A U-Boat Type VIIC/41 from WW2 *** COMPLETED ***

[clive_t]

Hi all, my return to this corner of the forum has been a fairly overdue thing, in fact this will be only my second maritime build.

 

Yet another impulse buy - aren't they all - from a model shop in Chichester a few weeks ago (seems like forever ago since the lock-down ), I wanted to attempt another sea-scape diorama but not have to spend ages actually putting the vessel together. This seemed to fit the bill perfectly:

 

 

From a quick search of this area, I see that there are several recent builds of this kit already - I will be perusing those in due course ahead of actually doing anything for myself. What I hope to achieve is a sea-scape whereby the U-Boat breaks the surface having been attacked from the air. Apparently this actually happened to U-570, which was attacked, and indeed captured on August 27th 1941, whilst on her maiden patrol south of Iceland. She was pressed into RN service as HMS Graph, and used for trials to assess performance etc, followed by a brief period of active service.

 

Anyway, I digress slightly - the parts count, being only 35 (including a base which I definitely won't be using, among others), more or less renders shots of the instructions pointless, however for the hell of it here's how the sprues look:

 

 

There, I've planted a stake in the ground so to speak, hopefully I will make a start soon.

[clive_t]

... first shots fired this morning - well, not much of a fight to be honest, it's all gone together very well so far:

 

 

A bit of clamping needed, but not much.

 

[clive_t]

Can anyone help? I have seen reference photos of U-570 which show she had a 'naval 88' (not the same as the better-known 88s feared by tank crews, apparently) mounted on her foredeck. The kit doesn't provide one, and I am not sure how to make something that would look anywhere near convincing. Does anyone know who might supply this as an aftermarket item, or some cunning plan for scratch-building one? Any and all guidance gratefully received!

 

**Edited to add**

Just found a web page detailing the vitals of this type of gun - specifically, a 8.8 cm/45 (3.46") SK C/35 gun. Who knew?

 

Here, for those remotely interested in such things:

 

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_88mm-45_skc35.php

 

The long and the short of it is, that in 1:350 the gun barrel is going to be a piece of 0.4mm styrene rod, of length approximately 11mm! For a small blessing, the point on the foredeck where such a gun would have been mounted, appears to be moulded in the deck surface, so that's good!

Edited April 2, 2020 by clive_t
Found some info

[clive_t]

Ok, scrub that - from some further research it appears that the differences between a type VII and a VIIC/41 are too great, and too obvious, to be fixed

 

Therefore I shall retreat back to doing one of the vessels as depicted in the decal/colour call-outs, and just do the best I can with the diorama when the time comes.

 

 

[clive_t]

The build - or as much of it as I need - is now complete:

 

 

For my intended seascape, I have no need of all that stern gear. Next up, painting - that's for another time, however.

 

Thanks for watching!

[clive_t]

Sorry, a quick PS to today's activity - the dio base will be a bog standard 8x6 photo frame, purchased for a couple of £ some time ago:

 

 

I have a stash of these awaiting such projects, and this one seemed to fit quite well, if I turn it round and use the side with the narrower frame, thereby presenting me with the largest display area:

 

 

 

[Courageous]

Crikey Clive, is their anything you don't build; a Ju 52, a WW1 ambulance and now a German sub! I build British subs myself and have started putting them onto sea bases...it's where they should be in my view. Know nothing about U-boots, sorry.

 

Stuart

 

[clive_t]

16 hours ago, Courageous said:

Crikey Clive, is their anything you don't build; a Ju 52, a WW1 ambulance and now a German sub! I build British subs myself and have started putting them onto sea bases...it's where they should be in my view. Know nothing about U-boots, sorry.

 

Stuart

 

well I draw the line at gundam and egg/toon type stuff! Not to decry the efforts of the good people who are followers of those genres - they simply don't interest me.

 

A bit of progress on two fronts today - the first coat of slap is on the sub. Annoyingly I seem to be totally devoid of any 'proper' paints that are even close colour matches to the supplied paint pots - sadly, this necessitated I bite the bullet and attempt to use the first of them (light grey), thinned all to hell with IPA:

 

 

You could be forgiven for thinking that I hadn't yet laid even an atom of paint on it, so close is the colour to that of the plastic. But I can assure you I have!

 

Note to self: obtain as soon as possible, one bottle each of Tamiya XF19 (sky grey) and XF24 (dark grey)

 

On the dio front, I added some suitably sized chunks of expanded polystyrene (of which I have copious quantities) to the inside of the frame:

 

 

To build up the height to nearer where I wanted it, I stuck a 6x8 rectangle of thin foam board with some Mod Podge glue:

 

 

Once this is all stuck, I can carve a submarine shaped hole in the surface, ready for the next stage.

