



So, here's where I am at the moment. I'm working on removing these bulkheads so I'll post more pics when progress is made.

Thanks for looking....

Rob

Looking good Rob.

Thanks, Kenny!

I should have a few more WIP pics tomorrow (mainly of bulkheads removed).

Rob

It is looking good Rob. As far as that foam is concerned I'd be very careful with it. It's VERY sticky. I know this from painful experience. You get it on yourself in any way and it's the devil's own stuff to get off.

Hi Rodger,

Thanks for the heads up! I read somewhere that I could try a latex version of the expanding foam that is water soluble (new stuff I think) and so I'm aiming for that. This article I found stated that it is the polyurethane (sp?) version the one that's almost impossible to get off skin, clothes, etc.

I'll be careful either way as you suggest though!

Thanks for looking,

Rob

Okay, a quick update on this build....

After a session with the scribers I was able to remove the blank-off pieces at each end of the now joined hulls.

Here's the stern blank-off removed



Here's the bow piece removed



And, finally, a quick look inside the 'tube'



Next up, attach the rope ties (top of the hull) and then get DapTex's Latex expanding foam (below) to fill in the hull cavity.



Until then, cheers!

Rob

Looking good Rob. I've got this kit in the stash.

Nice work Rob.

Cheers


Sean

Thanks much, Kenny and Sean! Will get more pics uploaded hopefully by the end of the week...

Rob

Hey guys (and gals)....another very quick update as I had just a bit of time tonight.....

To prevent the expanding foam from seeping out through the holes for the rope tie-downs (those tiny items that attach to the sub's spine) and the two holes located on the side of the hull where those mini wings (dive rudders?) attach to, I decided to try something a bit 'out of the ordinary' (for me anyway). With the help of some very thin pieces of card stock carefully taped down with painters tape, I was able to cover each opening. I was going to simply glue the tie-downs in place but was afraid I would knock then off while puttying and sanding. Anyway, here are some pics...







Next step is the one I am most looking forward, the foam. As you can see here, it's all ready to go....



Will post pics once I have time to tackle the foam (probably not until the weekend) so stay tuned!

Rob

Okay, I've finally been able to do some work and take some in-progress pics of this kit so here they are:

First order of business was to spray the expanding foam inside the sub's tube and into the nose and tail cavity.







This being my first experience with models and foam I tried filling the entire cavity with the product. This, however, proved messy as even after giving it 3 days to dry I found that a runny goo of the foam had formed on the inside. To get the foam to dry completely I decided to remove most of it from the inside and just leave enough to still provide rigidity for the joins.



As I waited for the foam to dry I decide to do some work on the rudders and dry-fitted the sail to test the overall fit. I'll be doing a bit of scratch and correction work on the sail when I get to work on it.







Finally, after the foam had fully dried (about a day or so) I decided it was time to glue the nose and the tail pieces to the main tube. Here are the results:







As you can see, the fit isn't great. To make the joins look passable, I used lots (and I mean LOTS) of Tamiya thin cement. I basically brushed the glue on and tried to let the melted plastic ooze so as to avoid the use of too much putty later in the process.

Next step: sanding to smooth out the joins and overall surface in preparation for putty.

Rob

Hi Rob,

Great WIP so far; lots of great tips and info in here. You are doing a good job so far; also thanks for pointing out all the potential pitfalls and problem areas. I have couple modern subs in the stash at 350 scale, and couple WWII at 144 scale. Good to see first hand some of the problems with the larger scale subs.

look forward to the rest, cheers

Thanks much for the comments, James! Nice to know the work may help others deal with some of the issues these types of kits come with (and trust me, they come with plenty of them).

Okay, in keeping with the work, I have a few more pics I'd like to share. These are mainly of the sub after its first 'raw sanding' (as I call it) session.

As you will see below, I went over all the seams and joints with 220 and 320 sandpaper. I normally do this before I apply any putty to make sure that the surfaces to receive putty are 'clean' and uniform. This also serves to spot those areas that will not be needing putty because I was able to take care of the seam/joint just with a good gluing and melting of the plastic.

Anyway, here are the pics:





On this one you can see the tools of the trade. Various grades of sandpapers.



These two show the nose joint to the main hull. This is really the worse fitting part of the build so far as the nose seems to actually be smaller than the hull and thus there is a bit of a step in some areas. Care should be taken when gluing the nose to the hull. Mainly, glue only one tiny bit at the time, aligning the hull to the nose to avoid creating steps when they may be hard to remove.





More pics of the rear of the sub.





Since these pictures, the sub has received one coat of putty, sanding, and a second coat of putty applied to the nose, the tail, and that that odd line that goes around the top of the sub depicting what some think to be the water line. I'll post pics of where the build is at the moment when I get some time.

