Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

[ManOwaR]

I'll kick off this forum by submitting my work-in-progress 1/72 Seawolf...

Name: Joel Stadnick, part time model maker, full time instrumentation technician/engineer with a construction background. Married and have two crazy little boys (4 and 6)
Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Pond to Patrol: Arbour Lake, a small private neighbourhood lake that our friends let us use. It has crystal clear water and has several docks and piers that I can hang out on when controlling my boat. We also fish for rainbows, and play pond hockey on it in the winter
Model Manufacturer: Me - HMK Creations
Scale of Model: 1/72
Type of Ballast System: To be designed around the new D&E 3.5 twin drive, single output Subdriver
A brief description of the project so far: The basic hull shape is completed, turned from Renshape modeling board. The plans are to design and build a highly detailed boat that will incorporate some nice extras not normally seen with RC sub kits.

Hopefully you guys like it,
Joel

[ManOwaR]

Hello everyone
The project: SSN 21 USS Seawolf – built in 1/72. This is exciting for me as I have worked on nothing save the Permit class boats for long last while. Lots of lessons have been learned, lots of knowledge and new skills have been acquired from that last build. It will be good to have a new modeling subject!



Why did chose the Seawolf for my next build? A couple of reasons I guess. To my knowledge no one has built a 1/72 Seawolf, which means it has to be made. Second, I love the Permit boats with their sleek lines and all that, but the Seawolf is in my opinion the unrivaled king of the sea when it comes to deep water dominance. Finally, it will have presence. This will be big, as it will come in at over 5’ long and almost 7” wide there will be no missing this boat when surfaced on the local pond, it will have a wide stature that can only be recognized as of itself, the Seawolf!
I view those boats to be more in the spirit of an underwater battleship than simply an attack submarine. They were made to dominate the front line of battle to deal with the enemy’s greatest seafaring threats and multiple targets at a time. The Seawolf is not only fast, it is extremely quiet with its pump jet propulsor. The threats in which the Seawolf were designed to counter disappeared after the cold war, and the American navy opted to build a cheaper , and in my opinion as well as a few others’, a less capable submarine in combat roles in the form of the Virginia class.
The plan here is to start relatively slow on this build. I will be building the odd thing here and there for it as finishing the last phases of mould building for the Jack and Permit kits allows. Between those kits subsequent production for customers and summer holidays, I predict going full steam on the Seawolf sometime in August. I plan on spending a fraction of the time that I did with the Permits as hopefully I’ll have to do everything only twice compared to 4 or 5 times over…LOL! The Permits ate up most of the high learning curve time required to complete such an endeavor. I will base this build loosely upon the Deep Sea Design prints, but they are old and new revelations have been discovered on this behemoth and what makes it tick. This will be good; there are a few changes and some rather large surprises as far as detailing this monster.
The scope of work:
· Build hull plug mould from white pine
· Appendage and most other masters to be made from white pine
· Build sail and hull moulds using epoxy FRP
· All other moulds to made from RTV rubber
· Build an FRP insert for Jimmy Carter Conversion
· Other than these preceding points, it’s all up in the air. I’m not going to kid myself that plans will change or better ideas will come along. We’ll play the wind, just like in golf
There she is in all her glory, white pine boards lying on garage floor ready to worked and shaped into a model of one of the most powerful weapons ever made at the hands of mankind. Hopefully you all will enjoy following along in its progress as I will in building it





Regards,
Joel

[ManOwaR]

…And we’re off!
To get started here we’re going to go whittling the hull out first. The material used to machine the basic hull shape is not wood, but Renshape prototyping tooling board. A nice man happened to donate a bunch of the stuff for me to try out. When I asked why, he simply replied “wood is dumb”. So, I have a whole lot extra white pine planed down for gluing, but chances are I will never get around to using it for this purpose…The Renshape was just too good not to use again.
Here are the Renshape planks clamped down to the bench and waiting for the glue to dry:



The corners sliced off the blocks so there is a little less material to remove. I might be able to use this extra cutoff stuff somewhere down the line.



I clamped my plans to a 4 x 8 sheet of particleboard. I can move it around when needed and it has a hard backing for markups. I clamped a straightedge along the bottom line so I could use a square for easy referencing. Notice that this boat will be big. No ifs, andsor buts!



When machining, I liked to do one section at a time usually the width of my tool rest. I also started by doing the parallel body parts first (by parts, I mean I had to split the hull in two because of lathe capacity). I would transfer measurements directly from the drawings using calipers. To get the depth of each section line I would use a parting chisel. To remove excess material I used a gouge. To remove finer amounts I used the round nosed chisel.



Once very close to where I wanted to be, I would hold a long strip of 220 grit sandpaper with two hands over the work with the lathe on slow, and move it along, back and forth until I was happy with the results. I must say I have never used material as nice to work with than this urethane foam model board!


Stern half to come,
Joel

[ManOwaR]

Hull Part 2

Alright on with further progress,
The bow shape is fixed, the general shape of the hull is good and measurements have been retaken several times for confirmation. It’s time to glue her together.



Here’s a comparison against the bottom half of the Permit; This truly is a monstrosity!



Glued together using epoxy and aligned using electrical strut (cantress) and ratchet straps to hold it all tight together. Putting that all together was fun; sometimes I wished I had three hands.


Pump jet installation groove:


This thing practically takes up my whole bench. Funny, in that this plug is twice the size of the Permit’s but weighs about half as much as that mdf plug.



