Swedish MTB T14

[Bengalensis]

A little more time at the work bench has been stolen here and there the last days. The front of the wind deflector was cut off and the remaining surfaces where cleaned up and sanded smooth.

 

 

A new front section was made from 0,25 mm styrene and when all forceful handling was done the remaining piece of the pouring block was cut off.

 

 

 

The photo etched section was glued to the resin piece after some careful shaping.

There is no material for window glass supplied in the kit, so I used a piece of thin window I had saved some time from some sort of packaging.

 

 

The roof was glued and the joints taken care of.

 

 

Now when the shape would hopefully remain intact I removed the rest of the pouring plug. Then the wind deflector was fitted.

 

 

To get a good fit against the deck and around the outlining for the front section some more shaping of the brass was needed, and some grinding of the bottom edge to match the curvature of deck.

 

 

The two wall sections that will hold the doors leading down to the bridge are nowhere near the shape needed. I made two new pieces from sheet styrene that will fit and match the two resin doors.

 

 

The shape of two rear wings were altered to better match the reference photos I have.

 

[Bengalensis]

A little more work was needed on the bridge roof, so another shield was shaped from 0,5 mm styrene and added.

 

 

When I thought I was done with the bridge housing it was apparent that the two doors where not high enough, so new doors where fabricated.

 

 

Then the "real" work got stuck in the afternoon as I didn't get the requested specification documents for a project, so instead the hull was masked to spray the bottom.

 

 

Then it was also sprayed. I didn't want to use a pure black so opted for a slightly greyish tone.

 

[Jinxman]

Just got a real sense of the size of this from the paint pot and the spraying stand - thought it was much larger - 👍 that's very nice work there. 

[trickyrich]

gosh she is coming along so nicely..... a real master class in resin work (and PE), well done! 

[Mjwomack]

On 4/28/2021 at 6:43 PM, Bengalensis said:

 

Then the "real" work got stuck in the afternoon

Oh dear. What a pity. Never mind! Seems a definite case of 'it's an ill wind that blows no good' Glad to see that you put the time to good use; this is simply lovely.

[Bengalensis]

On 29/04/2021 at 23:24, Jinxman said:

Just got a real sense of the size of this from the paint pot and the spraying stand - thought it was much larger - 👍 that's very nice work there. 

Thanks a lot. She's indeed quite small, albeit about 24 cm long, but narrow and cramped, 1/72 scale is small compared to what I usually do.

 

On 30/04/2021 at 14:43, trickyrich said:

gosh she is coming along so nicely..... a real master class in resin work (and PE), well done! 

Many thanks Rich, it's slow going but it is moving on. With this kit it is very good that resin is my favourite media...

 

22 hours ago, Mjwomack said:

Oh dear. What a pity. Never mind! Seems a definite case of 'it's an ill wind that blows no good' Glad to see that you put the time to good use; this is simply lovely.

Yes, it's most unfortunate (not) when work must be abandoned in favour of the modelling work bench. I'm not late to take the opportunity though 😎 ...Thanks a lot.

[Bengalensis]

The lower deck housings have been assembled and readied for paint. All parts had to be adjusted in length and width to fit and some parts had to be replaced with sheet styrene. The separate hatches are those I plan to fit in open position.

 

 

A little test fit with the bridge housing.

 

 

I have been putting off the deck planking, but sooner or later it must be done. I'm applying the decal I printed earlier in three main pieces, divided where I will later paint the white stripes across the hull. I started cutting the bow section from a template made earlier.

 

 

Application of the first piece worked very well. Some minor cutting and adjusting of course had to be done during the work, but overall not many problems.

 

 

Best to get it over and done with. The other two sections were also templated and applied. I cut out the sections for the detachable hatches during application.

 

 

Then I cut pieces of planking decal to fit each hatch and applied. Here we are after all hatches are done and some touch up painting done. All the detachable deck hatches will be edged with thin strips of grey painted decal film, which will probably be the next major step. For some of the hatches this edging is supplied as photo etch in the kit, but it has to be cut and applied in sections that have no relation to reality, and I think it will also, perhaps, be too coarse, so I'll try my decal method. After this picture I have sanded the decal joint lines where the white stripes will be, and sprayed a coat of gloss varnish on the deck.

 

 

The deck housings have also been sprayed in grey, as well as some decal film to be cut into thin strips.

 

[JeroenS]

That's brilliant! I can understand you were hesitant to start the decalling but boy that worked wonders!

 

I like your new profile pic too btw 🙂 

[AdrianMF]

That decking looks the business.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Bengalensis]

22 hours ago, JeroenS said:

That's brilliant! I can understand you were hesitant to start the decalling but boy that worked wonders!

 

I like your new profile pic too btw 🙂 

Thanks a lot Jeroen, glad to hear you approve of the decal.

Ah, you noticed the profile pic. I´ll let this guy represent for a while, he's one of my favourites.

 

 

20 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

That decking looks the business.

Thanks a lot Adrian, good to hear you like it, a decal felt like the only way to get around the problem.

[Bengalensis]

The grey strips are now applied around the deck hatches, and then another coat of gloss varnish sprayed. I'm leaving this to cure over night before attempting the white stripes across.

 

 

Parts for the bridge interior. This is typical for the kit; many very small fragile parts to free from casting blocks and/or wafer and clean up.

 

 

Ready for painting. Some parts feels closer to 1/43 scale rather than 1/72, and there is no way to make them fit the way the instructions say, there is just not enough room for everything. I sense some sort of compromise ahead once again...

