Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

[ADDINGTON]

Joel,
Im not a facebooker so havent seen any recent pictures of your 21 serial number 000. Probably best to keep it under wraps. Then you wont have to bother with having someone stand watch at a front window during your party so they can tell you when that black Chevy Suburban pulls up and guys with suits and earplugs talking into their wrists start fanning out around your house.
Haha-just a little cold war humor !
-Kerry

[ManOwaR]

Hull number 001 on display in hot rod black primer for tonight. She's held together with hot melt and took a few hours to slap together. In the back is a cardboard mock up PJ giving everyone a general idea of how the boat is going to look. I'm keeping the rear z cone off so people can see the mechanics of how the planes in the stern actually work. She's big! as you can see she takes up my whole counter top



Joel

[bassplayer1]

Looks really good Joel!!!

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

What a wonderful job, you've done on this project, Joel. I'm still finishing up the tooling on the PJ -- very sorry about the delay.

You are today's #1 r/c sub kit manufacturer in my book. For whatever that's worth.

David,

[ADDINGTON]

What an achievement. Please favor us with more pics when convenient?
Continued congratulations and deep bows,
Kerry

[ManOwaR]

Thanks very much guys. Your comments are deeply appreciated. Kerry, I have to do some camera shopping as my old Olympus finally bit the dust (fiberglass dust) and am regulated to using my inconvenient video cam for these noticably low quality pictures. I'll get some more up when I get it. Any recommendations on cameras guys?

[spankey]

For something cheap, the Nikon Coolpix is a good bet. I think its something like 12 or 14 megapixels now for like $90 USD...

[ADDINGTON]

Joel,
I am a motion-picture guy and no expert on still photography or digital cameras.
One piece you might want to investigate is the new Kodak Playsport. It retails for about 180, but it shoots full 1080p HD video AND 5 megapixel HD stills. Waterproof to 10 feet.
-Kerry

http://store.kodak.com/store/ekconsus/search/&keywords=playsport?cm_mmc=Google_MarketForce-_-Store-_-Video%20Camera%20-%20Playsport%20General-_-kodak%20playsport

[Slats]

Joel has just dispatched my SW hull no. 002 - happier than a pig in poo.
J:biggrin:

[RapidNadion]

So wonderful to see the 21-class done up properly. It's easy to forget, working on 688- and 774- models, how beamy Seawolf is!

Beautiful work, Joel.

[ManOwaR]

:) my goal is to have the manual mostly finished this Christmas, so I'll post for you guys some pictures of the assembled beast

[ManOwaR]

So wonderful to see the 21-class done up properly. It's easy to forget, working on 688- and 774- models, how beamy Seawolf is!

Beautiful work, Joel.

I checked out your videos on your site btw...very professional documentary style production!

[RapidNadion]

Thanks very much! We're trying to continually improve our offerings, so maybe someday we'll have a Seawolf of our own featured on the channel page.

[Slats]

Its arrived - its beautiful -I was initially speechless.

Build thread coming gents - could not take my hands of it this weekend - the wife and kids are jealous.
I must have spent 2 hours just looking at the parts and having a a few quiet beers.

I am prepared to call this right now as IMHO:
-possibly the world's best modern era submarine kit

Why?
The exceptional level of:
-craftsmanship
-inclusiveness of parts
-engineering approach taken to make end user assembly as simple as possible
-included detail
-research that has contributed to scale fidelity
-quality finish of parts
-value for money
-vendor backing the product
-vendor delivering what he said he would.

To me the 1/72 Seawolf has the right kit DNA as Joel simply has the right the stuff.
The icing on the cake is a Merriman crafted and included pumpjet.

This kit comes as a follow-up product to Joel's early success stories - Permit and Jack.
I have purchased and built both, except I converted the Jack hull to an early Sturgeon with the help of my own parts. Suffice to say I am very familiar with Joel's work thus far, and it won't surprise people to learn I purchased my Seawolf in full what seems like 2 years back. The quality was obvious to me then as it is now. Jim Russell and I have purchased this year, (in full) whilst its all but a plan on paper, the first 2 production hull kits of the Astute class which I believe will a further rise in quality and value. Joel like David Merriman is a pioneering craftsman - always pushing the frontier in techniques and manufacturing. I for one, want to be at the front end of the line of full paying customers for quality like this.

For anyone buying this remarkable 1/72 Seawolf kit - you are buying something very special. Couple it with a Merriman / Caswell 3.5 Subdriver and their Torpedo kit and you will have something that is far beyond various excellent sub kits.

Oh - and another thing - the serial numbers in the upper and lower hulls are not only a nice touch and fitting this kit, they also communicate to me the care given to each of these handcrafted beauties.

Time for a cold shower and sleep.

Best

John

[Albion]

sounds good, can't wait for Astute!