Akula II

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  • HardRock
    Vice Admiral
    • Mar 2013
    • 1609

    Akula II

    This is an abridged build thread - because I am usually too impatient to stop and take photographs. This is one of Vladimir's Scale Ships Akula and it is a beauty. It comes with all kinds of goodies and is a joy to work on.

    PK. So it arrived and I went ballistic on its arse and by the time I got my head up it looked like this.

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    I started with a large bit of ply and glued some 120 grit sand paper to it. That allowed me to get a good fit between the upper and lower hull pieces. Then a bit of Dremeling and, vola, le "Z" cut was complete. The bow was filled and sanded and then it looked like this.

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    I ditched the (5mm) stern tube and shaft that came with the kit because it was HUGE and replaced it with a much more usable 4mm version with some really nice self lubricating bearings that came from Engel in Germany. Although the upper and lower hull halves went together quite well the profile of the rear extension was wrong and needed some quite aggressive sanding to get it looking right.

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    Fat - in all the wrong places.
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ID:	103252 And, finally the right shape.

    This photo also shows the bearings for the stern planes. The kit comes with very accurate appendages which are precisely drilled and therefore quite tight. The shafts are all 3mm and produced quite a bit of binding until I ran a 3.2mm bit thought them to loosen everything up. I did the laser alignment thing to get everything square, drilled the holes oversize and epoxied some bearings into the holes. Then made some simple bell cranks and hooked it all up like this.
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    I fixed the appendages with super glue and then drilled them to fix some 2mm rod for added strength. Seemed to work OK. The bell crank was initially designed to allow both upper and lower rudder to work in tandem without having to mate them way back in the stern tube but, it produced an unintended benefit by allowing me to lengthen the arm and get a (slight) torque advantage in the linkage. It also brought the end of the pushrods inline with the SD outputs.
  • HardRock
    Vice Admiral
    • Mar 2013
    • 1609

    #2
    There is so much detail on the kit that it seemed a shame to waste it. So I decided that some working bollards and capstans would be good, and a working rescue buoy, and working lights and working masts, and working crew and tiny, working seagulls ****ting on the working towed array etc etc. Carried away? Well yes, but why not give a go and see what happens. The first thing that happened was that all those vents, grills and grates had to be fitted. No mean feat and a quick look at the available photographs shows that all those little bits are quite obvious and not necessarily flush or "neat". So this happened:
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    Comment

    • HardRock
      Vice Admiral
      • Mar 2013
      • 1609

      #3
      The capstan and bollards presented an opportunity to improvise a bit so I made a simple lift system that raised them all when the boat was at normal free board and gently lowered them as she sank deeper. A squirt of high viscosity silicone oil slowed the transition down to a quite reasonable scale appearance. The mechanism looks like this:Click image for larger version

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      and the capstan and bollards look like this:
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      Comment

      • He Who Shall Not Be Named
        Moderator
        • Aug 2008
        • 12253

        #4
        You, sir, are a crazy-man! I love this ****!

        MORE!!!!

        M
        Who is John Galt?

        Comment

        • He Who Shall Not Be Named
          Moderator
          • Aug 2008
          • 12253

          #5
          OK, smart-guy ... I was just at the LED thread and saw your finished AKULA. How did you do the barnicles????? Must know, now!

          M
          Who is John Galt?

          Comment

          • HardRock
            Vice Admiral
            • Mar 2013
            • 1609

            #6
            Aye aye Sir. This kit comes with the most detailed set of dry transfers (and included a duplicate set by the way), a full sized set of plans and a colour painting guide. So I did the standard paint job and it looked like a Christmas cake! Too clean, too precise and way too unused. So I:
            1. Dry brushed it with deep charcoal pigment powder;
            2. Over sprayed the hull with an olive green mist;
            3. Dry brushed some deep grey and brown pigment over the upper hull; and
            4. Threw some sand at it.
            after which it looks like this:Click image for larger version

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            Comment

            • Peter W
              Captain
              • May 2011
              • 509

              #7
              Like it, very nice. Certainly better than mine is going to be. Have you got any close ups of the sail and the mast with the light. Also how did you replicate the SOKS sensor on the front of the sail.

              More pics please,

              Peter

              Comment

              • HardRock
                Vice Admiral
                • Mar 2013
                • 1609

                #8
                Next some sea (bath actually) trials to confirm that everything was working OK. The 3.5"SD from my Skipjack works a treat. Very little adjustment was necessary to get the boat sitting at neutral buoyancy with just the top of the sail right at the surface. It make a very satisfying slurp on surfacing as well. There was a small problem with trapped air in the bow so I made a small air letter outer and a cover that flops down over it.
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                • HardRock
                  Vice Admiral
                  • Mar 2013
                  • 1609

                  #9
                  A bit more grey dry brushing and some rust.Click image for larger version

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                  The sand is still raw and looks a bit odd but it gets better.
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                  Next came the green line and a bit of random colouring of the barnacles. Yellow, red, brown and a final skim of black.
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                  Next a bit of brown oil paint mixed in around the water line with the green and the rust followed by a final flat coat.