Thanks for tuning in!
Rob

Hi everyone....sorry for the long pauses between updates. I've done some more work on this beast of a kit. As mentioned above, the puttying and sanding session is well underway. All work on this is concentrated on filling, sanding, filling again, and sanding again. The end is near, however. The hull received, so far, three coats of putty to get most of the joints covered and smooth. Anyway, here are some pictures of the progress:











The nose-to-hull joint, as the worse fitting part of this kit, has caused me the most work.. Due to the 'steps' I had to deal with earlier, this area received the most putty, about 5 coats so far (using Tamiya's classic putty, by the way). Even after these many layers of putty, however, and after having sanded the last coat, I was still left with a (although not prominent) indentation on this area. So, to remedy the issue, out came the big gun, Aves' Apoxy Sculpt. The pictures below show the area in question with the Apoxy Sculpt on and dryng. As soon as it dries completely (I leave it for at least 24 hours), I'll go ahead and start sanding. Also note that I filled and sanded that very pronounced line going across around the hull. None of my reference material shows this on the real thing so it was removed.







This is where I am at the moment. I want to finish the putty and spot priming work on the hull completely before moving onto the smaller details like the sail and rudders. As I still am not happy with some areas of the hull, I want to fell comfortable enough with it before moving on. More pics to come so stay tuned.....

Rob

She's taking shape nicely Rob. You're doing a fine job.

Thanks, kenny! Lots of effort has gone into making this beast into an "acceptable" rendition of the Seawolf. It's just too bad the shape of the nose looks like crap or it would have given the model a terrific overall look. I was initially thinking about fixing the shape with Ave's Apoxy Sculpt but then realized I would have to go passed the torpedo tubes with the Sculpt to get it straight and with the right look (the nose begins to droop way too early making a fix really difficult since a lot of detail will be loss).

Anyway, more to come. Working on the smaller parts of the sub (sail and rudders) so I should have some pics soon....

Rob

A lot of hard work in there. I'm glad to hear that the foam worked well enough. I've used expanding foam in insulation jobs and was sure it would expand till it split the hull. keep up the good work!

Thanks, Mark! Yeah, the foam did work, although not exactly as I hoped. I still have some flexing on the joined areas but nothing too extreme. Next sub I do (if I attempt another one that is) I'll probably use a combination of braces and foam to get a real solid seam.

Rob

very nice job on the seams...she is shaping up good. NOt sure if I mentioned it before, but I like the idea of the additions to the base to make it look different, will try that some day.

Thanks James!! I assume you mean the plastic stand. I really hated the thing OOB as it was wobbly and right down ugly! Coming to think of it though, now that the boat is taking shape, I may replace it with something better.

Thanks for the feedback!

Rob

Hi everyone! Well, I've been keeping quite busy with this kit and have made some progress. To start off, I spent much of the modeling time on this kit filling some more and sanding some more. Few pics as follow:

On this one you can see some of the putty wok on the nose section. I'd say I added closed to 10 coats of putty and another 2 coats of Apoxy Sculpt to this area to smooth out the join.





I was also able to get some work done on the tail planes. I went ahead and attached most of them except the horizontal ones as I had to rework these a bit (more on that later)...









As mentioned, I had to rework the horizontal planes a bit for them to receive the spars that were sanded away with the kit when I joined the two main tall pieces together. As these spars (on the kit) fell on that nasty seam line going the length of the main tail parts I had not choice but to remove them to make a smooth join. So, using some card stock I recreated this area. Pics below...

Using the actual horizontal tail plane as a guide to make the tear-drop shaped spar, I first drilled a hole on the card stock and then inserted the guide pin of the tail plane to position the piece...



Then, with a pencil, I outlined the tear-drop shape of the spar...





Once I had the rough shape of it, I cut the plastic tracing close to the line with the scissors. One that was done I glued the stock piece to the tail plane base and sanded the edges smooth. Pics below:







Besides the work above, I also took some time to work on the sail. While looking at some pictures of the sail on the real Seawolf I realized that those panels Trumpeter place on the sail were just too out of scale for them to work. I ended up filling all the panels and making the area smooth as in 1/144 those panels simply won't be visible. I also try to carve out that horizontal vent at the rear of the sail but ended up making a mess of it and had to fixed the gaping hole I created with Apoxy Sculpt and some Tamiya basic putty. Pics below:







I'm still not quite happy with the sail so more work is to come in this area.

Lastly, I decided to fill some of the panels on the hull as I was not able to find any references for them on the real deal. These panels looked terribly out-of-scale so I decided to remove them.

Bottom forward hull section





Okay, here's where I am now. Next up is to attached the horizontal planes, attach the rope tide-downs and continue work on the sail. Stay tuned for more...

Rob

Looking good Rob.

Thanks, Kenny! Will try to get some more done this weekend as time is a bit short this week.

Rob

Hey all,

Can anyone here confirm if these panels are on the real deal? This shot is of those panels located on the bottom-forward hull (which I already filled)



Here's a shot of the panels on the bottom-rear of the hull (which I filled half way)



Does anyone have any idea if Trumpeter did these two sets of panels correctly, based on the real thing? I know I already filled most of them but, since they were too deep anyway, I could re-do them more accurately if they actually exist and if their location are correct.

Thanks,

Rob