U-Boot type VII-B

[Will Vale]

Hi folks,

This is Hobby Boss's 1/350 U-boot, which I put together and painted as a first go at etched railings and the like in 1/350. I found it was tricky but do-able, although I'm not too happy about the size of my glue blobs. I think it'd be quite a slow process on a larger ship though because there's only so much I can manage in one session. I originally bought an I-400 for this purpose, and then thought it was too nice and I needed something easier to practice on. Did the same with a Surcouf, and so I ended up with this little U-boot from the Lucky Model sale for 5 USD. Bargain! I've wanted to build a type VII since seeing Das Boot which sealed the deal.

(click for bigger/more photos)

It's a good kit, there's enough in the box that I was quite happy to build it OOB, although the hull seam going through a lot of moulded-on detail and needed care to clean up. I had to to a bit of work on the nose which didn't quite want to line up, and I ended up filling in the bow torpedo hatches since I wasn't happy with my rescribe job. With hindsight I should've made them from slips of 0.25mm styrene, that would have looked fine.

It's painted with Tamiya grey primer for the upper part (lazy but effective!) and Gunship Grey 2 from an aerosol for the anti-fouling. I got a really nice demarcation on the first try and then realised that I'd messed up and the waterline was about 1.5mm too high, so I had to do it again Second try was a bit messy but my clean-up and patch attempts have ended up being a decent basis for weathering and colour variation.

I was going to add more rust streaks but I'm wary of overdoing the weathering in the small scale. I'll think I'll leave it for a bit and see how I feel later.

I was very surprised at how small it is - in my head 18cm sounded longer!

This was a fun build, so I might try the Surcouf next (or finish off something in the started-and-stalled pile?) Suggestions for improvement would be most welcome - particularly for attaching railings without blobs. Also any tips for rigging teeny weeny ships?

Thanks for looking,

Will

[Skids]

Will

That's a little gem, fantastic I really like that (coming from an aircraft modeller).

Actually I liked it so much just ordered one to have a go at.

Skids

[Foghorn Leghorn]

That's a lovely little model. Like Skids, I'm tempted to buy one after having seen it ... but I must resist!

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the kind words. Well worth a go if you're tempted

[jimbuna]

She's a real beauty.

[eagle]

[Madam I'm Adam]

Ah, when I saw your name I knew it was gonna be good! I'm not dissapointed.

On the Point of rigging, I've done most of my smaller scale subs with stretched sprue. I just found that slight ridgidity made the process workable where as I found fishing line wouldn't stick and got annoying kinks, likewise wire and thread I couldn't get the sag to look right. But we are all different and prefer different methods. If it were me I'd put a jump wire on and leave it at that.

I like the restrained weathering. Its really hard to get rust to look good at smaller scales.

Adam

[Will Vale]

Thanks chaps, very kind of you. I went and dug the Surcouf out of the garage so it's moving up the list nicely.

On the Point of rigging, I've done most of my smaller scale subs with stretched sprue.

Thanks Adam, I think that might be a good idea. I don't want to put any tension on the brass parts if I can avoid its, so sprue might be a good bet. Time to try something new

The weathering is mostly down to MIG washes being very nice to work with, and having good colours. You can put a dot of wash (I like to pick up the bits of pigment stuck to the inside of the cap with a damp brush, so it's runny but has more body than the mixed wash) where you want a streak, and then drag it down with a damp wide brush like a filbert or dagger. That gives much smaller streaks than I can do by hand and the brush shape stops it from being too even. Sometimes it also helps to brush back up to the source of the streak, and/or soften the end of it with a fingertip.

The hardest bit is keeping the brush strokes dead vertical - it's a give-away when you can see the same wiggle in parallel streaks

Cheers,

Will