So, what does a chap (or chapess) do when he suddenly finds himself with a lot of unexpected free time on his hands, the inability to do anything strenuous, doctors orders to keep warm and a number of unfinished kits to keep him occupied.
That's right folks.....he starts something new
In this case a little number I picked up a short while back (about a year I think) on sale in the Ian Allen bookshop in Cardiff at a price that was rude to refuse.
Revell's 1/144 Type VIIc U-Boat.
I've built a number of ships and boats before but never a submarine so this is something of a new modelling experience for me.
The kit, it appears, dates from 2005 although some of the features seem a little more basic than one would expect from such a relatively modern kit.
The basic contents are 2 sprues of fairly soft grey plastic plus a pair of hull halves with raised rivets and lines. There's also a small decal sheet allowing 4 different boats to be built. Each option listed contains a very short piece of info about the relevant boat. The instructions themselves are typical of Revell's offerings in this period although the recycled toilet paper appears to be of a higher quality than normal.
There's a bit of flash present although, to be fair, much of this is on the sprue itself rather than the parts. There are also a couple of sink marks.
They're not particularly bad or difficult to deal with. Basic modelling skills are quite enough here.
Construction proceeded swiftly, starting with the hull halves.
These were joined together with gap filling cyano glue and clamped together to set. There were few fit issues, just the need to fix the halves together piece by piece rather than try to glue it up all at once. It's also important to remember to insert the aft torpedo tube at this point.
With the hull setting up I turned to the main decks. The first part to deal with is the Snorkel and it's housing.
You may have noticed the nice shiny bit at the base of the Snorkel. This wasn't with the kit. This was the result of Dazzled, naturally, dropping the relevant part on the floor. Not so much a case of the Carpet monster but the Laminate Floor Troll gobbling this up so it will never be seen again. It became a group effort trying to locate this but to no avail. I even dropped a piece of injector tab of roughly the same size onto the floor at the same point. Even though I watched it land and bounce, it too disappeared. I'm now convinced that there's a dimensional wormhole under my model bench through which those interdimensional model making aliens steal our parts............... Where's me tablets?
Anyhow, plastic rod and brass tube made a replacement that in my own, admittedly, biased opinion looks better than the original. It's just a shame that it's almost invisible when installed.
After the hull was fully set up and the seams filled and sanded back I attached the centre section of the main deck following a coat of Humbrol Metalcote Polished Steel. The same colour was used for all the deck sections.
A quick buff brings this up to a very nice finish.
A day of drying was followed up with attachment of the prop shafts and diving planes/rudders plus a start on the basic structure of the conning tower.
The tower is just placed on loosely at the moment. It's actually in 2 pieces, upper and lower sections and I have to say that the fit between these appears to be very good indeed. Also visible, clamped together by the clothes pegs, are the periscopes which will soon be ready to attach.
It's an encouraging kit so far and I'm rather enjoying the change
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