Revell Gato 1/72 scale build

[salmon]

Revell's 1/72 scale Gato submarine has been one of my favorite subs to run. I would not say it is a beginners submarine, but it was my first sub to complete. I have documented my build and will recreate it here.
Here is the completed sub:


I may skip some of my ideas I tried, but will let you know what it was and why I ended up not using it. My goal was (and is) to complete the submarine. I will share my mistakes and successes, we learn from both. If I am not clear on something, please ask.

So with that let me begin by opening the box.


What an impressive model!
The blue resin castings (upper left) are the Gato D&E Fittings Package which currently is not available, but you do not need it to build this sub.
First impressions of the Gato: Big, not too big, but decent. There are a lot of nice touches and details. Included are your mission papers with a code to see Charles Stewart share some his experiences aboard the USS Cobia in WWII.


The amount of detail LOOKS good and for the most part relatively accurate. Compare the edge of the bow on the left to the flood ports. They thinned it out for me!
Nice touch.


Time to get clipping. I trimmed the sprue trees to remove major parts, protect the delicate ones and group into areas of building. That way I am not hunting for parts as much.
There are a bunch of pins for bow, hull, and stern alignment. I put these in a 35mm film canister.



Speaking of delicate, look at this railing. Nice detail.

[salmon]

Created a tent to protect it. Tempted to build this in brass. Some I will and build in brass and some is not necessary (for me at least). Just a note, there are many ways to build this sub. I am showing my way. If you like it use it, if not do not use it LOL


This radar reflector looks O.K. from the front......

but from the side or back it is too thick. I chose not to detail this out.The next sub I will. For the most part, I tried not to do too much or follow any rabbit holes. You will see it is hard for me. However, my motto was to complete this sub and that helped me to realign my build when I wanted to stray too much.


A majority of the larger pieces were easy to identify, but the bulkheads were too close in shape and to prevent a mistake, I placed the part numbers on them. Once installed a coat of paint on the inside will cover the writing.



Trimming the parts took some time, the more delicate items were left on the sprue, but trimmed to group by like kind.
Speaking of sprues, I keep several just in case I need to plug a hole or using heat from a candle, stretch a sprue out to create an antennae or railing.
Time to watch one or two of the DVDs and see what might be the next step. The bow is aching to have the doors cut out for D&E torpedoes....Would it make sense to cut them out now and worry about purchasing them later? I would assume it is easier to remove now before the halves are put together, but have Dremel and blade, nothing can stop me from hacking at it later :-)


Watched the first DVD and there is a lot of great information and tips packed into it. Bob (https://www.rc-submarine.com) sells the Gato DVD set.

[sam reichart]

Tom-
FYI -
the attachment links in your post from this morning give an invalid attachment message.

[salmon]

I am not sure the issue. I see them right now and they seem to upload, but something is not working........
Any suggestions?

[sam reichart]

I see ‘em now.
Ghost in the machine.

[salmon]

O.K. I will keep posting, please let me know if it happens again!

The hull comes bound together with cardboard divider.

The pieces seem to be well protected.

With wire twist ties keeping the hulls tight together.


The two hull pieces had a very small bow. It is not concerning because we will be bonding these two together.

[salmon]

The hull halves are glued together with a cohesive glue, I use Plastruct Bondene or Plastic Weld


Both work and I do not know that I have a preference.
Normally I wash my plastic parts in warm sudsy soap. When I was building this, I did not see anyone mentioning it and it was over a decade or two ago that I did models. So, I thought maybe things have changed. Still I prepared the edges by sanding.


The sander I am using here is something I learned to make when I was a jeweler. I make it from a paint stick (like the kind Home Depot or Lowes hand out when you buy paint - look for the thicker one). I find it is one of my top 10 tools because it is so versatile. You can make several in different grades of sand paper from course to fine. When the paper wears out, you peel off a layer.
Here is how I built it:
Things needed, sandpaper, stirring stick, stapler that opens up, and a sharp point (scratch awl works). You can use any sandpaper, but I find 3M wet/dry works great. Lay the sandpaper face down. You are going to use the whole sheet. Line up the stirring stick with the short edge of the sandpaper.


With the edge aligned use the awl (or whatever will score the paper without cutting through) and run down the side of the stick close to it. All you are doing is scoring the paper not trying to cut through.


With the stick and the sandpaper roll the stick on its edge and score again.


Then roll it again and score


Do this until you do not have enough to fold over. What ever edge of the stick that is, put staples in. A lot of staplers open and you will need to use one for securing the sandpaper to the stick.


