I have struggled to find the time to do any work on the submarine over the last couple of weeks, but finally I managed to spend a couple of hours on it last night.
Firstly I found that I had had a bit of a catastrophe. The lip of the conning tower had received a bash somewhere and a piece had broken off (and broken into two pieces). This is probably the most fragile resin part of the kit, as it is less than a millimetre thick, in fact it is so thin it is translucent! Being right on the top of the model this was going to be difficult to fix without leaving a visible repair. I tentatively approached it with a little superglue and a pair of tweezers. I managed to get the two pieces back in place and fitting almost perfectly. I did need to file the lip down a little. I am going to knife some putty into the cracks a and give it a light sanding down, but I think I got off very lightly with this one...
So, moving on to the the actual build. I tackled the deck ans hatch on the conning tower next.
Made up of only four, flat, parts this bit was straightforward.
Once this was in place it was time to add the brass filigree "hand rail/control console". This sits nicely on two little resin lugs.
After easing my self into this session with some of the simpler brass bits it was time to move on to the larger and more complex pieces. Firstly I assembled the main (upper) deck.
Still relatively straight forward, it was simply a matter of gluing the three deck plates to the under-deck support, then bending up the hand rails and bending down the supports.
Before I attached the upper deck I decided it was important get the lower deck in place, as this one seems to have a more defined location. This piece is best assembled in conjunction with the ram plate (for want of a better description - I am not a nautical type so I don't know if it has a more correct term) at the front. In this photo I have already glues the two halves of the ram plate together.
Before gluing any of these pieces in place it was important to make sure that the groove in the resin hull, for the ram plate, was clear. I took a fine saw blade and ran it up and down the groove, several times. Then I checked to make sure the plate sat in the groove well, and once I was happy with it I glued under part of the fore deck. I was quite surprised when noticed that most of the cut out sections of this piece would be hidden underneath the actual deck!
The deck is probably the most complicated brass part of this kit. Before gluing the deck in place I had to fold up the railings on both sides and also fold the stairs into place, I wasn't quite sure how to do the stairs, but I muddled through and, with a little room for tweaking, it all seemed to go together very well.
At this point I also glued the ram plate into it's groove.
Now it was time to tackle the upper deck. This has to locate between the conning tower and the stairs from the lower deck. There is a little room for adjustment, but generally it sits in place very easily and ties the whole thing together.
Once the upper deck was glued in, I adjusted the stairs so that the lined up well with the upper deck and also bent and glued the deck supports in place...
I am very happy with this session and I hope to do some more very soon. As the kit comes together I am starting to plan the paint job. I have quite decided where I am going with it, but as I become more and more familiar with the details of the kit, various ideas are starting to take shape...
