Scratch-built 1/96 Oscar II

[Guest]

i started off reading this

i started off reading this thinking, wow thats what im going to do, but the little touches are just leaving me open mouthed, very impressive i couldn't do what your doing.

[anonymous]

Bull twinkle! I bet you

Bull twinkle! I bet you can. It's all laid out here for you. Give it a shot! If you need any help you have my email.

Kevin,

Man it's nice to see somone else do all this hard work for a change. But don't worry I'll be back at it soon!

Excellent. Perfect. You may proceed. LOL!!

Steve

[KevinMC]

John/Dan- Thanks guys, I'm honoured

John/Dan- Thanks guys, I'm honoured to have such a following.

Albion- As Steve says, it's all layed out here. Give it a go and you may surprise yourself. As I've indicated before this is my first sub build and I'm learning plenty as I go. (Although I have been a jet-head for coming up on 15 years.) I'm also happy to further elabourate on anything I've done- leave a post or drop me an email anytime.

Steve- Thanks man, you cast a big shadow. I can't wait to see what you're on to next. 571?

[KevinMC]

Okay, another weekend down and

Okay, another weekend down and some decent work to show for it. I've completed the primer application on the hull with a "Scratch filler primer" product purchased at Canadian Tire. (My apologies to my American firends, but I'm not aware of a WALMART equivalent for this. If anyone does know of one please speak up...) Back to the primer, this suff is a high-build variety so as the name implies it builds up pretty quickly. The idea here is to lay down the primer to the same thickness as the panel-line tape, then once dry just sand it all down to the level of the tape. Unfortunately it can be a bit difficult to judge the thickness of the applied primer since the primer builds up on top of the tape at the same rate as the rest of the hull. (I just took a "best guess" as to what's the right amount.) Here's what the hull looked like when I got done with the primer, and a couple of closeups of the bow (torpedo room loading hatch) and the lower easy-case flood vents.







As it turns out I got a bit overzealous with the primer. Once I bagan sanding the first thing that happend was all the "bumps" that indicated where the pieces of tape were disappeared, but no tape appeared underneath! After much further (and careful) sanding, however, my bits of tape began to reappear again. The next set of photos show the results of my initial sanding with 220 grit (dry) followed by a round of 400-grit wet sanding.

[KevinMC]

In the continuing theme of

In the continuing theme of putting my mistakes on display (in the hopes that they won't be repeated!) I ran into a noteworthy issue in the course of sanding. After I began wetsanding the hull a spot (naturally right on the top) began to swell up. It wasn't so bad that it could be readily seen, but I could easily feel it with the tips of my fingers. Remember that balsa I used to mark how much I had to "build up" the hull after I discovering the flaw in my drawings? Well, it would seem that said balsa was a little bit too close to the surface after sanding the light glass cloth that was layed down on top of it. When I began to wet sand some of the water must have been absorbed by the balsa causing it to swell. Nothing to do now but break out the Dremel (sob!) and grind away the resulting blemish. Fortunately a bit of filler and another shot of primer the spot was all cleaned up. A note I wish to make here is that the take-away is not "do not use balsa as a construction material", but definitely when using balsa to be sure that it's well sealed under glass before wet sanding.



Finally, I got 'round to adding some of the more prominent raised features on the hull- the escape hatches. The front hatch is just in front of the sail offset to port. The aft hatch is found immediately in front of the upper vertical fin. I've constructed both of these from 0.015" G-10, built up with a bit of Icing, and filleted in with a bit red auto putty.









Next step- build a new sail, ventral fins, bowplanes ('cause the ones I have aren't right) and reactor cooling scoopes.

[adriaticsea]

Hi Kevin,

just fantastic work, and

Hi Kevin,

just fantastic work, and very, very useful for beginners. I have a couple of questions regarding some hull-making fundamentals (something I HAVE to understand if I ever want to make a decent hull master).

1.Once you cut the foam cross sections and glue them up, how do you establish precise "datum" or reference lines (in this case the lines that divide the hull lenghtwise on the x and y planes).
2.Once you got the reference lines done, how do you accurately transfer the measurements from the plans to the hull? I know by experience that is QUITE difficult to take measurements on a curved hull...
3. When you start sanding the foam hull sections, how do you prevent sanding too much or too little and how do you tell the hull is in exact shape? Do you use cardboard templates?
Thanks in advance for the help, I really want ot learn how to scratch build a good, accurate submarine hull.
BEST REGARDS MAURO

[gerwalk]

Talking about cooling scoopes]

[color=#000000]Talking about cooling scoopes]

[KevinMC]

Mauro- I'll answer point by

[color=#000000]Mauro- I'll answer point by point]

[adriaticsea]

Hi Kevin,

thanks very much for

Hi Kevin,

thanks very much for the answers, they're all very well written and absolutely clear to me. I understood everything, and I'm going to try out some of the techniques on my Permit hull just to make some experience.
I'm seriously considering the 667BDRM Delta IV build, although at the moment I'm simply collecting photo reference material from the web, and will have to wait this summer (and the completion of my very first rc submarine, the 1/96 ThorDesign Permit!). I have my Maturity exams this year at school so the first part of the summer will be VERY busy with that. But I'd really like to build a model of a beautiful and interesting submarine such as a Delta IV.
I'm following your thread with great interest, it's like a excellent textbook "How to scratch build a submarine hull".
BEST REGARDS MAURO

[KevinMC]

Mauro- I'm glad you're finding

Mauro- I'm glad you're finding it informative. I will consider it a great honour to see ideas presented here being used to build even greater creations in another build thread.

Perhaps I should append my tag line to include the title of "Vilnius Nastavnek" as some have suggested I'm becoming the schoolmaster for building Russian hulls...

[tmsmalley]

Kevin - once you're done

Kevin - once you're done I hope you will consider putting this together as a SubCommittee Report article. This is outstanding work - not only the craftsmanship but also the for the instructional value.
Bravo Zulu!
Tim

[anonymous]

Kevin! You rock!!!! That's showing

Kevin! You rock!!!! That's showing them!!

Steve

[KevinMC]

Tim- Will do! Remind me

[color=#000000]Tim- Will do! Remind me when I'm done and I'll be happy to put something together.

Mauro- Further to the previous discussion, although I've never taken much interest before for it's extreme "brutish" look, I'm fast coming to the opinion that DELTA IV is must have as a 1/96 scale ship. Definitely a worthy undertaking. (Read into that]

[adriaticsea]

Hi Kevin,

Kevin?! Sorry for the

Hi Kevin,

Kevin?! Sorry for the mistake, I was meaning Capitain Marko Ramius...hey, where did you leave your Red October?
I really think you are teaching us in the one of the best possible ways how to scratch build a hull, and everything, from the tecniques down to the mistakes (yeas, they also) is extremely useful to have accurate models of russian submarines with their particular hydrodynamic profiles.
Thanks again and keep posting the progress!!!
BES REGARDS MAURO

[KevinMC]

Mauro- Here the photo I

Mauro- Here the photo I promised of the finger gage. (This is actually the "old" hull, before I discovered the issues with my drawings.) One thing that's very nice about these things is that you can quickly set the contour, then flip them around to check for left-to-right symmetry.



I started making some progress on the new sail last night. Not a great deal to see yet, but here's what I have. Below is the 1/16" plywood base with paper template 3M77'd onto it.



The rest of the structure will be built up from balsa. Here I'm gluing the various blocks together. Some of the pieces have been put together with CA, others with carpenters glue. Why use carpenter's glue you ask? Simple, it sands much more cleanly than CA impregnated balsa so I've used it for any seams where I expect to do any significant shaping.