Now score the sandpaper so that you can tear off the extra.


Save that little strip, it can be used and will be used in the build.

finally you should have this!

[salmon]

Back to building.
The pins that I cut off the sprue and put in a film container are now going to be used. Place some cohesive glue in the holes and put a pin in it.

When you join the two halves together, you will put some cohesive glue on the pin and the hole. Use masking or painters tape to hold the hulls together tight.


Now in-between the tape, place glue along the seam. Just do not get it under the tape. Let the hull dry overnight. When you remove the tape, put glue in the seam that was under the tape.

[salmon]

The next step is to mark and cut the super structure that is underneath the deck and dreaded hull separation.
I have seen two camps. One cuts along the waterline and another cuts just under the deck.
Here are a couple of examples:
Waterline: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SSDLLYrg-o

Under the deck: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1135331

here is another under the deck (different sub, Type VII): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r27INRGIYhE

The final straw for me was Erich von Kloss. He had a facebook posting of photos (which was taken down, but is now up again) on his build of the Gato. H did an under the deck style. I was sold.

I plan to put in the D&E Sub-Driver for the Gato.

Small detour....darn those rabbits.
Those torpedo doors were itching to get cut out and without thinking it through, I cut away. It began simple enough. The blades are 6/0 jewelers blades which has a thickness of .019”. I have small drill bits and selected .021” size. This would give me the thickness needed to put the blade in and if I carefully put two holes next to each other that would cover the width.





Then I realized (DUH) there is not much room in there to make hinges and allow the front of the doors to swing in. And I might be able to do something, but do I have months of playing to see if it can be done? The simple answer is no. Remember goal #1 finish the sub and if that fails goal #2 finish the sub. So, I cut some small strips of styrene and attached the doors back and told myself, it looks more realistic this way (trying to put a good spin on it).

I mentioned in a prior post that I keep the strips of sanding paper that I trim off the sanding sticks. Those strips make excellent power tool sanders. Take an old broken burr or a piece of rod the diameter that will fit in your drill. You can just roll the sanding paper on the shank tightly then use 5 minute epoxy and sparingly place it on the end of the rolled sandpaper. The epoxy does not get super hard and brittle, but will give enough and disintegrate as the paper wears off. Also like the stick, you can peel a layer off to get to some fresh sandpaper. I do not normally use Super Glue or CA. It will get hard and shatter off. That being said, for these holes I did use CA to adhere the sandpaper and glue the end. Since I was using it immediately, the glue does not get super brittle. The nice thing about this little tool is you can adjust the diameter by using fewer wraps of sandpaper.


While I was working on the bow, I went forward with enlarging the lower hole, above where the bow plan pivots (green arrows), so the actuator that will raise the bow planes can move. The port half shows the before and the starboard half shows the after. I am not clear if that oval will suffice or if it needs to be larger still. If it will need to be larger, that will not be hard to do.


I went ahead and bonded the two halves together with a cohesive glue. Now it is time to mark and cut the super structure that is underneath the deck and hull separation.

[salmon]

Once the glue has dried, top of bow is marked for cutting and using a cutting disk began putting cuts in the deck. Plastic melts quickly, so be careful.


Done cutting out the sections. A little more clean up and it should be done.


Working on the Stern. Cleaned up the inside and cut out area to allow the stern dive plane to move. I glued two pins in one side and allowed that to dry. Doing this allowed me to put the two stern halves together easier and test fit the dive planes easier. Also, as I made room for the dive plane arm to move, I seemed to come at a point were the arm would not go any further forward or backward and was being blocked. I soon realized I needed to taper the raised edge where the arm enters the stern at the point in a V shape.


To get the D&E fittings to work I have to narrow the dive plane bearings. When you look at the picture you can see the bottom half of the bearing was trimmed down to fit the stern dive planes. The skag/propeller strut part needed about 1/32” on each side to be trimmed off to match the other half.


After trimming the skag/propeller struts to match it then was a matter of trimming the actual planes to accommodate the skag as I moved the planes up and down. Certain areas would rub and you could feel and see the bind. I just gently trimmed back areas that would rub against the hull/skag. Try again and trim. Repeating the process until it moved smoothly.



Just some brief updates, I created this crayon drawing to explain the angling if the walls where the stern plane arm enters the hull.

Hope that helps.

The video is filled with tips. I highly recommend it. One tip that I did not apply was putting the liquid glue in a base or holder. So, when I reached for a bit, I tipped the bottle over and got glue on parts of the stern. One area was were my index finger was gripping the two halves of the stern. I now have my finger print embossed in a portion of the stern. Grrrr!