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                  One of the few things not included in the kit is a mast and light (anchor light?) that sit on top of the sail. After fiddling around I came up with this:
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                  At present the boat looks like this. A bit more to do on the hull, some radio masts and the doors for the masts. Unfortunately there was not enough room above the SD to allow for retracting masts which is disappointing.

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                  Comment

                  • HardRock
                    Vice Admiral
                    • Mar 2013
                    • 1609

                    #10
                    Originally posted by Peter W
                    Like it, very nice. Certainly better than mine is going to be. Have you got any close ups of the sail and the mast with the light. Also how did you replicate the SOKS sensor on the front of the sail.

                    More pics please,

                    Peter
                    Hi Peter,

                    The mast and light are pretty simple. I got a .8mm LED from a model train supply company and mounted it on a 1/16 alloy tube (couldn't get stainless steel unfortunately) and fixed a small clear plastic top over it. All done. Looks OK as well. The SOKS sensor on the sail was a lot easier than it looked at first. There is a small brass plate supplied that has the mounting holes predrilled. I just stuck it to the front of the sail and drilled .5mm holes through it into the sail. Then mounted .5mm brass rod in each hole, glued them and cut them off to the right length. Its not perfect but if does look reasonable.

                    Comment

                    • HardRock
                      Vice Admiral
                      • Mar 2013
                      • 1609

                      #11
                      Originally posted by He Who Shall Not Be Named
                      OK, smart-guy ... I was just at the LED thread and saw your finished AKULA. How did you do the barnicles????? Must know, now!

                      M
                      Sand, Your Worship. Its graded and dried and sold in art shops. The advantage is that the uniform size adds to the barnacle look. The grains are .5mm which should be about right for barnacles at 1/96 scale. Quite a few of the grains break off as well which adds a wonderful depth to the hull by exposing whatever was printed on first. There also some crushed pumice in there as well to give some body between the barnacles. A quick skim over them with a black wax crayon leaves tiny black spots on the top of each one that look just like a barnacle's gob.

                      Comment

                      • He Who Shall Not Be Named
                        Moderator
                        • Aug 2008
                        • 12253

                        #12
                        Originally posted by HardRock
                        Sand, Your Worship. Its graded and dried and sold in art shops. The advantage is that the uniform size adds to the barnacle look. The grains are .5mm which should be about right for barnacles at 1/96 scale. Quite a few of the grains break off as well which adds a wonderful depth to the hull by exposing whatever was printed on first. There also some crushed pumice in there as well to give some body between the barnacles. A quick skim over them with a black wax crayon leaves tiny black spots on the top of each one that look just like a barnacle's gob.
                        You've taken me back to school. Wonderful stuff, HardRock. Thanks.

                        M
                        Who is John Galt?

                        Comment

                        • trout
                          Admiral
                          • Jul 2011
                          • 3545

                          #13
                          The subtle colors and nice rust really comes together for the top half, but the icing on the cake is the lower half. The scum line is done very well and the barnicles (which at first I was not sure I liked) grew on me (pun intended). Now as I study it more, it is a great effect. Look forward to more photos and seeing it in water. Excellent work and inspiring!
                          If you can cut, drill, saw, hit things and swear a lot, you're well on the way to building a working model sub.

                          Comment

                          • small sub guy
                            Lieutenant, Junior Grade
                            • Dec 2009
                            • 45

                            #14
                            Originally posted by trout
                            The subtle colors and nice rust really comes together for the top half, but the icing on the cake is the lower half. The scum line is done very well and the barnicles (which at first I was not sure I liked) grew on me (pun intended). Now as I study it more, it is a great effect. Look forward to more photos and seeing it in water. Excellent work and inspiring!

                            So Trout, i am not the only one who thinks that Akula paint job is amazing.

                            Comment

                            • HardRock
                              Vice Admiral
                              • Mar 2013
                              • 1609

                              #15
                              Originally posted by He Who Shall Not Be Named
                              You've taken me back to school. Wonderful stuff, HardRock. Thanks.

                              M
                              Pot, this is kettle, over. Its all your fault actually. The colours on this thing were lifted directly from your 1/96 Skipjack (which is, not surprisingly) the best finished model that I have. I've seen lots of photographs of it and its sister ships on this site but they come no where near to showing the subtly of the paint job you did no that boat. Seeing it "in the flesh" was a revelation and an inspiration. I'm flattered that you like the Akula.

                              Comment

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