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Revell Uboat IX C 1:72 Build


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17 hours ago, Greg Law said:

Good all round progress. I'm impressed with the quality of the holes cutout. I've had several goes at mine and always given up after making a mess of it. How did you get it so clean? 

Thanks Greg for the compliments.
Most of the processes that I have done so far in this sub has been learned from right here in the forums in the last few weeks. I have been impressed with a few of the other UBoat builds here and have learned quite a bit from their descriptions,  pictures, and shared build techniques.  I have spent quite a few hours looking at Tristan & Andy’s post.  
 

So far all the holes have been produced with a pin vise and a drill.  I picked up a used dremel 1100 for $20 several weeks ago on Facebook marketplace and have been learning some techniques with that.  I start by drilling very small holes, in a slot for instance. I remove everything I can from the backside with a dremel to where the styrene almost becomes transparent.  Then I just push it out and clean it up with a hobby knife. For practice, while I was using the dremel cutting the slots out, I left the stock flood vent dividers in place trying not to break them.  In the end I wiped them all out with a knife.  It helped me slow down and it was good practice.   I went over the slots a few times with my wife’s magnifiers and a hobby knife trying to clean them up.  :)  I am a machinist by trade and need to bring a spare set of magnifiers home from work.   

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Here is a good example ; you can see the dremel work from inside.  You can even see the stock flood vent internal dividers. 
 

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This picture is not of the custom flood vent dividers but the stock model dividers.  Like mentioned above, they were broken out eventually when I built up the courage to make and install the custom ones. 

Edited by Goji308
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Yesterday I completed the lower hull texture; scaled.  Reminds me of a walnut shell. I used my dremel and tried several broken carbide end mills (very small ones) but it did not look to good. The effect was more like scratches.  
On the way home I visited the hardware store and purchased a few different high speed ball cutters.  Diameter: .093, 156, and I had a .250 oval lying around.  My first conservative attempt didn’t look right. Not enough texture.   Eventually it came out to something closer to what I was going for.   Next time I will be adding this texture before gluing the Uboat together. 
 

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Edited by Goji308
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Today after work I had a few hours to experiment with “tin canning” or “oil canning” the IX.  I think it really adds a nice effect . Going in pretty light  with the tool, attempting to remove evenly and not gouge the contour. 
This picture is in the beginning of the process.  The left side has been worked. 
 

Tin can

 

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Thats some nice work there. I have the Type VIIc underweay but have this in the stash as well, so will be following.

 

Not sure what wood deck you have, i did contact nautilus, and they did say they planed a wood deck for this kit, bt i don't know when that will be.

 

Are you planning to remove the bulge on the side of the tower for the 3rd periscope or are you just going to leave it.

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7 hours ago, Bish said:

Thats some nice work there. I have the Type VIIc underweay but have this in the stash as well, so will be following.

 

Not sure what wood deck you have, i did contact nautilus, and they did say they planed a wood deck for this kit, bt i don't know when that will be.

 

Are you planning to remove the bulge on the side of the tower for the 3rd periscope or are you just going to leave it.

Hello Bish,

I appreciate the compliments and your post.  That’s great your building a Type VIIC. I have several of those waiting in the wings.  I wanted to cut my teeth first on this IXC.  
 

I do not have a wooden deck.  This kit came with a plastic stock one and I am planning on just using it.  A wooden deck upgrade does sound very nice though I must admit.  
 

I had not thought about the bulge  nor was aware of a discrepancy/ issue regarding it.  I better research a little tonight to see  how most of the early IXC conning towers were configured.  Thanks for bringing it up.  If you could elaborate more regarding the “bulge” , I would love to know what you know, thanks. 

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While making the kids waffles from scratch this morning I found a cool Revell kit that I have been looking to buy for for the future. It also came with a few extras, photo etch sheets, and a crew. (Most likely will not use the figures).
It is the Revell 05114 IXC (late) uboat 1:72. I really like the configuration with the elongated MKIII conning tower, larger “winter-garden”, and AA flak cannons.

This purchase made my day!

