A Skipjack in Ireland No.2

[Das Boot]

Green slime at the watermark and slight fading. Many pics out there as references.

[The Boattrainman]

David,

Yep, its on my list pal!!!!!

Rob

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Tone down the upper hull streaking with a good misting of the base color (black). Looks awful!

David

[The Boattrainman]

On patrol with the Skipjack.

Surface trim is fine if a little low, the R and R WTC has only 450ml of capacity.........


.........submerged is set just below the scope depth.......


..... but still a bit of servo twitch to sort!

The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

Bruce,

All Tamiya colours for this build, the lower hull us TS-33 and the black is TS-6, the orange is a tin of enamel I had in my paint box.

Rob

[Bruce Martin]

Ok guys I know that I am late to the party here but I was looking for the colours to put on my skipjack, I do enjoy using Tamiya paint used it on a number of my other boats, so pls tell me the # and or colour of the red you used for the lower hull .
Thank You in advance.
Bruce

[The Boattrainman]

So the start of the weathering, lots of grey/white salt wash. I also put some metal grey paint on a shaving brush and drybrushed the whole black part of the hull, not subtle but it gives a slight metallic sheen, will add some more shading when this dries.



The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

Greetings fellow sub dudes!

So after a hiatus to focus on my other hobbies, model railway, new build multi function surface skimmer plus I'm overhauling my 35 foor motor cruiser (real not a model).......too many hobbies, never enough time or money, I will finish my second Skipjack for the summer season!!!!



After almost a year in drydock there was good and bad news, the warp in the hull is gone, presumably the hot and cold cycle in my attic cured that......on the downside it needed a light rub down with 1000 grit sandpaper, and a very light blowover with Rustoleum matt varnish.



All the electronics are in PMO, but my LIPOs were puffy so they have been binned.

Lots of work to get it finished, depth markings, light weathering, and it's only trimmed for the surface so out with the dreaded ballast foam.........



Hi to Bob, Dave and all the regular contribs.........!

The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

So closing in on the end game for this build.

I spend an enormous amount of time setting up the shaft and prop, and in doing so discovered my homemade prop was wiggling around in the mini prop shaft housing at the prop end.

To fix this I added a tiny collar to the brass dogbone fitting, only 3mm wide......




........it stopped the wobble and a lot of rattle at the back end, amazing how a small addition can make a big change.



I brush painted the emergency bouy access hatches and the sonars, easy as there is a panel line around them, 5 very thin coats was needed.






I also brush painted some thick enamel onto the interiors of the shells, I find that the insides get bashed about a lot over time, plus it looks nice (even though no one will see it).





Only the varnish coat remains, waiting between each coat is a pain

The Boattrainman

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Nice! Love the dull finish! All the little details are eye-candy we all can appreciate. Keep at it.

David

[The Boattrainman]

So I bit the bullet and decided to use expensive Tamiya hobby paints from spray cans.

I am really impressed with the finish, you definitely get what you pays for..............





........the finish on the body shells is a very fine satin, I wish I could leave it like this but it will need a coat of varnish, I usually go with a matt that ends up something like I have already.


The tower is finished in enamel for the scope bases, and BECC vinyl letters.




Including the tiny Sculpin names, a real pain to get stuck down again from BECC 2mm vinyl letters.




Here's the culprits, not cheap at only 100ml per can (total cost around 70 bucks plus delivery), but I've nothing else to spend my money on at the moment.




Great paints, a step up even from Humbrol spays in my view.

I tried to do something too clever on my previous Skipjack (went for a sort of dark gray with shading that only sort of worked), but good old plain black this time to keep HWMNBN happy.





The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

Absolutely David.

Once the main batteries arrive, I'll be doing dive tests..................IN THE BATH!!!

Not allowed out and about more than 2km from the house with The Thing.......government restrictions........my fave pond is 2.5km away!

Walk the dogs, that's about it for April/early May, luckily I can work from home.

Stay safe buddy!

Rob

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Put that sucker in the water!

David

[The Boattrainman]

So that's it for now!




It'll have to sit on it's shelf for a while, I just had enough primer for a basic coat.

But all the model, DIY and auto stores are shut in Ireland due to The Thing, so I've run out of paint (I usually use Halfords - open in the UK but not shipping rattle cans, ******)

The Skipjack awaits completion........




..........over and out!

The Boattrainman

[The Boattrainman]

Here's the prop Dave sent me, I hit it with some primer and some enamel brass paint.




I did the same the last time and it didn't wear off, and it's easy to hit it again if it gets chipped.

This was the prop that was way off balance, much better with a fair chunk of meat removed from the boss (my prop balancer says so!).

The Boattrainman