Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

[ManOwaR]

We’re at the biggest, most noticeable detail on the upper half of the boat if you don’t include the sail itself, and that is the fat line towed array fairing.
Here’s some background on this part of the sub. The Seawolf has two (that I know of) towed sonar arrays. First it has a skinny one, which is coiled with a winch and stored within a stern ballast tank. Second is the fat line. This one cannot be coiled and pretty much has to stored lengthwise along the boat. Storing it within the pressure hull is not an option because I assume there is a plausible way to seal this as its entering or exiting the hull. Basically the only solution for the stowage of these bad boys was along the outside of the pressure hull, hence the fairing that we see that runs along one side of attack submarines for the last few decades.
Again, there are many options available at my disposal to undertake this part (eg...skree, external extrusion, foam shaping..bla bla)In a nutshell, I chose to make cardboard profile shapes, glue them directly to the hull and fill between the profile shapes with filler.

First, my array is marked off with pencil and then tape





The profile shapes were created on my computer, printed out and then laminated to cereal box card board using super 77 glue



Then CA’d and grouted with baking soda.

Filled



Here’s a little custom shaped block sanding tool made from filler. When the sandpaper on the bottom gets dull I simply pull it off and apply a fresh peice with double sided tape used to adhere. For precision sanding I will add masking tape layers behind the sandpaper to tighten up the radius for a closer shave!









I had a slight droop at one point of the array. To fix, i added filler to the top of the array and applied lots pressure with my custom block on the bottom of the array. This straightened things out nicely!

[ManOwaR]

It was obvious that my cardboard pieces were not going give a good finish after a couple shots of primer, so I dug them out with my Dremel and filled with Evercoat. Now my fairing is made from one material and won’t pose any scribing problems later.







Minor scratch filling:





With a fairly nice finish on the fairing I could now scribe in the panel lines. As far as finish is concerned I didn’t completely blend the part into the hull. Where it joins the hull, I built up tape layers so that the edge of the fairing ends abruptly, but in a subtle way so as to so that the panel is indeed removable.







Here, work has commenced on the surface water line...the other major scribe on the top half.

[ManOwaR]

To give the final user an easy way to install the 6 tie off (permanent) cleats on the back of the boat here’s what I did:
Mark out and drill holes where the cleats located. I used the first drill bit I could grab from the tool chest

I took styrene strips and glued appropriate sized rectangular shaped styrene stubs to it, ensuring that depth and spacing was correct




The holes were filled, and the strips with the stubs pointing down were placed into the filler and taped steady to the hull









Now it time to put the halves together and make sure all the points that are supposed to match up actually do and work on correcting all the many imperfections:

[ManOwaR]

Here's one I missed posting...I'm having brain pain today

(cont.)










Yay! It worked! I guess when you play with the bull you know you are bound to get the horns, and that’s what happened here. By knowing my future self (in relation to the past)and that I would find screwed up locations in advance (that were done in the past) I figured out a solution in advance, thus putting me a step ahead of the game when the ‘real time screw up’ came! I would have given myself a pat on the back right now in the present but I didn’t need to because I already did in the past. HA! I think right now spending too much time away from human contact...

Here’s the machining of the hatch shapes. For the machinable material I chose to use some of this ****py old hard-to-sand filler that I have kicking around. Basically I just filled up a toilet paper tube with the stuff and put it into the pressure pot while curing to reduce the pinholes.

Once cured (and cooled down) I threw the Bondo rod into the chuck and machined away. Nothing really more to elaborate on really:









To install these little wafers I left a little round material on the bottom, dead center drilled out the equivalent hole on the top of the hull. This gave me proper length-wise positioning that wouldn’t move one way or another. To position the hatches so that their flat surfaces were exactly perpendicular to the center line of the hull when looking from the front or the back, I used to two squares; on resting on the perpendicular parting board and the other resting on the first square. This second square was held against the hatch surface with full contact until the glue cured. After initial adherence was achieved the gaps between the bottom of the hatches and the gently rounding hull were filled with CA and grouted with baking powder.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Just ...

