Next up is the horizontal flood/drain holes in the forward section, after the nightmare of the ones around the torpedo doors these were a doddle.
The slot is opened up to take the masks with the holes.
The only issue here is that the kit wants them aligned with the upward slope of the bow, this is wrong, they should be in line with the central drain slot. They have to be glued at an angle and trimmed when set. The marked area in the photo is where the central drain area will have to be extended forward thus making both port and starboard side asymmetrical.
There's more holes on the starboard side than port side, so I removed some holes for the port side mask, but caught a break with the starboard side, by simple removing three from the lower row and adding them to the end of the upper row,it gave me the exact right number of holes for U557 on that side on both upper and lower rows, lucky.
A comparison of photo six and photo three gives an indication of how the number of flood/drain holes affected the length of the central drain slot, with the additional slots on the starboard side going back beyond the fix point of forward and middle hull sections (the vertical line of filler).
The only issue here is the masks had to be set a bit high, it was not possible to set the masks lower as it would mean removing a huge section of the hull and also having a mismatch at the top where I want a clean finish to hide the removeable deck section, a compromise I have to live with.
I wonder why there was this difference in port/starboard sides?
The Boattrainman
The slot is opened up to take the masks with the holes.
The only issue here is that the kit wants them aligned with the upward slope of the bow, this is wrong, they should be in line with the central drain slot. They have to be glued at an angle and trimmed when set. The marked area in the photo is where the central drain area will have to be extended forward thus making both port and starboard side asymmetrical.
There's more holes on the starboard side than port side, so I removed some holes for the port side mask, but caught a break with the starboard side, by simple removing three from the lower row and adding them to the end of the upper row,it gave me the exact right number of holes for U557 on that side on both upper and lower rows, lucky.
A comparison of photo six and photo three gives an indication of how the number of flood/drain holes affected the length of the central drain slot, with the additional slots on the starboard side going back beyond the fix point of forward and middle hull sections (the vertical line of filler).
The only issue here is the masks had to be set a bit high, it was not possible to set the masks lower as it would mean removing a huge section of the hull and also having a mismatch at the top where I want a clean finish to hide the removeable deck section, a compromise I have to live with.
I wonder why there was this difference in port/starboard sides?
The Boattrainman
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