A Skipjack in Ireland

[The Boattrainman]

This thread details the building of a 1/72 Revell 'Skipjack' with working lights and a homemade Water Tight Cylinder (WTC)



Greetings from Dublin in Ireland (that small island off the west of Europe beside the UK!!!)

Have started on a 1/72 Revell Skipjack, which will hopefully be USS Sculpin as I like the paint scheme, just got a work stand built and made the cuts as per the Cabal reports by Mr. Merriman.



As per the photos I've added slim fillets of 0.5mm Plasticard at each join seam of the Z cuts, plus I'm spending most time on the seams where the kit halves are joined.





I came across a really useful tool for the seams (in the USA on holidays last year as it happens) it's basically a 2 foot long metal straight edge that you stick some sandpaper on to (in this case 120 grit) with two-sided tape.





Anyway, will post progress as I go, won't be covering what's already done on other threads, but hopefully have a few ideas where it can be improved.

The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

I'm going with working lights (I know they are only used on surface running) but I want 'em!!! I'll go with the sail lights and tail light using small 3mm LEDs with a resistor.



The sail lights appear to swivel out of small openings over the crew doors, so using 1mm Plasticard and a circle cutting tool, I made four quarter circle fittings that form the upper and lower part of the light fittings with a 0.5mm piece of Plasticard the size of the little openings as a backing.




The wires will be totally encased in epoxy on the inside once I've attached the wiring.





It was impossible to wire them from the bottom, as my photo show the real thing as a cylinder shape, I've filed LEDs before into such a shape, but they are so small this time and the light fitting tiny they had to go this way!

[trout]

Your photos are not showing up. I definitely want to see what you are doing!

[The Boattrainman]

Strange this, when I log back in they are there, yet not when I view without log-in!

If no one has a remedy, I'll e-mail them to you.

The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

I've reloaded all the photos, but I'm getting a 'you do not have permission to upload or remove photos' message.

Anyone got any idea why?

The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

I'm going with some grating on the openings.



For the round holes, I had some mesh grating in the spares box, so along with some 10mm strips of 1.5mm Plasticard, I've made a small square into which a piece of grating is pushed (a tight fit) with plenty of CA glue.




Why bother, I doubt if this is a scale mesh for this vessel (given it was supplied for 1/35 scale model!). I think the larger holes don't look right just blank, I think there would be some sort of debris restriction to prevent crap getting access, plus my local boating water is less than clean, so I'm hoping they will perform the same job for me. I have 1/72 mesh, it's too fine to let water in and out.




I've ordered a PE sheet of square grating for the square holes, will be doing those also.



There is a guy in the UK (see link below), but he only sells the gratings as part of his complete upgrade kit which I'm not using. So scratch building it is!

http://www.rcsubs.co.uk/revellskipjack

TheBoattrainman

[trout]

I'm going with some grating on the openings.

Why bother, I doubt if this is a scale mesh for this vessel (given it was supplied for 1/35 scale model!). I think the larger holes don't look right just blank, I think there would be some sort of debris restriction to prevent crap getting access, plus my local boating water is less than clean, so I'm hoping they will perform the same job for me. I have 1/72 mesh, it's too fine to let water in and out.

You can put screens over the holes, but I would not recommend it. There are a couple of reasons that I can come up with. You are restricting water getting into the hull, meaning it will slow down dive times. The second reason was brought up by you, the larger subs used them to stop debris. So will your scale ones do too, but there are more particulates in a pond that you may find them getting clogged faster. Then cleaning them will be the other fun issue.
Anyways, open a Photobucket account and put your photos there, at least we will be able to see them.

A couple of thoughts as to why photos may not be posting. I know that if I am typing and constructing my thoughts, it can take awhile, the server will flush those pictures out. Other things that come to mind are size too big? is it a jpeg format?

I really hope we figure it out. I want to see what you are doing. I am sure a visual learner.

[The Boattrainman]

Thanks for responding.

I'll look at the whole photo upload problem over the weekend if I get a chance, agree a picture is far better than a load of text.

I re-sized them down to fit, but sure it's not my forte!

The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

I think the photo problem is resolved thanks to Mike.

