As promised here is the beast. Since I completed the conning tower, I broke a few minor pieces off, namely the round antenna, a couple of the white metal railing pieces and a grab rail/handle. Easy enough fixes. It is fast approaching the paint stage. I will post pics of that once I get underway. I'm hoping for this week-end or early next week. My goal is to have the entire thing done inside of 45 days so I can present it to the owner. The owner lost one of the PE deck plates in the conning tower, so I fudged it with sheet styrene. It will be hard to see once painted anyways. Enjoy the pics. "Q"

Hi Matthew

Although it's too early, I can only say that so far it is looking good! Aparently you have made it a clean built...
Did you replace the CT raillings and steps with evergreen? They look white...

Keep up

Skipper

Yep sure did as the kit supplied metal pieces would not take glue of any kind and stay together. I used Weld-On and the joints are very very strong. Can't wait to get some paint on this thing. The main railing is .040 and consists of three pieces that were shaped and then glued together. It was easier than I thought, but still took a fair amount of time to do. Thanks for the encouragement. "Q"

Truely a sight to behold. I've only seen one of these built, and it is currently displayed at the Squadron shop and it is on a shelf about 6 feet in the air so you can't get up and look at all the detailing this kit has. Thanks for the "peek" Man this is going to be tough to give back kind of like one of those surrogate mother things.

Steve, yes it is going to be hard to give back, but I will do so happily. For the $$ that Andrea charges for this thing, I would have thought it to be a lot more in the way of quality. The instructions are horrible. They look like the were photo-copied. I went out and bought a book on U-boats, the VIIC to be exact, and have used it to figure out what pieces the instructions are calling for. The main hull halves were mis-matched on it as well with one being every so slightly shorter than the other. Thank God for Ave's Apoxy and Magicsculpt! The deck plates are thick photo etch that must be soldered together, and they don't fit all that well along the aft end of the hull. They are too wide and overhang the edges. Still haven't figured out what I am going to do to fix this. Anyway, if anybody wants more info on this beast, before you drop your hard earned $$$$$ on one, please let me know. I will gladly tell all I have about it. More pics to follow soon. "Q"