Bandsaw Steve

Hi Ray, the plans I have used are for E29. I think there’s still an electronic copy at work. PM your e-mail address to me and I’ll flick a copy to you. I think any professional printing service should be able to run off copies for you. I would love love to see this boat made as per the plans because I think the mid-war configuration is better looking. But I don’t think it’ll be me making it! Twice might be once too often!

Weathering This is what I was going to post last night. No-one wants a brand spanking new submarine. Everyone wants a beaten up old dirty one! Well that's not going to happen and here's why: The Royal Australian Navy is well-known for high standards of ship maintenance AE2 was less than a year old when she was scuttled She had just been in for a refit, at Malta, just before her final mission So 'light weathering' it shall be for this model - which suits me fine because: I'm in a hurry I am lazy Here's a reference picture that I'm going to use a rough guideline. It's not an E-class submarine but it is a RN WW1 unit so the colours are comparable and I'm guessing that the rust and grime traps are indicative of where they would form an any contemporary design. My preferred medium for weathering is oil paint - as I have mentioned before, I love this stuff. Start with a colour that's a pretty close match to the base colour you want to weather and just sort of start layering up some staining. In this case I'm making most of the stains run straight down the side of the sub as per the reference picture. Might have over-done it a bit with the light grey on the dark grey. But... if you put too much on at any one point, just rub it off with a cotton bud. This is a very forgiving method of weathering. After a while there's a variegated finish on the submarine - differences of sheen and subtle changes of shade all along the vessel. I'm happy with this. Now let's add a bit of rust and grime. Not too much; Captain Stoker was doubtlessly a diligent Captain and his crew hard working and proud of their vessel. According to my references staining tended to form beneath the flood-vent holes first, so I've concentrated on that area. There we go - how about that? Done. And now I have to spray the whole thing with some flat matt clear coat to protect the oil paint. This is a bit of a shame because it will kill some of that lovely variety in the sheen that I've achieved and really like. Nonetheless, if I don't go too heavy with this stuff some variation should still show through. See - there's still a bit of variety even after top coat has gone on. So now you are bit more up to date, but I must say this thread is still behind the times. I am still working on this project flat-stick and this thread was already behind last night when the dark forces of computer upgrades forbade me from posting. Anyway - still more to go prior to Saturday when this thing has to go into the competition. Might be a late night tonight. Ohhh... Check out all the new emoji's we have to play with! That upgrade might have been worth it after all! Sleepy Steve.

And now he’s laughing at me! 🤬

Dammit! Another ‘first build’ that puts my 40 years of building models to shame. How can this be stopped?

Don’t see one of those every day!

KGV! Such a great looking ship! Good luck with this one, it should come out great!

FYI - I tried to post again last night but Britmodeller was temporarily out of action. Have made some good progress though. Am hoping to post tonight.

Markings and other bollards Do you remember Letraset? It was quite popular when I was a kid. You used to be able to buy little history books, each one was about some distinct event or historical period and in the middle page there was a painted scene onto which you could apply a set of (provided) Letraset decals to complete the historical picture. I well remember sitting in my cousin's lounge room completing a 'dambusters' scene with him once. There were Lancaster bombers and nightfighters and flak guns and bouncing bombs all over the place. Great fun! Sadly Letraset is a bit of rarity nowadays - but not at Van Roon's place. He's a draftsman by trade and has amassed a good collection of Letraset over the years, some of which he has very kindly lent to me - thanks mate! Here's the sheet in question. The font is probably not 'dead right' for WW1 Submarines but it's actually pretty damned close and the price is right - so let's go... First, test it to make sure that Letraset works OK on wood. Yep - all good. And now do it 'for real'. In case you aren't familiar with this form of transfer, here's how they work. You rest the transfer where you want it to go, hold it still and 'scribble' all over the plastic backing with either a pen or some other blunt instrument - here I'm using the tip of a knitting needle. Once the entire pattern has been scribbled over, the markings become firmly stuck onto the receiving surface. Exactly how the stuff works from a technical point of view I have no idea, but it does work very well. Unlike waterslide decals, there's no film around the outside of the design. On the other hand there's no 'wriggle time' so you have to get the thing in the right spot first hit. This is what the first marking looks like. And here's the job complete. I'm happy with this. I wasn't so happy however when I realised that there were some mooring bollards (I think that's correct terminology) at the stern that I'd forgot to make. This was easily rectified with some evergreen plastic tubing and some bad language. One of the advantages with using a rattle-can for colours is that if you have to re-apply paint, such as the bollards in this case, the colour match is likely to be 'bang-on'. It's ANZAC day today and the big push is on, so expect some more posts soon. Steve

