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Type 039 Song class Submarine - my first venture into 1/350 maritime!


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On 8/10/2020 at 8:29 PM, gibbo99 said:

The last couple of pics show how small that really is.

Think that is what put me off getting one, I knew 1/350 for that sub would be tiny :lol:

 

It does look good though :)

Thanks. Yes it is pretty small, but that was good for me as it's my first ever 1/350 build and I wanted to start easy! I have my eye on one of these next, from Hobby Boss, an 031 Golf class. 

 

Hobby Boss PLA Golf

 

At about 28cm in 1/350, a bit bigger than the Song's 21cm.

 

I managed to clean up the base and rid it of the embossed Chinese wording, ready for paint and a home made label. Nothing against Chinese writing of course, but my Chinese spelling leaves much to be desired.

 

IMG20200812160056

 

With all the hull red areas masked off, the sub itself has had a dusting of AK one shot black. Once that had dried (overnight again), I masked off the chin sonar sensor area, and then gave the whole hull an airbrushed coat of a mixed "very dark grey", or "slightly light black". I used Tamiya Nato black mixed with a dash of Tamiya transparent smoke and a very small amount of Dark grey. It all went on very well, and even better news, the masking came off well also!

 

So today we have this. In this shot you should just be able to make out the pure black of the chin (horizontal demarcation line below the torpedo tube doors), against the greyer black of the hull.

 

IMG20200814182156

 

Pretty pleased also with the rear end demarcation

 

IMG20200814182214

 

Overall she is looking a bit sub like now:

 

IMG20200814182127

 

And in this last shot you can see the subtle difference between the upper hull colour, and the pur black of the stand below. A bit of touching up needed below the name plate I think, or maybe just the light. Need to check that.

 

IMG20200814182227

 

My plan is to use a combination of pure black, and very subtle mixes of paler black, to highlight individual panels and hatches in particular. The overall effect I'm aiming for will be extremely subtle, but hopefully add a little depth and realism to the otherwise plain hull black.

 

It's amazing how a "small, quick submarine build" can linger on................

 

More soon

 

Terry

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On 8/16/2020 at 6:29 PM, Courageous said:

I have found on my Brit subs that I can achieve varying effects just by using a matt finish for the non-slip areas, satin for the hull and gloss for the sonar arrays...works for me.

 

Stuart

Sounds great. I'll try some of that as well.

 

Starting to pick out more detail now. At first I hand painted the white undercoat to the two escape hatches (ready for orange). The result wasn't great and needed a second coat, so after that I decided the orange should be airbrushed on. Lot's of practice cutting circular shapes with my new Dispae cutter.

 

IMG20200819144840 IMG20200819153216

 

Things are starting to look OK

 

IMG20200820182902 IMG20200820182859 IMG20200820182848

 

Some minor tidying of edges needed, and a few more detailed painting jobs in a few places. I'm thinking the grey around the front and rear deck hatches looks too dark. The instructions suggest white, and photos show very pale, but I didn't want pure white as I felt it would look too stark. Might go for a much lighter grey.

 

I've also got to pay attention to the windows around the front of the fin, as they will need representing in some way. I have some ideas on that.

 

More soon.

 

Terry

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1 hour ago, Terry1954 said:

I felt it would look too stark. Might go for a much lighter grey.

Looks great Terry you have to remember these spend a lot of time under water and the get quite grunged up so with weathering it would look spot on I think unless you are going for the BLING look new out of dockyard  👍

 

Stay Safe

beefy

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Great work so far, but I think the Orange objects are indicator buoys released from inside the boat by the crew in the event of sinking and the light grey circles are the mating seals for rescue submarines its about the only common thing with all submarines around the world.

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Comin' along nicely Terry and as @dolphin38 says, the orange bits are indicator bouys and the circles are DSRV seats.

11 hours ago, beefy66 said:

get quite grunged up

Not strictly true young Beefy. Most 'boats' were looked after before they went to sea and the so called 'grunge' tended to be around the waterline. After a trip on my boats, the worse weathering was the odd area where the paint had lifted and on other boats acoustic tiles might've come off. So, any weathering needs to be subtle and 'individual' but there are always exceptions.

 

Stuart

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4 hours ago, Courageous said:

Comin' along nicely Terry and as @dolphin38 says, the orange bits are indicator bouys and the circles are DSRV seats.