 

[Bengalensis]

I found me some time this morning to mask for the white stripes. I did not look forward to masking across the planking, but it had to be done. I started with 3 mm wide tape with rather low tack, that was reduced some more by a couple of attachments on my glass board for tape cutting, the worked from that with plastic film and more tape.

 

 

The white was then airbrushed with many light layers of Tamiya paint, and very carefully unmasked. The planking survived, much to my relief... Here we are later in the day, after work, applying the T14 decals, work, spraying an overall coat of semi flat varnish, work, completely unmasking, work, making port hole glass from Kristal Klear, and work. The build can move into a new phase - at last.

 

 

[JeroenS]

That is some very tidy masking and spraying sir!

[Bengalensis]

22 hours ago, JeroenS said:

That is some very tidy masking and spraying sir!

Thank you very much! It was some nervous moments...

[Bengalensis]

Some rewarding assembly work has been done today. First propellers and rudder to finish the bottom of the hull.

 

 

The boat could now be permanently fitted to the display stand to make continued work hopefully a little easier and safer. For a short moment I felt close to the finish, then I looked at all resin parts not yet touched and realised it's still a long way to go...

 

 

I managed to squeeze in the parts on the bridge, but it's most likely far from correct. Not much will be seen though, apart from that it's busy in there, so it's OK. With 2000 hp behind your back in a light weight wooden boat this is the place to be!

 

 

The lower deck housings and hatches fitted. I don't think all hatches were hinged like this, but I have no exact references and this will allow some of the detail below to be seen fairly well, if looking very close.

 

 

 

The assembled deck housing has taken its place.

 

 

 

There are three mast towers, or what they should be called, on the boat. A three legged at the bow, a four legged main one on top of the bridge and a smaller four legged one further aft. There's a good deal of thin cast resin rods in the kit for this purpose, but I prefer to scratch build most of this. There's minimal rigging to be fitted so I'm trying to get away with Evergreen rods. Here's the bow tower made from 0,5 mm rods.

 

 

The aft tower is more complicated and this is just the start. Surprisingly there is nothing at all mentioned in the kit instructions or parts of this tower, but there are moulded in location marks on the deck. This tower will also carry the two life rings, they were not hung on the bridge wings as the instructions suggest.

 

[JeroenS]

Busy day! Nice to be showing a little bit of interior like this and the hatches make it look interesting as well. 

[trickyrich]

WOW!!!

 

I haven't stopped by for a wee while, but gosh have I missed some amazing work. She's looking amazing, those Decking Decals () look just right.

 

She's getting better with each update..bet you are glad the end is in sight.

[AdrianMF]

Looking good!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[nimrod54]

I have just finished catching up with your progress To date whilst having my morning coffee, Jorgen. What can I say other than it looks fantastic, the deck decals look really good, you have made a great job of the bridge detailing, and it's good to see that some of your hard work will still be seen, even if it is only under close scrutiny.

 

Regards

John

[Bengalensis]

Thanks a lot everyone, you're comments and most kind and much appreciated.

 

As I'm afraid you have already noticed I have to admit defeat to the GB expiration date... it's too bad, I don't like it, but that's how it is.

 

What's happened is what usually happens over here when spring and summer approaches, just a little bit more of everything... We live at an old place out in the countryside, and this time of the year our land and houses need attention, and with some extra land recently bought that meant more work than usual this year. Then the 1/1 scale cars need to come out of their winter sleep, and one of the ongoing restoration projects is now being worked hard on to make its final trip to the body paint shop before summer is over. On top of that two major work (paid work) projects surfaced in May that must be finished before fall, and that effectively seized the vary last modelling time for a while. If I live long enough, I may learn a more sensible approach, some day...

 

As winter comes work on T14 is planned to resume, and I will ask for the thread to be moved to the maritime section of the forum. Thanks for all support so far.

[Mike]

Moved that for you.  Well worth continuation - keep up the good work

[JohnWS]

2 hours ago, Mike said:

... Well worth continuation - keep up the good work

 

Looking forward to seeing more updates as this build progresses.

 

John

[longshanks]

Good to see this back 

 

Kev

[Bengalensis]

4 hours ago, Mike said:

Moved that for you.  Well worth continuation - keep up the good work

Thanks a lot Mike, much appreciated!

 

1 hour ago, JohnWS said:

 

Looking forward to seeing more updates as this build progresses.

 

John

Thanks a lot John, been working during the day, new update coming.

 

36 minutes ago, longshanks said:

Good to see this back 

 

Kev

Thanks a lot Kev. Yes, time to finish this now, not much left really.

[Bengalensis]

So here we are a year later. It's time to finish this little boat. I need to recap where I was. Roughly what's left to do is to finish the mast towers and fit a number of small deck details, then the machine gun, the array of depth charges and of course the two torpedoes.

 

 

The last thing I did a year ago was to finish the life rings. The resin castings were cleaned up and thin metal wire wrapped around.

 

 

I had also painted them, and other small parts, and applied the decals. They're all still in the same tray.

 

 

With my mind hopefully up to date again I started the day finishing the aft tower. It looks worse than it is, but I'm afraid there will still remain a little bow shape.

 

 

With fresh eyes on the project I replaced some more of the resin parts with finer Evergreen rod.

 

 

For the main mast tower I'm only using these resin parts; the mast top, a lantern and the search light. I found a suitable bright lens for the search light in my stock of model car parts. The rest will be Evergreen rods and profiles

 

 

After some measuring and eye balling of the height and spread of the legs I made a little drawing and glued the basic parts together.

 

 

Some smaller rods added. Good, it was easier than I feared to get going again...

 

 

Suddenly the main tower was glued to the bridge and quickly more details were added. Next is to fit the search light, then paint all these things.