A U-Boat In Ireland

[The Boattrainman]

I decided to make the connection of the two snake cables visible, sure as crap this is where something will break.

I made a couple of fittings to skew the cable under a small access panel in the deck.




The entire underside of the deck gets cross members from 2mm X 5mm styrene, and under the conning tower is heavily braced.




Then the conning tower has pins inserted to align it with the deck., it will be removable to service the periscope raising mechanism.




The deck gun gets a 3mm reinforced plate under the deck and 7mm stainless screw which will be bonded to the underside of the deck and make the gun detachable.




Now for the periscope mechanism, the deck is cut to the shape of the inner space in the conning tower and that shape is transferred to the top of the WTC.




A small open ended square box is made with curved ends to rest on the WTC to fit in this hole.




It gets flood/drain holes and the inner sides get small lengths of 2mm x 2mm as styrene runners so the foam block only touches these going up and down not the sides (less friction).....



............the hole in the foam block is for the end of the periscope.


The box sits in the hole, and tightly up into the conning tower, the foam is trial fitted from the bottom.




When the foam is correctly sized it goes on the end of the scope which goes down the scope mechanism, and then down the box, snug but not too tight (scope down on left and up on right).




It's taken apart and assembled into the conning tower and put in the test basin, when water rises up the conning tower it simply lifts the periscope slowly, I have it set so that it's fully up when the conning tower is 1/3 submerged, so that one can see the scope rising as the sub dives.





No electronics, no motors, just the dreaded closed cell foam.............but it works.

The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

I just got great news, Boris Nakropin (SRS- Facebook) is making me some brass lower front and rear flood drain hole masks in 1/40 to the 1/48 pattern used for the Arkmodel U-Boat.........massive problem solved.......hopefully, as I couldn't have cut the hull that accurately!!!!

Yippee!

[The Boattrainman]

I enjoy a bit of soldering, making the deck railings around the gun is enjoyable.

I think they tend to be a bit high on some models, but this photo of U552 (a sister boat to my U557), shows they are a bit above knee height, say 60cm or 1.5cm on the model.




The stanchions positions are marked on the deck and then pilot holes are drilled through.




The position of the pilot holes is transferred to a piece of wood, and the top rail is pre-curved, then the stanchions cut to length using a wooden gig for the correct height.




The top rail is held onto the stanchions with wooden pegs, a square on it's side is used to get them straight. A wooden block is then used to position each piece of the lower railing




When there are lots of soldered joints, metal clips are used to dissipate the heat away from new joints, and finally the completed starboard railing set is trial fitted back to the deck before cleaning.




The port side will be easier as I have all the measurements now.

The Boattrainman

[trout]

Nice, sturdy, well built! I like it.

[The Boattrainman]

Hi friend,

Same problem as the conning tower, 1mm wire would prob be closer to scale, but a bit flimsy, so 1.5mm was used throughout.

Very strong, it needs to be, they are in a vulnerable spot, on my U203, they got knocked a good bit.

Rob

[bianco64squalo]

Hi Rob,
fantastic work with soldering....I'll take your technique as a reference for my model....

[The Boattrainman]

Thanks friend.

You do get an occasional piece getting loose again, but you just let things cool and go back over any de-soldered joints, I use lots of flux and small amounts of solder (do it the other way around and make a mess!). Once all the joints are set, it's incredible strong.

Will post a pic when both sides are complete.

Rob

[trout]

So, if I may add, when I did jewelry work, there would be pieces we would need to solder (gold) multiple times or protect delicate stones. We would create heat sink/barriers. Everything from a damp towel or tweezers to a special mud would be used to keep the heat down enough not to re-melt a nearby area.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Start with high-temperature solder. Later adjacent work done with low-temperature solder. Consider investing in a resistive soldering machine.

David

[trout]

Yes, we used soft, medium, and hard solders too.
Speaking of resistance soldering, I was just looking into a how to build your own.

[The Boattrainman]

Top tip lads, thanks.

A bit of patience is also required, but it's very 'zen' for me, wouldn't say I'm a master at soldering, but amazing how many modellers never get to grips with it.

I particularily like the fact that items can be repositioned or de-soldered and done again, unlike glues/epoxys.

Rob

[HardRock]

Thank you Masters. Who knew solder came in different hardnesses? Grasshopper, out.

[The Boattrainman]

The antenna tripods on the aft deck are next, again these are very exposed and need to be solid. Their position is carefully marked on the deck using the blueprints for measurement, the kit instructions get this all wrong.

The pilot holes are drilled through the deck into a small wooden block, and for the vertical bars two 1.5mm brass tubes are used this time so that a split pin can be inserted and soldered inside, the antenna will thread through these and on to the tensioners.




The two angle bars are made from 1.5mm rod to match the rest of the model, they are soldered at the top and then fixed through the deck into large plastic squares glued underneath.




The important alignment is that the vertical bars are parallel, once set the area around the tripods is reinforced under the deck to keep them level.




The entire removable aft deck is then braced from side to side avoiding the flood/drain holes, but not along the subs length as this deck needs to bend along it's length to match the downward sheer of the aft section of the sub.





The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

I've come to the bit I've been putting off for a long time, to cut out the long central drainage slot. A combination of flimsy plastic and very little room to work makes this a ******* nightmare!

The shaded areas needs to be removed, but if you do, you get left with a wobby bit of plastic, having the deck in place would help, but there's still too much internal work to be done......so....

The best I could come up with was the kit comes with lots of 2mm brass bar for the railings (which I'm not using), this was used to form brace piece all along the central drainage slot, held in with lots of superglue.




Once the brass bars are set, the plastic in the slots are very carefully removed with a craft knife, but then comes one of the major flaws of the kit, there's a solid mid section that makes the central drainage slot four separate small slots, it just does not exist on any U-Boat.........what were the designers thinking, strength maybe! Again, the shaded bit has to be removed.............




................and the kit supplied mask should go over the hole, it's all wrong and most build-ups leave the solid mid section and it totally ruins the model, it's the critics of this kit's principal complaint. So the Wikinger masks are used, modified as again starboard and port side slots are not the same.




The solid mid section is removed, the pencil indicates just how little meat is left to work with, without the brass bar behind this would be unworkable. The full Wikinger mask is glued in place even though it's too big, better to get it on and then cut away the lower section



Deep breath and on to the port side.

The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

A 5mm piece of styrene is used as a guide to cut the bottom of the mask and half-round sections are used to reinforce the rear between the holes.




The entire slot is cleaned up and now runs it's full length, a major improvement.




However, there's now no saddle tank beneath the slots, especially the centre section which has been butchered. New plastic sections are glued inside to give the impression that the saddle tanks continue inboard.





The Boattrainman