Not strictly true young Beefy. Most 'boats' were looked after before they went to sea and the so called 'grunge' tended to be around the waterline. After a trip on my boats, the worse weathering was the odd area where the paint had lifted and on other boats acoustic tiles might've come off. So, any weathering needs to be subtle and 'individual' but there are always exceptions.

 

Stuart

Stuart totally agree with you regards Royal Navy standards and cleanliness but this is a Chinese boat and we have all seen the effects of there standards recently around the world 😷 they most likely get all excited when surfacing and they can look in all the Orifices to see what is for tea:popcorn:

 

Stay safe

beefy

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18 hours ago, dolphin38 said:

Great work so far, but I think the Orange objects are indicator buoys released from inside the boat by the crew in the event of sinking and the light grey circles are the mating seals for rescue submarines its about the only common thing with all submarines around the world.

Thanks @dolphin38 and @Courageous. Had I thought things through, there would clearly be no need for two pairs of hatches on the upper hull ... of course indicator buoys for the orange things! I now realise I have seen similar red/white buoys on Soviet submarines, as per this Kilo I assume?

 

Kilo emergancy buoy

 

And again thinking about the other hatches, I now understand the need for DSRV seals, also on that Kilo. When I model a subject I like, but am not entirely familiar with, I enjoy the technical and factual learning, as well as the historical element. 

 

4 hours ago, beefy66 said:

Stuart totally agree with you regards Royal Navy standards and cleanliness but this is a Chinese boat and we have all seen the effects of there standards recently around the world 😷 they most likely get all excited when surfacing and they can look in all the Orifices to see what is for tea:popcorn:

 

Stay safe

beefy

And I guess there is scope to pick a state of weathering from quite pristine, to a more subtle weathered look. Until you mentioned that Beefy, Chineses quizine had always been up there as one of my favourites! 🤢

 

Thanks all for your interest and guidance in helping me get my first 1/350 boat under my belt.

 

Slightly related, and being an aspiring member of the Maritime Modellers of BM, I had a package arrive yesterday from New Zealand:

 

IMG20200821092252

 

Inside, more packages...

 

IMG20200821092324

 

Something to "help" on the Vosper, and some other things to help on some old stalled 1/700 builds from a few years back..........

 

More on those soon on a seperate thread.

 

I blame @robgizlu and the rest of you Big Boys!

 

More soon

 

Terry

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  • 3 weeks later...

A bit closer to the finish line today with a bit more masking off for some detailing..............

 

The aim here is to have a pure black outline to the windows on the fin, then have the windows themselves picked out in paler grey. One question for those in the know - do they really use these windows underwater, or just in bad weather when on the surface? I've seen them on many Chinese and Soviet era submarines, but rarely on western types.

 

IMG20200906111534

 

Also a grey band on the tailpiece

 

IMG20200906114706

 

Grey on....

 

IMG20200906150308

 

Masking off.....

 

IMG20200906151203 IMG20200906151210 IMG20200906151224

 

You can see in that last shot I missed a bit of masking. Some touching up to do there.

 

Starting to do some black oil washes now to add some "interest" to the hatches and other recesses. 

 

IMG20200906184043 IMG20200906183959 IMG20200906183926

 

I'll probably add a few very subtle streaks etc to the hull (similar to @beefy66's idea re Chinese cuisine) and then sort the sensors out on the top of the fin.

 

One thing that may delay completion is the challenge I had finding suitably sized and representative depth gauge marks. These boats had them in several places along the hull. I've managed to find some in both 1/700 and 1/350 each being complete sheets of marks, from a supplier in China. There will be a short wait for those to arrive. For those interested see the link here https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/391369550819 and here https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172114441974. I have no idea of the quality as I'd never heard of them, but we'll see! I know Atlantic Models do some generic marks on a Destroyer sheet ATDEC02 and I'll probably order one of those also, but the ones I found had a large quantity, enough for many models I hope.

 

More soon

 

Terry

 

 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 9/6/2020 at 10:43 PM, Courageous said:

Looking great Terry. As far as the windows are concerned, they were virtually useless and I never saw them ever being used. 

 

Stuart

Thanks Stuart. Re the windows, as they appear to be halfway up the fin, I can only assume they were meant to be used on the surface, as I'd always thought the hatchway down from the bridge (through the fin) only entered the pressure hull right at the bottom of the fin? If so, they would not be useable under the surface? A novice coming to maybe the wrong conclusion, but I'd be happy to learn more!