 

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Today I spent a little more time cleaning up parts, taking them of the sprue, filing, sanding, prepping, etc.  

I did open a new toy.  A badger Xtreme patriot 105 airbrush. Phew! Long name. 
Its been over 30 years since I had an airbrush in my hand it felt real good.  

 

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I played a little with starting a base primer layer here and there.  One small mention was after the light coating my light oil canning barely showed. I haves mixed emotions on that. We shall see how it ends up. 

 

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Today I went by the local hobby store and noticed they had an 80% off sale on a few paints. That worked out pretty well.  $7.00 for most of my paints. 

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Well a small setback today, I saw it coming before I attempted it.  I was trying to hyper extend Revells stock part which comes totally flat on the sprue.   Problem is the part is supposed to sit like a 3 legged tripod.  Some sort of line or cable guide.  So yea it broke as I was trying to extend the third (middle) leg out.   Hmmm. I just might have to make these two parts out of something else. 
 

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Recovery! 
After gluing the broken part (3 pieces)  back together, I decided it was sacrificial at this point.  After a quick search on google : properties of styrene, looks like it can be  bent with the right process.   
30 seconds in boiling water seemed to soften this small .020 rail enough to get past its brittle properties. Full steam ahead. 
 

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On 8/2/2021 at 2:07 AM, Goji308 said:

Hello Bish,

I appreciate the compliments and your post.  That’s great your building a Type VIIC. I have several of those waiting in the wings.  I wanted to cut my teeth first on this IXC.  
 

I do not have a wooden deck.  This kit came with a plastic stock one and I am planning on just using it.  A wooden deck upgrade does sound very nice though I must admit.  
 

I had not thought about the bulge  nor was aware of a discrepancy/ issue regarding it.  I better research a little tonight to see  how most of the early IXC conning towers were configured.  Thanks for bringing it up.  If you could elaborate more regarding the “bulge” , I would love to know what you know, thanks. 

 

From what i have read up on it, the IXc did not have the 3rd scope on the left side of the tower and there was no bulge along that side. I believe these features were on the IX A and B but not the C. From what i gather, the tower oin an early Type IXc was the same as that on the early type VII. Unfortunatly no one has released an AM set to fix it. I have not not a lot of research into it as i won't be bilding mine for some time and i have not seen anyone do a correction on it.

 

I did have that late type IX but sold it off when the early was released. Looks like you have a nice u-Boat collection brewing.

Edited by Bish
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On 8/3/2021 at 12:11 PM, Bish said:

 

From what i have read up on it, the IXc did not have the 3rd scope on the left side of the tower and there was no bulge along that side. I believe these features were on the IX A and B but not the C. From what i gather, the tower oin an early Type IXc was the same as that on the early type VII. Unfortunatly no one has released an AM set to fix it. I have not not a lot of research into it as i won't be bilding mine for some time and i have not seen anyone do a correction on it.

 

I did have that late type IX but sold it off when the early was released. Looks like you have a nice u-Boat collection brewing.

Hello Bish,

Yes, I did a light dive into reading about the IXC conning tower and what I’ve read is inline with what you found too.  Not sure at this point on this build what I’ll do.  I appreciate you bringing up this detail though.  Thank you!

Yes I have a few 1:72 Uboat kits (4) now and look forward to going through them and building them. I believe I have most of the Revell 1:72 Uboat offerings.
I would like to get the 05133 uboat IX C (U40/ U190).   I think this might be the last kit I need for my collection. 
Thanks to this great forum I am learning new things all the time.  
 

 

This net cutter detail required some work to get it to stagger correctly.
Off the sprue the middle-upper  suspension would have been too tight , it had to be notched deeper. The middle  /lesser support had to be raised to meet the bottom of the net cutter. Where the forward foot (base) there was feature that had to be removed, the whole net cutter was pretty finicky but came out positive .  

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Edited by Goji308
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I have not decided yet either. The builds i have seen, people have just left it. Without AM i think it will take quite some surgery. I just have the 2, Type VII and IXc, thats plenty enough for me. I bought the late Type IX to convert to an early as i want to do the U-159 from the Laconia incident, but sold that when they released the early kit. I have not worked on my Type VII for a while, hopeing to get back to it in a week or so.

