1/48 scale Type VIIC U-201 build

[gantu]

[Monahan Steam Models]

Made a little bit more progress today. Focused attention on the aft section of the boat.



Carefully and gradually enlarged the inner diameter of the areas in the moldings that carry the port and starboard stuffing boxes a few thousands at a time with a series of multi-flute straight cut readers. The 6mm OD nylon tubes provided in the kit were not going to cut it. Replaced these with a set of .250” OD brass tubes with 4mm ID oilite bushings that I made today.



A quick mock up fit and new stuffing boxes fit snug in the hull and while the shaft alignment is perfect and smooth.



I started the design of the “in the wet running” brushless motor, stern planes and rudder servo mount months ago when I took a break from the project. Finished up the design and assembled it today.



Here is it mounted in the hull. It was designed to fit into the profile of the kit’s original mounded bulkhead or frame shapes.



Another view of the same mount assembly fitted into the hull.

The next bit of work will be trying something new with the motor to prop shaft connection. I will be using universal joints to make up for the alignment between the motor centerlines and the shaft centerlines but I’m thinking of designing a center-lined captured magnetic drive interface with the motors. Meaning the connection between the motors and the shafts would be coupled together and driven by magnets. The idea behind this is allowing for the props to be snagged or bound up while allowing for slippage of the motor to shaft connection with out overloading and tripping the main system fuse.

Besides that “what if” experimental nonsense, I’ve been focusing on making the rear dive plane hardware robust and compatible with bonding the two lower hull halves together. Think I finally have something with that. The last orders of business are the rudder mechanisms and last but not least the almighty stern torpedo tube.

Spent a bit of time on figuring out if it would be possible to modify the Arkmodel type VII hull to have a scale size functional aft torpedo tube and the answer is yes. It will require bonding the two hull halves together but the final result will not alter the external molded appearance. Designing a jig and tool for making this modification to the hull. We will see how it goes…. Not really worried

[Monahan Steam Models]

That WTC is sitting there nice and snug! Can't wait to see her in the water!

Nate

Thanks Nate, I really enjoy the work you’ve done on your build recently. Keep up the great work!

Nick

[Monahan Steam Models]

We all know but I'm going to say it again.. Nick your true engineer I love the way everything in that boat can be accessed to be upgraded or replaced... So many builders in these threads suffer from "get it in the wateritis." They glue the boat together such that it'll never come apart again.. then when something breaks or stops working, and it will - they give up "too much work to fix," then in the dry dock it sits... on the shelf. Your threads are a pleasure to read man -BG

Thanks Bob!

Coming from you, your kind compliments mean a lot! Always thankful for your keen well thought out observations and helpful input. Enjoying your meticulous skilled build of the Atlantis. Would be awesome to see your work showed off more on here!

The access in the type VII is much better now. Although the way the original kit is designed is a great boat when built as originally intended, the assembly and access to the hull did not fit in with what I would like to see as a easy to use and serviceable design in the future like you have pointed out. The multiple assembled parts create fitment issues for a clean final finish and many chances of breaking or scratching parts during assembly or disassembly.

Before a build looks good it needs to be mechanically built good and be serviceable. The hull is really a fairing these days. Technology is always changing and upgrades will be inevitable. Like I’ve said in building classic cars, and other technologies, anything is possible, just pick the final shape you like and pour on the work an it will happen.

That being said, enough of us who have built things over the years can agree with what Bob has pointed out, things will break and will need to be repaired or replaced. Make your boat solid but repairable. Don’t lock yourself into a unrepairable design.

Just last week I resurrected a tug boat I built 30 years ago with my father to bring it into running another number of years of operation.

[neitosub]

That WTC is sitting there nice and snug! Can't wait to see her in the water!

Nate

[Bob Gato]

We all know but I'm going to say it again.. Nick your true engineer I love the way everything in that boat can be accessed to be upgraded or replaced... So many builders in these threads suffer from "get it in the wateritis." They glue the boat together such that it'll never come apart again.. then when something breaks or stops working, and it will - they give up "too much work to fix," then in the dry dock it sits... on the shelf. Your threads are a pleasure to read man -BG

[Monahan Steam Models]

The improved access to the lower hull with the waterline cut has made a huge difference. The WTC drops in much easier and the access to the forward and aft sections is much improved. Considering now a fully bonded together lower hull like the above waterline assembly. Will need to modify the forward torpedo tube unit if I do decide to go this route but it looks fairly simple to do.

The staggered tabbing worked well to keep the forward and aft sections aligned great. The area around the saddle tanks because of the angle the tabs had to be mounted at proved more of a hassle for getting the upper and lower halves to click into place, so I removed them. I will be making a different connection/alignment system for that section of the hull. Should be super simple and straightforward from what I’m seeing so far.



