Tweet
Hi guys,
been a while since I have done a scratch build and with the weather warming up over here in Australia, I am going to be jumping in soon and getting a X craft underway.
A big thanks to Mike who stocks and supplied me very promptly a while back with the
Book "Midget Submarines of the Second World War."
The book contains an excellent set of drawings in 1/24 scale of this submarine.
A big thanks to Andy (Subculture) who has helped firm up a lot of my thinking towards building this great little submarine. This is going to be an all plastic submarine model.
Ok so why the scale 1/19? - Its actually going to be 1/19.5
As Andy pointed out, the bulk of this little submarine is a simple cylinder that spans a consistent diameter for much of the sub. The construction will utilise for this main section a PVC thin walled water pipe of 90mm Ext Diameter. This beam dictates the scale. The forward and aft sections, the upper casing and features, the dive planes and rudder will all be built from styrene. The supporting structures for the rudders and rear vanes will be built up masters and then moulded. The length will be around 31.5" or 801mm.
The forward and aft sections will be built up using styrene frames and then skinning across the top of the frames with 0.5mm thick styrene panels. I have been using similar methods of construction in large scale ship model superstructures for years, and the longevity of this material in such structures have proved themselves.
The submarine will be free flooding and a 50% top and lower half demarcation access cut will be made in the PVC piped section. The forward and aft sections will be glued to the lower PVC hull half. The upper PVC hull half will have a section of upper casing affixed to it.
The sub will utilise a 2.5" Merriman Sub Driver kit with snort, and feature the basics of ballast / snort control with gas backup, rudder, speed control, rear planes and leveller. Given the very low free-board the ballast tank won't need to be very big.
Should be a great pool boat with the control surfaces aft of the three bladed propeller.
I am not sure at the moment if I'll do the side cargoes, if I do so I probably make masters and mould these.
If you haven't yet seen it, my wife bought me some time ago a DVD of the film: "Above us the waves" - a great film based on the X craft attack on the Tirpitz. A great story with lots of X craft and XE craft footage. Very brave crew!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Above_Us_the_Waves_(film)
Best
J
been a while since I have done a scratch build and with the weather warming up over here in Australia, I am going to be jumping in soon and getting a X craft underway.
A big thanks to Mike who stocks and supplied me very promptly a while back with the
Book "Midget Submarines of the Second World War."
The book contains an excellent set of drawings in 1/24 scale of this submarine.
A big thanks to Andy (Subculture) who has helped firm up a lot of my thinking towards building this great little submarine. This is going to be an all plastic submarine model.
Ok so why the scale 1/19? - Its actually going to be 1/19.5
As Andy pointed out, the bulk of this little submarine is a simple cylinder that spans a consistent diameter for much of the sub. The construction will utilise for this main section a PVC thin walled water pipe of 90mm Ext Diameter. This beam dictates the scale. The forward and aft sections, the upper casing and features, the dive planes and rudder will all be built from styrene. The supporting structures for the rudders and rear vanes will be built up masters and then moulded. The length will be around 31.5" or 801mm.
The forward and aft sections will be built up using styrene frames and then skinning across the top of the frames with 0.5mm thick styrene panels. I have been using similar methods of construction in large scale ship model superstructures for years, and the longevity of this material in such structures have proved themselves.
The submarine will be free flooding and a 50% top and lower half demarcation access cut will be made in the PVC piped section. The forward and aft sections will be glued to the lower PVC hull half. The upper PVC hull half will have a section of upper casing affixed to it.
The sub will utilise a 2.5" Merriman Sub Driver kit with snort, and feature the basics of ballast / snort control with gas backup, rudder, speed control, rear planes and leveller. Given the very low free-board the ballast tank won't need to be very big.
Should be a great pool boat with the control surfaces aft of the three bladed propeller.
I am not sure at the moment if I'll do the side cargoes, if I do so I probably make masters and mould these.
If you haven't yet seen it, my wife bought me some time ago a DVD of the film: "Above us the waves" - a great film based on the X craft attack on the Tirpitz. A great story with lots of X craft and XE craft footage. Very brave crew!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Above_Us_the_Waves_(film)
Best
J
Comment