Getting it on...to get it off... Before I can follow Courageous' exhortations to 'get it off' a whole bunch of masking and paint has go on... As I mentioned much earlier in this thread the colour of the primer is almost exactly what I had in mind for the above waterline colour so, for simplicities sake, I've decided to just go with that. Now that the white trim stripe is masked off I've just hit the entire boat with, yet another, coat of Mr Hobby grey primer. Looks OK I reckon, but there's a fair bit more masking and painting to go. Now the white stripe that I am painting is not visible in this photo. It looks like it is but what you are seeing is white 'high-flex' Tamiya masking tape. This tape is used to mask off the upper contact between the Aizu tape (that's only 0.7mm thick) and the light grey paint above. This is so that there is protection for both the Aizu and the contact between the white painted stripe and the bottom few mm of light grey. I'm assuming that there's already a nice clean contact between the white boot stripe and the light grey (I won't know for sure until later but I'm assuming it's good) - so I'm trying to protect that contact from the airbrushing about to follow. I also used some Vallejo masking fluid for the tricky bits. And then swopped to this - another Tamiya product (I'm not sure what it's called) but it's essentially a strip of masking tape with a big wide selvedge of clear plastic attached to one side. This is very good for masking large areas. Here's how I've used it. All of the areas to be left light grey are now under the protection of the clear plastic selvedge. So now I can spray some Vallejo 'dark grey' acrylic. Yeah - sorry, that's this shade's name 'dark grey'. I was hoping for a more exciting name like 'panzer grey' or 'sputnik grey' or something - but no such luck. In this case it's 'dark grey'. Ho Hum. And here it is being sprayed. And here it is with the large scale masking removed. Remember that the white stripe you can see isn't actually 'the' white stripe in question. With the white tape removed we have a nice clean contact between 'dark grey' and 'primer grey' - but we still haven't actually 'got it off' yet, at least not in the way that Courageous would demand. There's still a thin band of Aizu tape in this photo - but it's basically impossible to see. Ahhhh... There it goes... 'Get it off'... 'Get it off'... ...Take it all off... I love this job, when it goes well it's one of the best bits in the whole hobby! Whew - there she goes. The masking worked. Dark grey lower hull, thin white trim line and light grey upper hull, casemate and conning tower. Sweet! As for the masking job - something must have gone right because I reckon that white stripe is pretty tidy. it's certainly better than most of my masking efforts so I think that the idea of 'over-spraying' the protected colour (in this case white) seems to work quite well. Am pressing on now. More to do. Keep watching - the thread is no-longer 100% up to date as a lot more has been going on today than just painting. From here on the updates might start coming thick and fast. Will post again soon, Bandsaw Steve

Ahhh... but I don’t know if it works yet! Won’t know until I’ve taken the masking off. Like I say - it’s a cliffhanger!

