atic: 1:35 Bronco XXIII with interior

[DrSchmidt]

Put some work into the conning tower. I'm very happy how the hatch turned out. The springs, mechanics and seal, all there like in the CAD model. Looks very good...









The roof of the preesure hull of the conning tower got the rollers and tightening mechanism of the cable pulley for raising and lowering the periscope. Also the light is in place.



The conning tower itself got its switches, sockets and boxes. The cabeling was done with 0,2 mm diameter soldering wire.



Allot of thought went into the alignment of pressure hull, the hull of the kit, the conning tower and the sail of the kit. I decided to use the periscope as the centering point. The periscope shaft of the pressure hull was aligned with the respective hole in the hull of the kit. The periscope shaft of the pressure hull got a 3 mm diameter center hole. In inserted a removable plug into the periscope shaft of the conning tower. This plug has a 3 mm pin that slots into the shaft of the pressure hull. This the kit, the pressure hull and the conning tower are aligned. The top of the plug in the conning tower has a 2 mm diameter center hole in which I inserted a 2 mm rod that I used to align the roof of the conning tower to its floor. Onto the 2 mm rod I plugged a 5 mm diameter steel tube (the periscope) that I then used to align the sail of the kit. This way, everything is perfectly aligned. In a first step I then glued the pressure hull of the conning tower to the hull of the kit. In the second step I taped the halves of the sail together and glued the starboard half to the hull. After the glue had set I removed the port side of the sail and happy me....everything is in the right place and easily accessible for the installation of the masts.

[goshawk823]

That’s an awesome piece of work for that assembly.

[DrSchmidt]

While I paint all the bits and pieces for the interior of the conning tower I work on the fine tuning of the snorkel, direction finder and induction mas assembly. An engineering piece of art in itself....

[rwtdiver]

You are certainly inspiration to watch, and it makes me go back and take a look at my work and say I could certainly do better! Thank you again Andreas for sharing your beautiful work!

Rob
"Firemen can stand the heat."

[DrSchmidt]

What's still missing is the conning tower with its masts and the pressure hull. The difficulty here is the alignment of the pressure hull and the sail. I'll use the periscope as reference and work from there. The pressure hull floor is printed and partially painted. Fits quite well....



Next difficulty is that the pressure hull partially punctures though the bridge deck in the Type XXIII boats. So the first thing I did was to remove the pressure hull part of the kit where the printed hull is going to take its place.



The other parts of the pressure hull are printed as well and already got their base color. Fit looks promising....

[DrSchmidt]

Thanks so much folks....still a long way to go and plenty things that can go wrong. So it's stays an exciting game.

Yes, the model has LEDs. Unfortunately I lost some in the bow section, I guess due to a short in a current driver unit, and it took the connected LEDs with it. As the LEDs had been installed at that point and everything including the leads were secured under glue, there was no way to repair it. But I was lucky being unlucky....as I have divided the LEDs in the torpedo room and the storage/battery room below in two separate circuits, I only lost the light in the battery and storage compartment. That's kinda O.K., as those would be switched off during normal operation of the boat anyway. Nevertheless, I was quite angry when it happened...

And yes, I have some figures. But I won't block everything by putting a whole crew in there. I want primarily a technical display.

[redboat219]

A full complement of crew figure (14-18) would be great to show how cramped the conditions were inside these boats but it would obscure all those beautiful detail.

[CC Clarke]

If this model doesn't have internal, micro-LED lighting to show off the myriad of details you so thoughtfully included, it certainly rates it. Thorough subject matter research and and attention to 3D modeling detail.
(Your work inspired me to dive deep into resin printing a couple of years ago, as it showcased just how much consumer-grade technology has improved when someone knows what they're doing.)

Awesome job and I look forward to seeing the next phase!

-Or more appropriately: BZ!

CC

[goshawk823]

Museum level everything. Just an awesome project on one of my favorite boats.

[trout]

Ditto what HWSNBN said!

[DrSchmidt]

Thank you David.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Epic!.......

[DrSchmidt]

Good news: Halves have been joined and everything is looking O.K.. The styrene parts of the kit were glued together using classic plastic kit glue, and the printed parts were additionally secured using high strength epoxy resin. Rock solid. There will be plenty of cleaning seams and straightening up things, but that should be easy compared to the rest. NExt is the conning tower, snorkel and induction masts and the Diesel exhaust muffler with the respective valve.

[redboat219]

I did....in the second photo you can see a hatch in the upper left part of the picture. That is the vent valve. I didn't find any details about it, but usually the German boats had valves that veer actuated via thread rods that drove push rods that opened and closed the valves. That's wat I designed an printed. But actually there isn't much visible in the upper part of the ballast tank.

Didn't notice.

[DrSchmidt]

I did....in the second photo you can see a hatch in the upper left part of the picture. That is the vent valve. I didn't find any details about it, but usually the German boats had valves that veer actuated via thread rods that drove push rods that opened and closed the valves. That's wat I designed an printed. But actually there isn't much visible in the upper part of the ballast tank.

Here are the valve mechanisms implemented on VIIc u-boats:

https://www.uboatarchive.net/U-570/U-570Plate28.htm