Scratch-built 1/96 Oscar II

[Guest]

fantastic work mate

It has inspired

fantastic work mate

It has inspired me to stop sitting about and start building

well done.

best regards

adam

[gerwalk]

I was asking me the

I was asking me the same question about the hull flood holes. The Zvedzda model have the holes marked more or less in the same possition as the plans you have Kevin. I don´t know if there are more holes on the flat surface but what Mauro said is reasonable.

[KevinMC]

Mauro- You make a very

Mauro- You make a very good point about the valves on the bottom side of the ballast tanks of Russian submarines, but this may also be all the more reason not to have any further vents on the flat bottom of the hull. I would imagine from a serviceability and service life standpoint, it would make sense to make every effort to keep these valves from seeing any of the muck that may be picked up when sitting on the bottom. (The counter argument to this of course is that without any further vents on the flat bottom, the hull could be more prone to "sticking" to the bottom like a rubber boot in a muddy baseball diamond?) While on the subject, does anyone know exactly what a Russian Kingston valve looks like?

One thought I'd had is perhaps the bottom side of the ballast tank vents to the inside of the easy case. This would certainly provide a path for the ballast water to escape from the tank while protecting the Kingston valves from foreign material while sitting on the bottom?

Timothy- Thanks for jumping in and YES! I'd definitely like to hear back about what you find on the bottom of your OSCAR. I will most definitely be doing a kit run when I'm done. Send me an email and I'll add you to my list.

Adam- I'm proud to inspire!

Pablo- Good to hear from you again! While another coroborating reference is always good to have, I'm leery of using the Zvedzda model as an authoritative reference for anything below the waterline- Despite its Russian origin, and reputedly being well detailed topside, you just have to question what references were used to generate a model with a single ventral fin where the prototype unmisakably has two...

[KevinMC]

I have a couple more

I have a couple more photos to add for today. I've completed putting down the (top-side) ballast tank vents (little squares in photos below) and recessed features for what I believe to be recessed or retractable cleats. (T-shaped features in photos below.) The assymmetry of the vents seems really odd to me, but like with the size of the torpedo tube doors, you can't argue with a photo...

Bow


Just behind the towed radio buoy bay


Aft end


That's it for adding little tape masks to the hull, now that there's over 300 of them! Almost every mask represents where a hole will have to be drilled in the completed hull. Tonight I'll be adding "latch detail" to the bottom side of the Granit doors, and I'll finally 'get round' to marking the torpedo tube doors.

[adriaticsea]

Hi Kevin,

thanks for the "good

Hi Kevin,

thanks for the "good point", but your arguments also are reasonable, so there is really the need for definitive below the waterline plans. In any case, if I were you I'd leave the flat very bottom of the 949A without holes...one could always decide to open them in a second moment, when more documentation"surfaces".
You are really an ispiration for those whishing to build an hull, and in particular the techniques to add the surface detailsl are fantastic.
What photo references did you use? I'm interested by the Project 667BDRM, the DELTA IV, and, while I go ahead with the building of the WTC fir my first RC sub, a 1/96 Permit, I'm collecting information on this big and very interesting Russian SSBN.
Thanks in advance!
BEST REGARDS MAURO

[gerwalk]

Pablo- Good to hear from

Pablo- Good to hear from you again! While another coroborating reference is always good to have, I'm leery of using the Zvedzda model as an authoritative reference for anything below the waterline- Despite its Russian origin, and reputedly being well detailed topside, you just have to question what references were used to generate a model with a single ventral fin where the prototype unmisakably has two...

[color=#000000]I was lurking in the dark... actually I had nothing to say but to repeat]http://www.subcommittee.com/forum/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Yes, the Zvedzda kit is not a good reference from below the waterline. I started the construction of that model yesterday. I think that the information available is more than enough to make a decent model at 1/350 scale. But it wont hurt to have more details on the holes!

BTW]

[KevinMC]

Mauro- I definitely agree that

Mauro- I definitely agree that it would be much easier to open up additional detail holes later if incorrect ones didn't have to be covered up first. As far as my references are concerened, you're reading one of them! There have been a number of guys on the board here that have been particularly helpful in offering up photos to get me going on this project. (I hope you guys will not mind me dropping names here, but Wayne Frey and Steve Reichmuth please stand and be recognized. ) My other main reference is the web- It's amazing what you can find with persistence and Google! Delta IV ican be difficult to come by as it's still considered a front-line ship, but in my opinion that just makes ferretting out the info all that much more fun. If you do take it on, please be vocal about it- I'm sure there will be much interest!

Pablo- I too have noticed that Revell has an OSCAR in 1/350. I don't know if there is any connection to the Zvedzda kit, but I'm tempted to find out...

[KevinMC]

First set of photos- I

First set of photos- I did some panel line tweaking on Friday night. When I initially layed down the panel lines for the Granit doors I (deliberately) omitted the “catches” that hold the doors closed. I wanted to leave this detail until I could make up a jig to precisely mark the “catch” locations in the same place on each door.



Cut from sheet styrene, the jig was taped in place on the side of the hull lined up on the center of the Granit door.



