German submarine Type VIIC/41 scale 1:35

[MFR1964]

It's buzzing inside the shop, you got to blame Mark for this, yet again he triggered something, i went to hunt down some pictures in my archives, started the works to alter some things on my type VII, boy i hate this guy :)

Maybe it's better to start with the beginning of this boat during the late 80's, it's origine is from a group of people from Belgium, they wanted to build a flottile of type VII's, it was my luck they never completely succeeded.
I could buy a single hull from those people, pictures.





This was the original mold, it was made by using CNC, unfortunally nobody knows where she is now, i hope she is kept in one piece laying on a dusty attic to be discovered.









This is what i got, a GRP hull, with a GRP deck, the deck itself was nicely detailed but way too heavy to use it, yeah the tower, well, to keep it nice, from a big distance it looked good, yet again from GRP, so that was also a bummer.
The hull itself is a juwel, nice details, clean work, allready had the positions for the floodholes and the weldinglines in general, for those days the guys did a wonderfull job.



Manfred.

[alad61]

Everything in GRP!!! Well I guess we new rc submariners are some what spoilt...The Titanic

[MFR1964]

Yes Alec, GRP all over, build it strong, build it heavy, it had to last your entire live in those days, in the end i only used the hull, duplicated the deck in lightweight circuitboard.

Let's make a jump into time, after some busy building for two years it had become 1990, she was technically finished to get me some dives, only detailed part was the upperdeck, used the old tower delivered with the hull.



The basis rear end, just the stuff to get her running, used copper for both the rudders and divingplanes, no profiles added.





Took this picture on the lawn at my parents home, still lived with my parents when i started to build this baby, all the things needed to run her are inside the dry hull.



This one is for David, just to show that i allready used a float to seal off the hull, basically the same methode as used at the SAS.



The electronic bay, since there was no stuff to get for submarines, you had to do it by yourself, luckely i had a technical education about electronics and mechanics, these days you can buy the stuff from the shelf, a big advantage that was dearly missed.



Used the old deck as a template to get me this, the materials is used circuitboard, a kind of GRP sandwich with copper on both sides, ideal for making all the hatches work.



Cutted and sanded the deck into it's final shape, made all the venting slits by hand, it took me a complete winter to do that task, including making all moving hatches.

When looking at these old pics, i only regrett one thing, should have made more, unfortunally i only had a analog camera using films (means expensive), all the budget i had when into building the sub.




Manfred.

[MFR1964]

To give you guys a actual update which i'm working on right now,



It all started with a nice picture from Mark, i searched around in the spare parts and found me some spare teardrops shaped plating.



First step was to strip down the rear sternpart, glued some plate down to cheer it up.



Sanded down the copper layer on the top side to get me some more grip for the glue, and cutted a piece of plate.



Clambed down the alumunium plate and let it cure for 24 hours.



While the glue was curing i started with a new mechanism for the jumpwires, wanted to use some real rollers for guiding the jumpwires.



This is for me the advantage using circuitboard, i can simply solder every copper item to it, this way the rollers stay functional.



After the glue was dry i could make some holes which i precutted into the circuitboard.



This is the general idea, running the jumpwire over the rollers, underneath the deck is a small spring, which will keep the jumpwire under tension.
Next step will be making the seperate plates which i discovered on Mark's pictures and some more which i dugged out of my archive.


Manfred.

[MFR1964]

Slowly i'm getting there, it's a lot of work all those hatches, the rear part is all cladded with the aluminum plating, i also discovered some mistakes which i have to change, pictures.



In the last post you could allready see the marking which i made for getting the right dimensions.



This took the most time, each set of plates had to cure a day before i could move to the next set, used some wooden clamps because the aluminum is easely damaged.



To keep the motivation high i do regular dryfits, this way i get the idea how the endresult will be.



I used some small hinges to get the rudder maintenance hatches functional, it also shows one of my mistakes, the hatches around the rollers are too small, have to make them bigger.



And the showpiece of my mistakes, i really need some glasses or bigger pictures, the hatches are way too big, i recounted them on a better picture, i have to devide them all in the middle to get the right amount, o boy i really love details.


Manfred.

[bassplayer1]

Oh boy!!! You are nuts!!!!

[MFR1964]

I agree, i've must be freaking mad to spent so long on this boat, and even when it's finished, it's starting again with breaking it down and adding more details, hmmm, i have to search for mental help, anybody????

The buggs are almost gone, so it's time to pick up the story from the past,





Some paint makes all the difference, still the old tower, and in front of the boat one of my first electric torpedo's.





Some pictures driving the boat in the wild, the tower is still a bit crummy, but at least i got the flag.







Got a invitation from some scuba divers to play around in their pool, rigged up some airbottles and took these by myself.



Still a bit annoyed about the tower i did a first try to build a more scale one, this one from styrene was a bummer, it gave me at least a idea how a scale tower could look.





With my second try i discovered that i was more a metal guy, made the new one with sheet copper, sorry for the blurry pictures, but those are the only one's i made using my old analog camera.


Manfred.

[MFR1964]

The struggle with details continues,



Since i had to remove all thingies from the rear end i had to make some new replacements.



Soldered the pieces together and used the dremel to finish it off.



Placed at it's proper location, in some versions there is a venthole present at this rearpiece, some boats have it, others not, so some more documentation has to be researched.



A dryfitt together with the main deck, i like the results sofar, a much better improvement.
The gaping hole is part of the valve for the trimming tanks, Von Hilde allready mentioned this correctly, they added a bar like grill to protect the valve.