The rudder is being worked on now. I will have pictures later. Not feeling so confident in drilling the rudder by hand, I will get it set up in a vise and use a drill press.

[sam reichart]

A really nice build article here, Tom.

[salmon]

Thank you Sam! I really appreciate the kind words.

[salmon]

So I tried to use a drill press, but things went terribly wrong. Why? I left the drill in the plastic too long and things melted.


I like working in plastic because you can do so much with it, including fixing big mistakes like this.

In hindsight, perhaps I should have just put the 1/8” collet on the original shank and been happy (will not put stern torpedoes in, but ya’ never know). I am learning and this is fun.
First tried to use CA and baking powder to fix the melted shaft, but was not pleased with the results. So I stretched some sprues (Glad I saved some) and welded them into the holes with liquid cohesive.




I pulled a couple of different sizes to fit in. Soaked them real good with liquid glue to allow some gooey melted plastic to fill some gaps. Stuffed them in and mashed it to really get some plastic slush moving around.

I set it aside to give it time to dry.

Today I went ahead and chucked up the 1/16” drill bit in my drill and proceeded to manually bore out a new hole with short and slow steps. Eventually it went through, slightly off center, I am a happy man.
The great news is it worked. I pushed the 1/16” through, connected all the parts, and tested out the range of motion. Looks good to me.



The only issue I had was some rubbing of the rudder against the skag/propeller support. I threaded up the jewelers saw and ran the blade between the two about four times to get a clean, unobstructed swing.

[salmon]

Hack into the hull.
I taped the bow and stern on and placed the deck on the superstructure. I let my son draw around the hull where the deck intersects. This will give me the no cut zone. Anything out past this line will be seen. I removed the deck and began to plot out what I was going to cut out and where. In doing the marking out I noticed a couple of things The front where the pegs are, the superstructure does not even touch the deck and the ones that do touch the superstructure have an arch in them (I do not know what that will mean - I just said I noticed it).


Using a Dremel type tool that resembles a mini circular saw blade, I began to cut the hull. One section at a time. There was a song that came to mind...... “The first cut is the deepest” It kept playing in my head the whole night.


And so it begins..."Baby I know" darn that song....


This is fun! I LIKE cutting out stuff.
After hacking away, there was a lot of superstructure removed.




Erich von Kloss used garolite bulkheads instead of plastic. I like the idea,
Since I decided I am not going to cut my hull in half, I need to reinforce the bulkheads. I purchased garolite and used parts 183 and 184 as a template.



In all the excitement, I thought I took some pictures of the pattern and the cut out garolite bulkheads. Sorry to say, I forgot (just imagine the most perfect bulkheads you ever saw). I followed David’s direction (dvd) on the distance from the hull bottom to place the wtc. I opened the top up of the garolite bulkheads so the wtc can be dropped in. Garolite is a strong material, but cuts and sands well. Note: Not sure about this stuff so wear a mask to protect from the dust. I placed the garolite bulkheads in the appropriate locations, then placed the original plastic ones next to the garolite ones on the wider side of the hull. I squeezed the hull together to match the garolite and plastic bulkhead as a measuring stick so to speak. I could see if the hull needed to be compressed more if the plastic had large gaps showing. Then I taped the hull in the compressed position. After triple checking the fit and made sure all my alignment lines followed the hull lines, I began adhering the hull to the bulkhead with CA. First at the bottom and then in steps top middle, and then finally all spots in-between. After getting one side of the garolite one done (the side opposite of the plastic one), I removed the plastic bulkheads and CA’d the flip side of the garolite bulkheads.


Now I am off to clean up the butchering I did to the hull and make it look pretty. Maybe get crazy and cut away the cross members that I think I do not need. Then back to the stern to install the drive shafts and back to the bow to install the front planes. I have an idea for the deck on how to glue them together especially since I am removing some of the cross members that would normally support the deck, but I will play first before I let you know. What I can share is, I plan to use the pins that Erich does to help secure the deck and the clips and stern piece that David does to secure the deck.

[salmon]

Just an insert here. I cut out the cross braces for most of the boat.


However, even before cutting out the cross bars, I cut out 163 g = 5.74965 oz (at minimum) which is equivalent to about 2.5 cubic inches of ballast tank that will not be needed. This gives me just an extra amount of lift that I can use with weight and float to make a better metacentric height or just have if needed. The more you can shave off the above waterline, the better in my opinion.