 

Thats very nice work on the net cutter, worth the effort you have put into that.

 

 

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Last few days I really put in some time practicing with the new airbrush.  A friend of mine loaned me his air compressor and gave me some more tips and I’ve been problem free. I am embarrassed to say I was pretty convinced a few days ago the airbrush was defective, negative, it was me.  
Friday at work during a short break I bent up a piece of aluminum TIG welding rod into a bench side holder.  Was a fun 5 minute project that has be very useful. 

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I’ve also made a few mistakes over the last few days on trying to fill a few divots that stood out once the primer was on.  I used a putty that never really hardened.  So I eventually had to scratch it all off and strip the vertical rudders.  
I also tried tamiya putty , hot cold feet and removed it not knowing it would melt the plastic.  Ugh. What a mess. 
Tonight i attempted the procedure again. I masked off the surrounding area Then used the tamiya basic putty again and thinned it with Tamaya thin glue and it performed better and it eventually hardened to were I could sand it. I learned a good lesson whenever your doing a procedure like this for the 1st time, do it on a scratch piece and not the model.  
 

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Shallow divots in the rudders.  
 

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They now look a little better.   I am confident I’ll improve with the process with time.   
 

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While practicing with the airbrush I put a few base coats on the propellers. 
You can also see in the blurry background I airbrushed the interior of uboat with flat black primer. I have no idea if that was a waste of time and paint or if it will make any sort of difference in the end. 

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This morning after a fresh cup of coffee I proceeded to the garage to see what I could do this morning.  I noticed a small dimple I was not happy with just behind the anchor recess.  After looking at that I noticed a .312 long crack just under the lip. Ugh.  How in the 7 hills did this happen and when?   After interrogating the children I remember last week when I took the model to work I had to pick up an employee last minute.  As you can see this train wreck coming , I pulled up to his house where he was standing and he jumped in the back seat of my new Ford pickup and before I could shout , Wait!!! He practically sat on the Uboat.   Unbelievable.  He is the kind of guy like a bull in a Fine crystal shop.  After a quick examination at work I thought I’d dodged a bullet, model looked fine.   
So today I noticed a few of the extra sprue supports I glued inside to control the width of the hull to accept the decks with precision, they were detached.  So this morning I carefully bent a few areas very gingerly, added some thin cement, filled, sanded, repainted.  Glad that is behind me.  
 

Here is the dimple and the crack on the hull.  the crack is just above the dimple to the left near the slots. (Before repair)

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airbrushing some colors on the hull. 

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In the Revell kit the instructions, they recommend the life preservers on the exterior of the conning tower to be painted red. I did a google search on the color of Uboat life preservers and came up empty handed wondering what color if not red were the color of life preservers during war time.  Red to me does not seem like a high vis color on a stormy sea. Then again during a war I’m not sure anyone would want a hight vis color on the side of their Vessel.  I will look through some of my pictures to see if In fact life preservers were even mounted on the exterior at all.
If it were me, and in fact preservers were mounted on a uboat, a muted weathered orange would seem fitting. 

 

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This one gun turret (37mm) has been driving a little bonkers during the build. The seat has come off several times during handling and every time I glue it, it seems to be getting a large glue bulge at the joint and weaker by the contact point.

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 I have have considered upgrading the gun with possibly a higher detailed aftermarket part but that would mean more $$ and time.  Before I begin going down that road I will try to replace the seat arm.  
With an Xacto knife I trimmed a piece of .060 styrene sheet. I shaped it, trimmed it, sanded, created an angle for the attachment, cleaned up under the seat with a file, stripped it, re-applied glue, tada.  Fixing that small issue turned out to be quite relaxing with a positive outcome.  I am pretty confident it will be quite a bit more robust now. 