... *** Wow!

No, kidding, please consider pulling this whole thing together into a book. At one time Traplet was interested in just this sort of thing. How about it, Joel?

David,

[ManOwaR]

I'm in, David! Where do we start?

Joel

[Slats]

I'd buy a copy.
J

[Kazzer]

.............. an almost finished piece that only needs a dunk in Sodium Chloride (NaOH) aka Draino ...........

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5840[/ATTACH]

Surely not sodium chloride?

Do you mean Sodium Hydroxide?

[Slats]

Surely not sodium chloride?

Do you mean Sodium Hydroxide?

Yes he does Mike as he quoted NaOH.

[ManOwaR]

yep...I was wrong

[ManOwaR]

There's a bunch of nice pictures of where the hull is at and few other things on the Facebook/HMKcreations page. One more round of imperfection hunting and the hull should be ready for sealing and then off to the mould factory!

[Slats]

There's a bunch of nice pictures of where the hull is at and few other things on the Facebook/HMKcreations page. One more round of imperfection hunting and the hull should be ready for sealing and then off to the mould factory!

and when you visit this page if you feel the need for a cold shower, or perhaps a long hot one with the misses, this is perfectly normal.
-Joel's work creates feelings that people don't understand.

That aside, any ideas Joel and others on colours for Seawolf? The photos I have seen of her upon roll out show a black dome, a greyish grimy black upper hull, and a greenish grimy grey colour down below. Any advice? I take it the many photos we see on the net of the little Trumpter Wolf with red down below and black up top is not correct?

[ManOwaR]

Hi John,
From what I understand, that half red oxide scheme was indeed used, but only at launch and then up to, and this is only my guess, the closest drydocking period to when the Virginia would have been commisioned. So, to paint your boat in this scheme would not be wrong, but it would have to be "Seawolf-circa luanching" or something like that. But, for a number of years now the colour has been all black. This could be because the rubber itself is black and does not need further painting, and then after applied and cured, they might add an additional treatment to that rubber below the waterline thereby giving us that drydocked demarcation line that is so well disputed all over the net.

With all that being said, my proto-type and beauty model to used for promotional pictures will represent the Seawolf as it currently stands, in all black. I use automotive paints and the only colours I have are black and white and these are mixed accordingly to give me the shade of grey that I want. What I'm thinking of doing here is to go with a very dark grey mix for the entire hull. Below the water line I will clear coat with a pure flat and above with a satin. The non skid strip will be pure black with a pure flat finish. This could change and probably will once I actually start painting her. I am not going to heavily weather this model but I might do a white wash to bring out hatch and other details, something like what Dave did with a Skipjack awhile ago

[Slats]

Hi John,
From what I understand, that half red oxide scheme was indeed used, but only at launch and then up to, and this is only my guess, the closest drydocking period to when the Virginia would have been commisioned. So, to paint your boat in this scheme would not be wrong, but it would have to be "Seawolf-circa luanching" or something like that. But, for a number of years now the colour has been all black. This could be because the rubber itself is black and does not need further painting, and then after applied and cured, they might add an additional treatment to that rubber below the waterline thereby giving us that drydocked demarcation line that is so well disputed all over the net.

With all that being said, my proto-type and beauty model to used for promotional pictures will represent the Seawolf as it currently stands, in all black. I use automotive paints and the only colours I have are black and white and these are mixed accordingly to give me the shade of grey that I want. What I'm thinking of doing here is to go with a very dark grey mix for the entire hull. Below the water line I will clear coat with a pure flat and above with a satin. The non skid strip will be pure black with a pure flat finish. This could change and probably will once I actually start painting her. I am not going to heavily weather this model but I might do a white wash to bring out hatch and other details, something like what Dave did with a Skipjack awhile ago

Thank Joel, sound good.
J

[ManOwaR]

There's a ton of new pics showing mast and rack work here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...47922521922927