Regards,
Joel

[ManOwaR]

Trumpeter Seawolf vs HMK Seawolf




Regards,
Joel

[ManOwaR]

Hull Part 3a

Here is where I stand today with Wolfie:
Last night I sanded down the primer coat using a block sander. This gave me depth perception for eying all the dings, grooves and imperfections (low spots) I have on the surface because of its darker color in contract to the lighter filler underneath it. Later, when finding the finer imperfections I will spray cheap black spray paint on top of the grey primer...more on this later though.
After sanding the primer down I used a plastic Bondo spreader and coated the whole hull with red Evercoat glaze, paying particular attention to make sure the low spots were filled out. When dry, almost the entire glaze coat was sanded down, leaving just a few red spots here and there. I don’t want to see a lot of red left on there because that is not the purpose of this product. Its use is to fill minor imperfections like low spots and scratches. Pretty boring stuff for you guys to read, but essential nonetheless to get a good finish.
Notice the front excess material has been cut off now and the bow tip has been shaped out. The rear material will be cut off later because it is nice to have for rolling the plug around on the bench;


A heavy coat of primer applied; this time it will be staying on I will work on top of it now fixing up the small stuff.


Regards,
Joel

[Slats]

Holy cow this good.

J

[ManOwaR]

Ok Basic hull shape is done, now we have to start working on the small stuff that will help my cause later in the game. This plug has to have an absolute flawless finish to be able to advance to the next step: intermediate half mould. The first step to acquiring this “class A” mirror finish is to sniff out all of the low spots in the hull, and we’re not talking moon craters here, we’re talking about imperfections that you can see in certain types of lighting from certain angles.
I did a light coat of black spray paint over top of my grey primer coat. I used the cheap stuff because it gets sanded off anyway, but I almost regret using this garbage even for this task. It takes a long time to dry, and when it does it plugs up sandpaper like that was its sole mission in it life. Once dry this paint coat is lightly block sanded, and in doing so we get these miraculous black spots left over. These are the low spots we need to get rid of. I’ll fill these with red putty, let dry, block sand, prime in grey and repeat this “black paint low spot hunting” routine until I find no more low spots...voilla! The first step to the Class A finish is done.



Regards,
Joel

[Slats]

Joel,
do you find any of the automotive spray putty products useful in plug construction?. I tend to use it quite a bit in conjunction with primer sprays on target hulls. I have had mixed success - on the one hand it does iron out minor imperfections and sand well, but I find it takes ages to dry. It tends to feel touch dry very fast, but in some cases the dry external touch masks the fact it has not dried throughout.
J

[Kazzer]

Joel,
do you find any of the automotive spray putty products useful in plug construction?. I tend to use it quite a bit in conjunction with primer sprays on target hulls. I have had mixed success - on the one hand it does iron out minor imperfections and sand well, but I find it takes ages to dry. It tends to feel touch dry very fast, but in some cases the dry external touch masks the fact it has not dried throughout.
J

Many centuries ago, I used to use these filler primers to spray cars, (real ones not models) and I found that it was really easy to spray a good thick coat on, thinking it would fill and smooth. However, it could take several days to completely dry and the slightest touch would leave mark. I found that cutting the paint with lacquer thinner and spraying several VERY THIN coats allowed the solvent to evaporate out quicker and overall it cut the drying time considerably. But you probably knew all that so I'll shut up now!

[Subculture]

You ought to seek out twin pack filler primers, they dry using a catalyst reaction as opposed to solvent evaporation and harden vary quickly and with minimal shrinkage.

You should spray these with an air fed mask, as they ten to contain isocyanates but it's possible to roller them on (assuming you are trying to get a good thick coat to cut back) if you don't have access to one of these.

[Slats]

Thanks Mike and Andy, very good technical points and I have learnt something from both of you - in short Mike no - did not know that - thanks
Sorry to derail the topic thread a bit Joel.

Thanks
John

[ManOwaR]

Thanks Mike and Andy, very good technical points and I have learnt something from both of you - in short Mike no - did not know that - thanks
Sorry to derail the topic thread a bit Joel.

Thanks
John

Absolutely no problem at all guys. I really do welcome the tech talk in my builds, I find that lots of good new ideas happen to pop because of it.

Joel

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I too appreciate the free-flow of good sound ideas, sparked by a thread topic. Here, unlike other forums, we work to keep the idiots out so the threads don't get turned into useless gab-fests, and fist-fights. Mike and Outrider (Jim) are always at the ready to squash anyone who gets out of line. As a result, this board gets only a few consistent posters -- but posters of exceptional quality; the abilities ... DEMONSTRATED abilities ... of these guys are the best I've seen on the Internet.

Instead of constantly blasting out text and **** to show how big one's **** is (and I'm guilty of this, from time to time), much of the discussion here actually result in usable knowledge being offered by our posters.

After spending decades getting my ass tossed off other bulletin boards, I've finally found a home. And I think most guys here will agree.

Post away, Joel, John, and the rest of you homeless bums.

Sorry, Joel. I'll shut-up now.

David,

[Kazzer]

Instead of constantly blasting out text and **** to show how big one's **** is (and I'm guilty of this, from time to time), ..........

After spending decades getting my ass tossed off other bulletin boards, I've finally found a home. And I think most guys here will agree.

Post away, Joel, John, and the rest of you homeless bums.


David,

Charming - just charming! He doesn't change folks! Why me, Oh Lor' - why me? Pink Panties for Merriman - again!