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Edited by Goji308
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8 hours ago, Goji308 said:

In the Revell kit the instructions, they recommend the life preservers on the exterior of the conning tower to be painted red. I did a google search on the color of Uboat life preservers and came up empty handed wondering what color if not red were the color of life preservers during war time.  Red to me does not seem like a high vis color on a stormy sea. Then again during a war I’m not sure anyone would want a hight vis color on the side of their Vessel.  I will look through some of my pictures to see if In fact life preservers were even mounted on the exterior at all.
If it were me, and in fact preservers were mounted on a uboat, a muted weathered orange would seem fitting. 

 

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Great work on this one. Enjoying the build and thread. Making me want to get back to my 4 U-boat builds. From my research, red is the correct colour( I used to paint orange too) the life preservers were only put on the conning tower when leaving and entering port, they were removed at sea. I can’t remember where I read this though to direct you. May have been the AMP pages. I will have a check...

 

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12 hours ago, Goji308 said:

In the Revell kit the instructions, they recommend the life preservers on the exterior of the conning tower to be painted red. I did a google search on the color of Uboat life preservers and came up empty handed wondering what color if not red were the color of life preservers during war time.  Red to me does not seem like a high vis color on a stormy sea. +++

My quick google search didn't bring up a definitive answer either but the hint that "external" liefe preservers were not carried on fighting boats. It was (allegedly) feared that in the event of the U-Boot being hunted by water bombs they could come afloat and tell the position of the submerged sub.

 

A quick search for pictures does not bring up much better results, but in case external life preservers are "visible" there seems to be a yellow stripe on the Turm (exercise/training in the Baltic Sea) and in case of "fighting" boats pictured the external life preservers do seem to be absent.

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Thank you gentlemen Jochen & Valkyrie, for the interesting information regarding the life preservers, the reasons, and what you said makes total sense. As of now, I will be omitting the life preservers from the build. 


I was talking with a friend about some of the Uboat decks being mostly made of wood and he found that hard to believe.  I explained to him about how the Uboats were constructed regarding the pressure hull etc. He pointed out the deck on the IX kit looks like metal. I believe some of it was. I don’t know too much about the coating that was applied to the wood but will be looking deeper into the process.  

 

 

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The u-boats, mainly all VII A,B,Cs C/41 that I have researched had wooden decks. I think u-boats used teak and it was coated in a very dark grey anti-fouling paint. This paint would fade during patrols and the wood begin to show through. I’m not sure about other u-boats.

I really need to get my books out. The metal parts of the decks like hatches etc would rust, but not the deck.

https://amp.rokket.biz/lib_uboats.shtml This whole collection of stuff is a great u-boat modelling resource. Teerfirnis i think was what the coating was called and differed on surface ships. 

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On 8/9/2021 at 11:25 AM, Valkyrie said:

The u-boats, mainly all VII A,B,Cs C/41 that I have researched had wooden decks. I think u-boats used teak and it was coated in a very dark grey anti-fouling paint. This paint would fade during patrols and the wood begin to show through. I’m not sure about other u-boats.

I really need to get my books out. The metal parts of the decks like hatches etc would rust, but not the deck.

https://amp.rokket.biz/lib_uboats.shtml This whole collection of stuff is a great u-boat modelling resource. Teerfirnis i think was what the coating was called and differed on surface ships. 

Valkyrie,

thanks for the info and the reply.  I also need to start paying more attention to my books, photos, etc.   Just looking at the revel stock deck it looks it’s was some wooden parts, medium detail, and some steel hatches, plates, etc. I would prefer a more detailed deck in the future but for now I will try to make the stock deck look good as I’m possible.  Thanks for the link, I have visited that website before but definitely need to go through it again. Thanks again for sharing. 
 

Today I was looking at various deck tutorials and started to get big eyes for some of the battleship decking that look like pro basketball arena floors.  I had to pull back and remind myself I am working on a workhouse uboat that has a deck with a coating over the top that seems some of the harshest environments on the planet. That took place during a world war. 
 

I did some masking when I got home from work and will see if there are easier and more delicate masking tapes I can use in the future for this sort of thing.  This blue painters tape was thick and bulky. 

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