Cliffhanger... Following my 'do or die' declaration vis-à-vis getting this thing ready for WASMEx (which is only six days away now) I have been trying to squeeze some modelling time in between the million and one other things going on at the moment. The outcome's uncertain folks, it's going down to the line! I think I can make it - but any delay or any major 'rooster-up' and I won't! Here's where we start tonight's episode - ready to prime. The submarine is even on that handy little kitchen turntable that I use for this job. Rattle can primer - for me it's always a rattle can for primer. So much easier than airbrushing; doesn't have to be cleaned afterwards. Once again - laziness - but in this case it's also about speed. About forty-five minutes later (three light coats) - Primer done! Looks OK! Now let it sit overnight and let the paint cure so I can finally push on with a bit of (unavoidable really) - airbrushing. I sprayed the length of the hull at the waterline with Vallejo white. Yielding this. Let it sit a couple of hours to give it a chance for the paint to harden - don't be tricked by the fact that it's touch dry in minutes. I then then cracked this open - Gundam masking tape. It seems to me that many modellers look down their nose at Gundam, but I'll tell you a secret. I have a specialist Gundam shop not far from my place and there's a whole world of bang-up-to-date modelling gear that that makes some of the stuff we 'traditional' modellers use look very dated. This Gundam tape is an example. O.7mm thick, sticky as anything and ever so slightly stretchy. Ideal! On it goes. To be honest I was dreading this because I thought any masking tape would struggle with the compound curves of the submarine, especially running on to and along the top of the saddle tanks), but this stuff went on like a breeze. I just stretched it out and set in the right place by eye. Having a few distinctive landmarks such as rivets and those little oval hatches made getting the tape laid out in the right spot and correctly symmetrical surprisingly easy. Here I am burnishing the tape down with some cotton buds. See - nice and straight. Now here's something I read about years ago but have never actually done before. Since I'm trying to mask off a white stripe, make at least the first 'post masking' coat white also. The idea is that any paint that bleeds under the tape is likely to be from the first coat, so if there's any bleed-under it will be white-on-white and will not be visible. Leaving this. I'm guessing that another advantage is that the top layer of paint will help hold the tape exactly, firmly in place. In the past I've found that tape can stretch and wander slightly over time. I don't think that this can happen here. I'm definitely running short of time now but have two full days off this week, including ANZAC day, and don't have much on in the evenings. So with a bit of luck and a tail wind I should still be able to get this finished in time. But it's definitely a cliffhanger. Best Regards, Steve

I have a plan... (Seven of them in fact) Just a minor update as 'proof of life' for this project. Here's another plug for 'aeroplans.co.uk' - great product, great variety and great service - I will be using this service again one day, perhaps for a set of their Short Southampton plans! Len at aeroplans e-mailed a high definition 1/32 scale PDF to me and my draftsman mate at work has very kindly run off seven full-size copies for me - one of which I have had laminated. Here's the result, one laminated, one not laminated and five more sets rolled up alongside. In the past I have learned a few things about plans: Try to get the correct plans for what you intend to build - obvious statement really, but perhaps you haven't read my AE2 thread. Here I was caught out over and over again by subtle differences between the mid-war E class submarine for which I had plans and the pre-war vessel I was building. Get lots of copies made. Building this way cuts through plans (literally cuts through them) very quickly. Get more than you think you will need and be ready to go and get more when you eventually run out anyway. Get one set laminated and pin it on the wall. I've done this with the AE2 plans and it's surprising how often I refer to this set. It's very convenient knowing at all times where to easily access a complete and tidy set of plans. This is going to be a big model. I've never built anything in 1/32 before and the Avro 504 is a larger aircraft than I imagined with a wingspan of 10.97m. Compare that with a tiger-moth's wingspan of just 8.94m! Here are the 1/32 scale plans photographed against a standard unit of Britmodeller measurement (a 1/48 scale Airfix Spitfire Mk Xii). Like I say - this is going to be a big model. Nearly as big as Tamiya's 1/48 Beaufighter in fact. Not much of an update I know, but I can assure you that although this project is on the back-burner at the moment, once AE2 is finished this will be getting my full attention. Stay tuned - about a fortnight from now I reckon we'll be into this good and proper! Steve

Awesome! Can’t believe I missed this when it first came out!

Clever work, well executed and well explained. Excellent!

Nice work! I especially liked seeing how you formed the wing’s aerofoil - will be trying something similar on my Avro 504 in the not too distant future.