Ernie's Comfy Corner....Back to Building

[Dukemaddog]

Excellent post Ernie! This beastie is looking great!Looks like you're close to getting done.

I know how it is trying to find bench time lately. Thanks God for Hobby Days or I wouldn't get anything done! LOL!

[JED]

Great work Ernie

[Ernie]

Thank you guys!

One fun sub deserves another, so I grabbed this 1/350 Afv Club German Type XXIII submarine....



Actually, I bought this kit on a whim, and it turns out it appears to be a reissue of the old DML kit from the 1990's. However, that is not too bad as the DML kit is pretty decent. One of the decal options is for the U-2513, which was surrendered at the end of WW II, and went on to serve with the U.S. Navy until it was sunk off the Florida keys in the 1950's. However, what made it more interesting for me was that in the summer of 1945 when it sailed across the Atlantic its first stop in the U.S. was at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard where it was given a through survey and repairs made. At some point while in service with the navy the anti aircraft turrets on the sail were removed. Now, when I bought this kit I did not know it was the old DML kit, which I built when it was first released, so, since I had unwittingly bought it again, I bit the bullet and just built it.
There are not many in progress photos as I worked on this before or after work as time permitted literally a few minutes here and there. The kit goes together quite nicely with the exception of the torpedo door inserts which require a bit of filling and sanding to get them squared away. For paint I went with Model Master RAL 7016, Anthracite Grey below the waterline, and RAL 7000 Dark grey above (which obviously, it is not that dark). This was given some highlighting with RAL 7001 Light Grey, all of which are Kriegsmarine colors documented as being used on U-Boats.

[JCON]

Very cool indeed!!!

[Ernie]

After a coat of gloss the kit decals were applied, of the six decals I used, four broke apart and had to be reassembled in place on the model. I sealed the decals in with another coat of gloss and added some weathering using Mig Ammo and AK washes and panel liners.



The weathering was kept light and mostly just dirt and grime type effects as the sub was launched in September of 1944 and only made a couple of training cruises, no war patrols, and spent most of its time tied up in port in Norway. I added some rust stains to the bow and stern areas where it was likely the sub was bumped by other small utility boats while tied up, and also around the deck bollards where the mooring lines would wear away at the paint. The aerials, snorkel, and periscopes were used as they came in the kit and were the last parts added. The life belts on the sides of the sail were painted with a dark red color; these were only mounted there when the boat was in port, and many times not even then. A nice layer of Testors Dullcoat and that was that!

And so here she is, the USS U-2513 as she appeared in August 1945 after sailing from Scotland across the Atlantic and arriving at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. She was also the second U.S. submarine to carry a sitting U.S. President while submerged! She was eventually sunk by anti ship rockets off the coast of Florida and is accessible by experienced divers using multi-gas diving rigs.

[JCON]

I hate when decals break but you did a great job saving them and got a wonderful finish on this!!! Job well done indeed!!!

[Ernie]

Sept 14, 2019 11:19:52 GMT -6 JCON said:

I hate when decals break but you did a great job saving them and got a wonderful finish on this!!! Job well done indeed!!!

Thank you Joe!

[BUCKY]

A fine looking sinker!! Top Shelf work!!

[Ernie]

Sept 14, 2019 12:55:14 GMT -6 BUCKY said:

A fine looking sinker!! Top Shelf work!!

Thank you Sir, appreciate it!

[Ernie]

So, while being on a submarine building kick, I got and started this little guy. There are not a lot of kits of French submarines around so I though this would be a cool addition. This is the original issue of the Heller kit (not that I planned that) that was issued in 1979, hard to believe this kit is 40 years old! Of course it is in Heller's standard ship kit scale of 1/400.





This was a conventional diesel electric sub, and until a couple were lost to accidents were exported by the French to South Africa, Pakistan, and I believe Spain. The kit comes with two different bow sections depicting two different sonar fits. I went with the early option as I liked the blueish black color with red lettering on the sail. Yep... the decision was that simple...."hey, I like dat one!" and so that is what I went with. The kit went together pretty well, but did lack some detail on the deck, I added some detail with a piece of strip styrene, stretched sprue for the bits and bollards, and using a scribing template added the fore and aft deck hatches, as well as some access hatches over the aft torpedo tubes and steering gear. I also filled in the door on the port side of the sail, as the door was only located on the starboard side.



It took a couple of itineration's of fill / sand / prime to get everything smoothed out, but eventually got there.



One final shot of Tamiya Surface Primer got every thing ready for paint.

[BUCKY]

Talk about being on a roll!! Keep 'em comin', bro!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Wow! Crankin!

[JCON]

Very nice!!!

[Ernie]

Thanks guys, appreciate the comments.

Anyway, almost done. Photos and written descriptions indicate that early in their service these subs did have a definite blue tint to their black color, I mixed some Tamiya gloss blue and semi-gloss black until it took on a slight shift toward the blue, though very slight. After a coat of this mix and a shot of gloss it was ready for the decals.



I was a little concerned about how the 40 year old decals would work, so I brushed a coat of Micro Scale Decal Liquid Film over the decal sheet before using them. I was quite happy to find that the decals worked perfectly after that! Their color density was very good and they settled down onto the model very well. I drilled holes in the aft deck for the aerial wires that run from the deck to the sail and added those with EZ Line rigging thread. The wooden floats were added to the lines with Micro Scale Krystal Kleer colored with light brown acrylic craft paint. The French flag decal was added to a stretched sprue jackstay that was in turn added to a hole drilled in the aft deck. A light wash of dark grey helped to highlight the deck details and a final coat of Model Master Dull Coat finished everything off. The final detail was a small name plate that I printed up for the base, which I added tonight so I could call this one done! Completed photos will hopefully be taken tomorrow.

[Ernie]

So, still rollin with subs, this is hopefully the next to be finished.....



This is the old Aurora Russian Guided missile Submarine. Aurora's interpretation of the Soviet Golf class submarine that carried three nuclear missiles. While this kit was originally issued in the mid 1960's it is a poor example of a Golf class sub, but considering what was know about these subs at the time it is interesting to see Aurora's take on it. This is purely a nostalgia build. This kit is somewhat hard to find and I was very fortunate that a friend of mine gave this copy of it. While a lot of work would be expended to make this historically accurate I plan to paint just like the box art, and even include a piece of the box on the base with the finished kit. It will be right from the box with a couple additions to the sail in the form of some scratch built antennas and periscopes etc. and that is about it. I even plan to use the kit supplied display stand as well.



Since there are less than 20 parts in the kit, assembly is quite quick. About an afternoons worth of time was spent putting the biggest pieces together and adding a dollop of putty to the seams that needed that. The display stand was also cleaned up and assembled so the sub would have a resting place as I worked on it.

[JCON]

Very cool sir!!!

[Ernie]

Sept 16, 2019 20:08:23 GMT -6 JCON said:

Very cool sir!!!

Thank you! Should be a fun little project.

[Ernie]

So, calling the Heller 1/400 scale S/M Daphne finished.

[MARCO]

Looks very good Ernie! An almost black submarine. Nice!

[JCON]

Wicked cool indeed!!!