While waiting for the Caswell fittings kit and other parts, I'm working on the sail specifically the scopes of which I only want the attack units in the up position.

I've filled in the holes of all the large scopes with filler and then to get a profile for them cut out tear dropped shaped pieces of 0.5mm Plasticard using the kit scopes as a guide, and glued them over their holes.



By using a very sharp scriber, I will re-instate the line around each scope, and then sand the Plasticard shapes till they are nearly gone, giving the impression of a scope top in the down position.



The two scopes I want up are made from brass and aluminium tubing with one of them with the plastic fitting from the Revell kit attached with epoxy.

I'm toying with having them raise by attaching a small foam square to the bottom of them inside the sail, hence the slightly larger holes for another short piece of tubing for the scopes to move up and down in, however I can't proceed until I get the Caswell fittings and work out how much space I have to work in.

The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

Sail with lights, scopes, and dummy scopes in the down position.



I'm on the hunt for a small piece of curved clear plastic to go over the LEDs in the light housings.

The Boattrainman

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I think the photo problem is resolved thanks to Mike.

While waiting for the Caswell fittings kit and other parts, I'm working on the sail specifically the scopes of which I only want the attack units in the up position.

I've filled in the holes of all the large scopes with filler and then to get a profile for them cut out tear dropped shaped pieces of 0.5mm Plasticard using the kit scopes as a guide, and glued them over their holes.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n113454[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]n113452[/ATTACH]

By using a very sharp scriber, I will re-instate the line around each scope, and then sand the Plasticard shapes till they are nearly gone, giving the impression of a scope top in the down position.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n113453[/ATTACH]

The two scopes I want up are made from brass and aluminium tubing with one of them with the plastic fitting from the Revell kit attached with epoxy.

I'm toying with having them raise by attaching a small foam square to the bottom of them inside the sail, hence the slightly larger holes for another short piece of tubing for the scopes to move up and down in, however I can't proceed until I get the Caswell fittings and work out how much space I have to work in.

The Boattrainman

Excellent work, sir. Photos are just the right size too.

You'll need some room in the sail for the snorkel assembly, so don't get carried away with the mast float idea. Are you going to make the sail planes practical? I recommend you do so on such a big model. Keep at it!

M

[The Boattrainman]

Roger that!

The sail planes will work using the Caswell fittings, I'm not moving forward until I assess the space needed for the snorkel system, there's very little room to manouveur in that sail, decent length but very little width.

I've bent the wires for the LED lights away (i.e, forward) from the area where the snorkel will be in case of space shortage.

Anyway, on hold till the parts arrive.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

very good..................

[The Boattrainman]

So now to the gratings on the ballast tank inlets.


The weapons of choice for this are 0.75mm Plasticard strips, 1mm x 2mm Brass mesh, plastic cement glue and a viciously sharp craft knife.




The first job to do is to line the area around the holes with straight lines laid down with a soft pencil, then use these as cutting guides for the Plasticard strip.



Each hole requires four strips, but I did the longitudinal ones on each pair of holes first (those running bow to stern).




I then did the transverse pieces using a Plasticard strip that I curved by squeezing between thumbs and fore finger, I treated the double hole at the stern as one for the moment.



I covered the brass mesh with a wide strip of masking tape, so I can mark out the cuts.



Small pieces of mesh are offered up to the holes for marking and cutting.




And on to the next post....................

[The Boattrainman]

Once cut to shape the masking tape is peeled off and the mesh is curved by pressing it to a curved surface (as it happened the roll of masking tape did this job also).





Once curved they are dropped into the holes with some thick Syperglue preloaded around the hole perimeter with a cocktail stick tip (don't put glue on the mesh, it'll try to fill the micro-holes).




The double holes were treated to one large piece of mesh, and then a strip of Plasticard was added across.



Finally when the Plasticard had cured, I sanded the surrounds hard with 120 and then 400 grit sandpaper to get the gratings as flush to the hull as possible.




Finally, I added the kit supplied PE covers, and carefully (very carefully!) drilled out the six drain holes.



I'm off to test the flow rate of water in/out of these gratings, just want to be sure Trout's point doesn't factor into the flood/drain rate too much.

The Boattrainman