Well with the completion of DDD2 and having completed a 1/32 scale Nieuport 23 (Sorry that is a plane) I thought I would do a (nearly) out of the box Seehund. Thanks to my friend Olaf I already knew that the Conning tower was (A) to short and (B) totally the wrong shape.
The intention was just make a new tower, cut off the old one stick new one on, replace inaccurate torps with some brass works of art and that would be it.
Oh the construction of the tower went Ok, it was when I was calculating the correct position that I realized that there was more wrong with this resin offering than just the conning tower.
The hull extensions that support the rudder bearings are unequal lengths, the upper one slopes downward when it should be level (according to my plans) and mark one eyeball being run over pictures(in my case that should probably be the mark 2 or 3 ).
It get worse, having worked out the correct place for the new tower (Yes I have removed the old one) it just did not look right, reason the front section is not only too short but against the plans it is also too shallow. I now have to shorten what was a correct length tower or cut off and rebuild the front section, I would have been better off building it from scratch!!
My point is this :- If there were no Seehunds left in the world and they had worked from plans then they might get it wrong and be forgiven apart from the fact that if they had looked at some of the hundreds of photos of Seehunds they might be expected to have made a better job of it, BUT THERE ARE SEEHUNDS in museums around the world and to the best of my knowledge access is not restricted SO WHY do some manufactures still GET IT WRONG, its not even as if the mistake is introduced due to the limitations of manufacture.
Thats it I`ve had my moan, I am not a happy bunny, going into my garden, smell the freshly mown grass while enjoying a bottle of single malt whiskey and think of the special place in hell I have waiting for some people.
PeteV