 

Thanks for looking

[clive_t]

Basic paint job is now complete - the 'granite grey' intended for the deck surface, I substituted with Tamiya's Nato Black, which looks more like a dark grey to me:

 

 

 

[Courageous]

On 4/4/2020 at 5:59 PM, clive_t said:

Nato Black, which looks more like a dark grey to me

Yep, any prefix to black, it's a shade of grey. 

 

Stuart

[clive_t]

Thanks Stuart, that's useful to know

 

Latest progress - the hole for the sub has been dug out of the base:

 

 

I have now applied the first shots in the weathering process - a black oil wash to pick out some of the detail, which in fairness is quite good for this scale:

 

 

Need to let that dry now for a while before moving on.

 

Thanks for watching

[Courageous]

Is that how you're going to present 'das boot'? If it, it'll be interesting to see how you do it.

 

Stuart

[clive_t]

5 minutes ago, Courageous said:

Is that how you're going to present 'das boot'? If it, it'll be interesting to see how you do it.

 

Stuart

You mean as a 'crash surfacing' kind of way? Yes, I have some ideas and some inspiration for how to achieve the look, but it will be my first such attempt so the opportunities to nause it up will no doubt be many and varied.

 

In the meantime, some progress today on the sea-scape, courtesy of some sizeable lengths of kitchen foil, torn up and scrunched into small lumps and glued with copious splodges of PVA:

 

 

I will admit to doing this slightly derriere-about-face as I should have packed the area around the sub hull first and worked out from there. Still, we will cross that particular bridge once the black oil-wash has dried properly.

[clive_t]

More weathering - in the form of a simple 'dot filter' of white and orange oils:

 

 

Definitely leaving this to dry now!

 

[clive_t]

The dio base is now covered by a single sheet of foil, glued into place with yet more PVA:

 

 

This will need to dry now before I move on to preparing to paint it.

[clive_t]

The PVA is still a little fluid in places, but I took the opportunity to prepare the foil surface for painting, with a generous layer of Mod Podge:

 

 

Once dry, that will hopefully be a reasonable surface on which to apply paint.

[phildagreek]

This looks really good!

[clive_t]

18 hours ago, phildagreek said:

This looks really good!

Thanks phil! A bit more progress today - the Mod Podge layer dried clear, as expected, so I went ahead and primed the surface with some spare white emulsion:

 

 

That didn't take very long to dry, so I then started applying some colour - first, Tamiya XF17 Sea Blue (which looks kind of green):

 

 

... followed by some X19 Smoke, which is a clear black:

 

 

... followed swiftly by some X23 Clear Blue:

 

 

I will be honest and say I wanted it slightly darker than this, but I will work with it.

[clive_t]

A minor change this morning. I really wasn't happy with the base colour, so I airbrushed some flat black over it - which actually made it look worse! Thankfully, coating it again with some Kleer brought out some of the latent blue colour. A quick dry run with the submarine loosely in place:

 

 

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

I always enjoy seeing people tackle seascapes and like how you are going about doing this one. I want to do a rough sea myself one day and may well steal some of your methods.

 

 

[clive_t]

6 minutes ago, Bandsaw Steve said:

I always enjoy seeing people tackle seascapes and like how you are going about doing this one. I want to do a rough sea myself one day and may well steal some of your methods.

 

 

Thanks Steve, I think with a bit of hindsight I would have formed the foil lumps so that they were shallower and more pointed at the top. Hopefully I can rescue it in the coming days.

[Bandsaw Steve]

I think rough seas are really challenging. This one’s going to come out fine though.

 

[clive_t]

On 4/9/2020 at 3:10 PM, Bandsaw Steve said:

I think rough seas are really challenging. This one’s going to come out fine though.

 

Yes, I can certainly attest to that so far! However, I had a bit of a brainwave and used the rounded wooden handle that you can see in the background of the pic below to press into the raised waves, thus creating a sharper 'peak' to most of them. Apologies, this is not the best lit photo I've ever taken:

 

 

In other news, I am calling the submarine done - as I have now fitted the aerial wires from the conning tower fore and aft:

 

 

 

[clive_t]

A bit of a wait for this one as I had to order some artist's acrylic clear gel - obviously some additional challenges in light of the current situation. Still, eventually it arrived:

 

 

As you can see the sub is now in situ. I needed to bed it in first with some clear Gorilla glue - an appreciable amount of it, in the end.

 

The results were not of the best, to be honest - mainly my fault, I gave the gel too much to do in terms of gap-filling - quite a few air bubbles surfaced overnight which needed to be opened up, which in turn revealed larger caverns underneath. So I filled the larger remaining gaps with yet more Gorilla glue, and patiently waiting for any further air bubbles to reveal themselves and dealing with them there and then. The result is slightly less disappointing:

 

 

Still a bit to do in order to generate spray etc, but it's getting there

[clive_t]

A bit of spray has been added, fashioned from teased out cotton wool, coated with acrylic gel and allowed to dry before being cut to shape and attached with more gel: