jrlx Posted July 4, 2021 Share Posted July 4, 2021 Dear All, While building my He 178 V1, which fought me every step of the build, I decided to build something really simple to have some breaks from the fight. I opted for a submarine. So, here is the build thread of my first modern submarine: the Hobby Boss 1/350 USS Greeneville. For starters, here are the mandatory pictures of the box art and box contents: IMAG7236 Apart from the hull halves and stand, there are only two sprues: IMAG7237 There's also a small PE fret: IMAG7238 Finally, a small decal sheet. However, according to the painting and decal instructions, decals 1, 6 and 7 are not used. IMAG7399 The build started with the sail and the horizontal tailplanes: IMAG7267 It was necessary to carve out indents for the foreplane. I overdid it, as only the curved indents were needed: IMAG7268 The foreplane was glued in place: IMAG7269 Indents were also carved out for the horizontal tailplanes: IMAG7270 The small submarine that piggybacked on the bigger sub was glued together: IMAG7271 A few holes had to be drilled out on the top hull half. These holes are for installing the pads on which the small submarine is installed: IMAG7272 The hull halves were glued together: IMAG7273 There are a few spots demanding attention. For instance, this rectangular depression near the horizontal fin of the small sub needs a piece of plasticard: IMAG7274 The areas around the foreplane also need attention, due to the excessive carving out: IMAG7291 IMAG7292 The sail was glued in place: IMAG7302 The pads for the small sub were then installed, as well as the mooring bollards : IMAG7303 IMAG7305 Finally, the tailplanes were glued in place: IMAG7310 That's all for now. Thanks for looking. Jaime 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S-boat 55 Posted July 6, 2021 Share Posted July 6, 2021 I recently picked up a 1/350 uboat for a similar reason, 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 17, 2021 Author Share Posted July 17, 2021 Hello again, This kit is simple assembly-wise and there aren't significant fit problems. The horizontal seam between the two hull-halves was almost completely eliminated with sanding and polishing sticks. I had to use bits of thin plasticard sheet to fill in a few gaps I myself created when carving out the slots for the fins. The only gap due the kit parts was in the join between one of the tail planes and the hull: IMAG7359 IMAG7362 The narrower gaps and seams were taken care of with PPP: IMAG7363 The few PE parts were, then, dealt with. There's one for the propellers of the piggy-backed sub. Here is a comparison with the plastic version: IMAG7360 IMAG7360 There are PE parts for the hatch on the sail: IMAG7364 And there's a pair of PE parts for the sub propellers. I guess they should be glued together for increased strength. So, I cut one off the frame and CA-glued it to the other: IMAG7365 Here's the end result: IMAG7366 The smaller parts were cleaned of moulding marks and glued to toothpicks for painting: IMAG7367 The sub and the smaller parts were all primed with Alclad's Black Primer and Microfiller: IMAG7374 PPP was used again to tackle small seams along the hull joins. This wasn't very successful and in the end these seams were made to vanish with thin layers of primer: IMAG7376 IMAG7382 The propellers were painted brass: IMAG7383 The same for the holders of the stand: IMAG7384 Next, I used Gunze's Rousset to paint the hull: IMAG7385 The hull was masked using a combination of masking tape and kitchen cling-film: IMAG7386 The rest of the sub should be black but a real sub is never like that. I used several pictures of the real thing for inspiration for the choice of colours. This was especially interesting for showing several tones of grey on the hull, walkways and sail: I chose RLM66 for the lighter grey tones on the sail, Gunze's ocean grey for the walkways and Tamiya's NATO Black for the hull. I initially chose Gunze's Tire Black for the darker greys of the sail but it proved too dark for my likings and was painted NATO Black as well. Here's the application of the RLM66 grey on the sail and ocean grey on the walkways: IMAG7391 Next, I masked these areas before applying the NATO Black to the hull: IMAG7392 IMAG7393 The Tire Black intended for the sail proved to be too dark but I used it to cover the oversprays of rousset and greys before proceeding: IMAG7394 That's all for now. Thanks for looking. Jaime 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 17, 2021 Author Share Posted July 17, 2021 (edited) Hello again, Continuing with the build, I took some time to think about how best to weather the model. I opted to keep it subtle and decided to create some tonal variation on the dark top half of the hull. For that, I