 

Much of the remaining work is tidying up paintwork and adding extra painted details.

 

The next sequence shows prep for the matt black upper hull walkway area. A great suggestion by Stuart, thanks!

 

IMG20200922165605 IMG20200922165613

 

Masking fluid went on quite well here...

 

IMG20200922170724 IMG20200923215603 IMG20200923221906

 

Pretty pleased with the results:

 

IMG20200923222648 IMG20200923222650 IMG20200923222701

 

That all worked well till the next stage.

 

You may recall I had removed the raised draught mark details (not realistic) and ordered some generic draught mark decals from an online supplier. I think these came from China, and arrived after I had got to this stage. The decals are very good. I ordered two sheets, one in 1/350 and one in 1/700, but the 1/350 marks are actual numerals, rather than graduated lines. Not sure what the real ones are like on Chinese submarines, but the 1/700 examples seemed more in scale for this one, and unless you look closely, they do the job. Trouble was I had to lay on some gloss varnish for them to adhere neatly (they are high gloss) which would then require another coat of semi-gloss for the main hull, to get the decals looking good. So now I had to mask the matt black off!

 

I did photograph the decal sheets to show here but you can't actually see the white draught marks on the glossy paper. I'll try and get a better shot, and some information where they came from. Each sheet has a lot of draught marks and other associated things (circles and thruster marking for example). Enough for scores of models on each sheet I would say.

 

A close up of the decals. The 1/350 are more meaningful numbers than these, but for this boat it worked for me:

 

IMG20201003110620

 

Masking the full upper hull walkway...

 

IMG20201003110610 IMG20201003194202

 

So semi-gloss varnish to go next, followed by fin top detail additions (sensors mostly), and the addition of the screw at the back.

 

Very close to completion, watch this space!

 

Terry

 

PS anyone care to guess what the aircraft is on the left in the last shot above?

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Looks like a lot of work but sure it will be worth it when completed eventually  :poke:

 

Thought I had better get that in before Stuart  :whistle:

 

Stay Safe

beefy

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1 hour ago, Terry1954 said:

I can only assume they were meant to be used on the surface,

You are correct, what use would windows be underwater..,

The matt deck and satin sides look pretty neat.

14 minutes ago, beefy66 said:

Thought I had better get that in before Stuart

...bugger! I was going say that he went to China himself to get the decals 'cos he'd been away so long.

 

Stuart

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19 hours ago, beefy66 said:

Looks like a lot of work but sure it will be worth it when completed eventually  :poke:

 

Thought I had better get that in before Stuart  :whistle:

Thanks Beefy. I think we are almost there .......... you can of course still rely on Stuart to chip in.........

 

18 hours ago, Courageous said:

You are correct, what use would windows be underwater..,

The matt deck and satin sides look pretty neat.

Thanks Stuart, all your idea I recall.

 

18 hours ago, Courageous said:

...bugger! I was going say that he went to China himself to get the decals 'cos he'd been away so long.

Beefy beat you to it! I think it may have been quicker to go get the decals from China myself, as they did take a long time to arrive. But I will say were well worth the wait. 1/700 and 1/350 have the same marks, only different sizes. The 1/700 ones worked better on this model though.

 

Draught Marks

 

The store is here for anyone interested. You have to dig around a bit!

 

http://www.ebaystores.com/tutucube/Navy-Ship-Boat-Marine-/_i.html?_fsub=8706496015&_lns=1&_sid=1141045185&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322

 

17 hours ago, robgizlu said:

Isn't masking therapeutic!!

Nice job 

Rob

Thanks Rob. I have come to the conclusion that masking is now one of the main activities on most of the models I now make!

 

9 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Terry, I've missed this for a bit, just had a catch-up read. It's a neat looking build. Regards, Jeff.

Thanks Jeff. Am learning what way round to do things for the future!

 

So a little more progress and I think we are there:

 

Sensors added to the top of the fin:

 

IMG20201007155955

 

And finally this little thing was airbrushed gold/bronze...

 

IMG20201007155604

 

And there we have it, taken just before the screw was inserted at the rear!

 

IMG20201007155521

 

Another model complete. Phew!

 

IMG20201007162838

 

More completed photos in the RFI here:

 

 

Thanks for following and hope you enjoyed watching one of my quickest builds - Just under 3 months!

 

Now, where did that Vosper go ...............

 

Terry

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