One side note. The orange label plastruct solvent cement I’ve been using to bond the styrene strips to the hull is garbage in this application. Parts have very little bonded strength. The white label plastruct bonding cement to bond the the kit’s parts together has been working well.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Not sure. I have two of the Revell 1/72 Type VII’s I picked up more than a decade ago but haven’t touched them. David would know best if it was a good idea or not.

Bad idea. Do it this way:



David

[Monahan Steam Models]

Would doing the longitudinal cut to the 1/72 Type VII be a good idea?

Not sure. I have two of the Revell 1/72 Type VII’s I picked up more than a decade ago but haven’t touched them. David would know best if it was a good idea or not.

[redboat219]

Would doing the longitudinal cut to the 1/72 Type VII be a good idea?

[Monahan Steam Models]

Just don't let the rivet counting keep you from finishing the project. It is good to see you back at it Nick.

Thanks Steve! It has been good to be back at it the last few days! Needed a bit of a break from this project after the intense development phase of the torpedoes, launchers and WTC for this project. Finally deciding on splitting the hull horizontally has given me a renewed sense of interest in picking back up on this build.



Spent the day making the multiple above waterline sections all one solid bonded piece. It definitely feels a lot more robust now. A lot of time was taken test fitting the parts together and removing flash from the casting process to get everything to play nice together and lay flat. Will start adding more staggered tabs to the upper and lower hull halves next.

Sam,

Where are you at on your build presently? I know you’ve probably had to deal with some of the same fits I’ve been fighting too, but have you committed to bonding any of the hull sections together? I’m still exploring the horizontal split and tabbing with my build but wondering if you might be able to still do it on your build as well. That being said I will most likely bond the aft two lower hull sections together as there is just too much going on there to not. Same goes for the center section as it is less important to separate now with the easier access. The bow lower sections I may only bond one side to the center section and leave the other to be removed due to all the torpedo junk. Curious on your thoughts.

[SubDude]

Removing the last section works well but like you I was also concerned about knocking all the bits off the boat. I had a few other access concerns and final assembled finish preferences too which led to the horizontal cut decision. This build will feature all four forward torpedo tubes being functional and hopefully the single aft tube as well. The necessary connections to the WTC for the launch tubes was considered and designed for last year prior to the horizontal cut. The new hull parting line just makes this a lot easier.

After assembling and disassembling the hull multiple times as designed, it became clear the parts would eventually suffer a beating over time. Above that, the multiple parts all fitting together to form a final assembly meant there are a lot joints that would be showing both on the hull as well as the deck. I much rather prefer permanently bond these multiple components together to reduce the amount of parting joints to allow for a cleaner looking, much stronger and easier to deal with final result. I plan to add a photo etched deck and other P.E. bits to the build and it seems splitting the hull this way has way has more Pro’s than Con’s for what I would like to achieve.

Also the limber hole shape and sizing as well as the rivets on this model are way wrong. I may or may not end up correcting those too. I am a bit of a rivet counter but not just in a spectator sort of way. I’ll put my money where my mouth is and fix it. Once I see it, I can’t un-see it and it will bother me until it’s corrected.

Just don't let the rivet counting keep you from finishing the project. It is good to see you back at it Nick.

[Monahan Steam Models]

Wow. Something I hadn’t considered while building my Arkmodel. I like the idea of not having to deal with removal of that last section to try and access everything as well. I’m interested to see how you’re going to tab the hull and upper deck to keep alignment across the entire boat. I’ve been worrying about all the bits that could fall off while wrestling with the limited access, too.

Removing the last section works well but like you I was also concerned about knocking all the bits off the boat. I had a few other access concerns and final assembled finish preferences too which led to the horizontal cut decision. This build will feature all four forward torpedo tubes being functional and hopefully the single aft tube as well. The necessary connections to the WTC for the launch tubes was considered and designed for last year prior to the horizontal cut. The new hull parting line just makes this a lot easier.

After assembling and disassembling the hull multiple times as designed, it became clear the parts would eventually suffer a beating over time. Above that, the multiple parts all fitting together to form a final assembly meant there are a lot joints that would be showing both on the hull as well as the deck. I much rather prefer permanently bond these multiple components together to reduce the amount of parting joints to allow for a cleaner looking, much stronger and easier to deal with final result. I plan to add a photo etched deck and other P.E. bits to the build and it seems splitting the hull this way has way has more Pro’s than Con’s for what I would like to achieve.

Also the limber hole shape and sizing as well as the rivets on this model are way wrong. I may or may not end up correcting those too. I am a bit of a rivet counter but not just in a spectator sort of way. I’ll put my money where my mouth is and fix it. Once I see it, I can’t un-see it and it will bother me until it’s corrected.

[Monahan Steam Models]

Bingo!.......

I like the staggered tab system. Works very well!

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Bingo!.......