Short pieces of Chartpak were carefully placed along the inside edges of the jig to mark the vertical components, but I refrained from taping the horizontal bits just yet. These were done all in one step with a single piece of tape once all the verticals were placed. I did this to ensure that all the horizontal components would be exactly the same distance down from the base of the door.



Now, just trim all the extra tape away and the doors are complete.

[KevinMC]

I think it is the

I think it is the plight of all modelers to have some marathon building sessions where very little seems to be accomplished, contrasted by “quickies” where the completion of some seemingly trivial detail brings enormous satisfaction. This weekend I definitely experienced the latter. The task of significance in this case was (finally) marking the torpedo tube doors. Although I have a whole lot of photos, and much description to go along with it, actually cutting the tube doors took a relatively short amount of time.

In basic geometric constructs, a torpedo tube door is a circular aperture projected onto a spherical surface at an oblique angle. In English (‘cause that last sentence was a mouthful!) it’s an elliptically shaped opening that when seen from dead front-on appears perfectly circular. It occurred to me then that to draw this shape on my hull I needed some kind of compass that was free to slide along the axis of rotation. Then I realized that I could accomplish this with an adaptation of a tool I saw on a build page by David Merriman. (I must give credit where credit is most definitely due... See photos 31/32 on the Hatching the Alligator build page for where I got my idea from...)

Before leaving work on Friday I slipped in to the machine shop at work and hogged out the pieces I would need to build my “torpedo tube door cutting jig”. I started with the shaft that the tool would spin about. It’s nothing more than 1/8” music wire, but since I was planning to constrain one end with a small hole in the sub’s hull, I turned down the end to 1/16”. (Go figure that I’d cringe at the thought of drilling a temporary 1/8” hole in my master!)



Next I started on the blade holder which is an assembly of three pieces. The first piece is a block that rides on the shaft and fixes the distance between the cutting blade and the center of rotation. (Captured in the initial stages in the photo below.)



One of the design features of this block is that the bore for the shaft does not run down the block’s center- it’s offset by about 0.005” so that it can be used to cut two concentric circles about the same center. This will be accomplished by using one face of the block to set the radius of the first cut, then flipping the block over and cutting a second circle with a slightly (0.010”) smaller radius.

The remaining two pieces are for holding the cutting blade. Here’s the completed set of pieces, all laid out.



And assembled…



The completed assembly yields a blade that is free to rotate about the shaft, free to slide along said shaft, all the while being held at a precise distance from the center of the shaft. (This photo was actually taken out of order, but I realized after I was done that none of my in-process shots showed how the other end of the shaft was supported.)





Edited By KevinMc on 1137422406

[KevinMC]

Now, let’s get to work!

Now, let’s get to work! A 1/16” hole is drilled in the hull at the center of the torpedo tube door. (Sob!) I’ll be using electrical tape for my masking material again, so a piece of it is placed on the hull where the door will be cut. Next the tool is brought into place with tip of the shaft constrained by the hole in the hull.



Carefully rotate the tool about the shaft while using light pressure to hold the blade against the tape. After several passes, the tape is cleanly cut through. Remove the blade holder from the centering block, flip the block around 180deg, reassemble and repeat. Now carefully remove the waste tape from around the outside of the tube door.



And remove the material from the center of the door, leaving the masked tube door.



Remember, all this effort is so that when viewed from the front, the door appears circular. (Don’t worry Wayne, I haven’t forgotten about the flatted sides!)



Now repeat the process for the remaining doors.




Now referring to the front view of the OSCAR in floating drydock (posted previously), we can also observe that the tube doors have flatted sides. (And just to keep life interesting, no two doors have parallel flats.) So, using the Chartpak tape we’ll put those flats in as well.



The upper doors have a more irregular shape and will require more tape and a slightly smaller radius of cut, but are generally cut using the same process. The last step is to put a dab of filler in the holes drilled for the cutter, and we’re all done.



One last shot. Take a good look now, ‘cause you won’t ever want to see this view again. (Or it will be followed by “Snap shot tubes 1 and 2!”…)



Now it’s off to the spray booth for some high-build primer!



Edited By KevinMc on 1137421236

[Antoine]

The more I watch your

The more I watch your pictures and I read your comments, the more I am convinced this hull will be a masterpiece !

Antoine (number 3 on the list )

[gerwalk]

Pablo- I too have noticed

Pablo- I too have noticed that Revell has an OSCAR in 1/350. I don't know if there is any connection to the Zvedzda kit, but I'm tempted to find out...

Kevin]http://www.hlj.com/product/REV05022[/url]

[KevinMC]

Antoine- Masterpiece? I'll let the

Antoine- Masterpiece? I'll let the community be the judge of that. In the mean time I'll just keep "pulling out all the stops" I can.

Pablo- I'm not surprised it's a re-issue. Although I could find no formal reviews that confirmed it, the few construction photos I did find looked awefully similar.

[novagator]

WOW! she is becoming a

WOW! she is becoming a beauty queen!

[elec_tech]

I must say that out

I must say that out of the three build threads going on right now Kevin, there's no contest, yours takes best in show by a landslide!!!

Great work!
Dan



Edited By elec_tech on 1137789371