applied a pre-shading layer using white, along the lines of water flow when the sub is floating on the surface: IMAG7395 This was followed by thin layers of NATO Black: IMAG7396 After removing the masking, I got this: IMAG7397 IMAG7398 A microgloss coat was applied in preparation for the decals. Here's the setup for decaling: IMAG7400 There are few decals to apply, only the ID number on the sail and the water line scales on the bow and rudder: IMAG7401 I also decided to try and replicate a would finish for the base of the stand. First, I gloss coated the base and, next, I applied spots of dark brown oil, which were spread with a flat brush to simulate the wood grain. Here's the mahogany-painted and microgloss-coated base: IMAG7402 After spreading the dark brown oil: IMAG7414 IMAG7415 I still wanted to weather the model a bit more, in order to reproduce the weathering below from the waterline, as seen in this picture: My first approach was to use a grey wash by Vallejo. Here's the set-up (the model had another microgloss coat to seal the decals): IMAG7416 Before applying the wash, I applied masking tape along the waterline: IMAG7417 The tape was loosely held to the hull, in order to allow the wash to spread unevenly below the waterline. IMAG7418 The wash was applied vertically from the walkway to the waterline. The excess was removed with damp cotton buds shortly after. It worked but the wash tone was too dark and didn't stand out from the top hull's tone. In order to produce a better result, I decided to apply highly diluted Sky with a sponge over the matt wash. I didn't remask along the waterline. Here's the tool: IMAG7421 The resulting weathering: IMAG7422 A flat coat (Alclad) was applied to the model, mini-sub and small parts. Next, I glued the propeller of the mini-sub: IMAG7423 The same for the main model: IMAG7425 The pointy thingies where glued in place on top of the sail: IMAG7425 Finally, the mini-sub was piggy-backed on the submarine: IMAG7426 The completed model on the stand: IMAG7427 I'll post better pictures latter in the RFI area. Thanks for looking. Jaime NOTE: the RFI photos can be found here. Edited July 18, 2021 by jrlx Added link to RFI photos 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S-boat 55 Posted July 17, 2021 Share Posted July 17, 2021 Very nice weathering, great build imo 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 17, 2021 Author Share Posted July 17, 2021 51 minutes ago, S-boat 55 said: Very nice weathering, great build imo Thank you very much. Much appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArnoldAmbrose Posted July 18, 2021 Share Posted July 18, 2021 Gidday Jaime, this has come up very well, the weathering near the waterline, and also the display stand. It definitely looks like wood to me. When I saw that first photo in your last post I thought "They have a REAL problem with very big seagulls in that part of the world". 😁 But like I said, she looks very good. Regards, Jeff. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 18, 2021 Author Share Posted July 18, 2021 Thanks Jeff! Much appreciated! I couldn't find much information on weathering submarine models,, so I had to improvise in order to try and reproduce what I saw in the pictures of the real thing. Cheers JR 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard E Posted July 18, 2021 Share Posted July 18, 2021 Tha's a very realistic finish JR. 24 minutes ago, jrlx said: I couldn't find much information on weathering submarine models,, so I had to improvise in order to try and reproduce what I saw in the pictures of the real thing. Unfortunately the links to the images are broken but Pierre's @Kagou RFI thread gives a good descripton of the materials and techniques he used to weather his submarine models and @Roger Newsome also applied a very realistic finish to his Alpha Class build. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 18, 2021 Author Share Posted July 18, 2021 7 minutes ago, Richard E said: Tha's a very realistic finish JR. Unfortunately the links to the images are broken but Pierre's @Kagou RFI thread gives a good descripton of the tools and techniques he used to weather his submarine models and @Roger Newsome also applied a very realistic finish to his Alpha Class build. Thank you very much Richard, and thanks for the links. I'll take that into account for my next subs. I have the Zvezda 1/350 Kursk in the stash for a future build. Cheers Jaime 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrlx Posted July 18, 2021 Author Share Posted July 18, 2021 I added a link to the RFI photos in the last post of the build. It can also be accessed here. Cheers Jaime Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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