Also gave the rudder maintenance hatches a stopper to prevent pushing them through the deck.
You can see the rudder mechanics through the open hatches, just like intended.



The first stage to get me the bar shaped grill, outlined the dimensions of the hole, and used some maskingtape to keep the copper rods at their places, by pressing down on both sides you flatten it even.



This was the tricky part, i had to bent the outer parts into the shape of the hole, and solder it in one attempt.



Reworked it with the little sandingdrum of my dremel, and dryfitted it several times to be sure before glueing it tight.

Last task will be, deviding the hatches into their proper sizes, so this means cutting them loose, and devide them into equal pieces, and glueing them tight yet again, god i love this hobby!!!!!


Manfred.

[MFR1964]

I drove the boat a lot of years without many details, at a certain moment you have to start with this, gathered enough experience by scratch building static models to take the jump.
Started with some eyecatching features, like the external tubing for the snorkelmast and the claw which holds the mast in the raisen position, adding the hohentwiel radar antenna brought the conningtower to live.
With the snorkelmast you can choose between the old school airconnection, like i did, or the late war version which has it's connection out of sight under the deck, less attractive i think.



Some of the railing had to be fixed, and i could start with building up the watertight ammo containers, adding the insolators on the rear antenna wires was also done.



Like the snorkelmast you have two choices which compass housing you want to build, i went for the Askania housing, there are plenty build type VII's with the dolphin nose housing, also added the insulators on the front antenna wire.

And also some news conceirning the present details,



A total view on the newly refurbished deck.



A close up from the deck, most work was, peeling off the plates, cut them in half and glue them back on, last stage will be the paintjob.


Manfred.

[MFR1964]

The rearpart is painted and i'll show some research pictures from the archives,



This one appeared from the archive because it showed the panels at the broken deck, it's actually the U 264, this number is getting as close as possible to my model, same gun array, has a snorkel, and the same antenna holders at the back, only drawback is, it's a type VII instead of a type VII/41, for now it will do untill i find a better match.



Done the paintjob by hand, it's not a sleeky airbrushed painted german sportscar, it has to look being used.



Another one from the archives, showing more details.



It's hard to get the same angle, but you get the idea, i'm pleased with the result sofar.



Next issue was, adding some extra floodholes near the rear nav light, found some new info.



Most of my parts you can take off, like the nav light, marked the new floodholes and started drilling, used a small flat file to get the shape right, still have to play around with some filler, when finished i've got to open up some more hatches which are not opened in the past, frankly no idea why.


So it's back to the shop, before the whip cracks.



Manfred.

[MFR1964]

Stored the XXIII safely away and working again on the type VII, made some more moving hatches on the deck, and started cutting open the conningtower for some additional hatches,



Strangly enough i left one of the hatches closed, no idea why, it was soldered tight on the deck, had to make this free first.



Added some tiny hinges and soldered them onto the hatch.



Soldered the hinges to the deck giving me yet again a moving hatch, did the same trick with the other hatches on the deck, the procedure is pretty much the same like this example.





Making these holes was a bit tricky, had to dremel them in my conningtower itself, just to be sure i made a copper template which allowed me to make the rough cut, used some small files to get the final shape.



Allready replaced the front hatch by a new one, it was a good testcase to winkle out the problems with those small hinges.



Outlined all three hatches, have to cut them to size and add the details and hinges, when finished i have to make two more, arrgh, i hate detailed pictures.


Manfred.

[MFR1964]

All hatches are finished, took some grey primer to cover up my work, next step will be, making the conningtower more used like she was before updating her, type XXIII here i come.


Manfred.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

You are amazing!

[MFR1964]

Since She Who Must be Obeyed is whipping my back with her honey-do list, work on the XXIII is on hold for at least a month, first have to fix all the things in and outside the house.
So i'll try to update the story about building the type VII, initially the work on the tower was done, last thing to do was, making the wooden deck inside the tower, since i'm not a wood guy, i decided to go ahead with styrene strips.



First stage, made a paper mold from the inside and started building the frame, which will supports all planks.



Cutted some styrene strips prior to the glueing.



The rest is pretty straight forward, got the even spaces between the planks by using some scrap pieces with the same thickness.



After a few evenings you got this, the rough version, took the mold for outlining this, and used a pair of siccors for cutting it to the right form.



Placed at both decks, it look good to me, and started to paint, then suddenly it hit me!!!, fool that i was!!!!, the width of the planks was wrong!!, i smacked myself against the head, 1-0 for Mr. Murphy.



At least i knew the second time how to do it, with the smaller width it looked far more scale.



The front deck was a bit different story, solved that by building it in two pieces, which i glued after being placed inside the tower, tricky, but it paid the effort.



Last picture building the decks, placed the Flak 38 at it's base on the rear wintergarden deck, now it was time to slap some paint to get me 'real' wooded planks.


Manfred.

[MFR1964]

Well, if you wonder where my slight disorder for hatches started, it all started with the hatch of my type VII, had to build one from scratch.



Never took that much pictures of building it, but the result was satisfying, it's possible to open it.



Those hatches where spring assisted, using a real spring would give some practical issues, making this of soldering wire gave it the look of a spring, but not the tension of a real spring.



Made also the hook, which will secure the hatch, just to prefent smashing your head at rough sea.



Placed inside the tower for a dryfitt, still had to tinker the peroscope protector.



Manfred.