1/72nd Revell Gato Wolfpack

[PaulC]

Video? You so crazy!

Planes look good BTW.

[salmon]

Wow! Great work Jeff! You are just knocking it out of the park!

[jefftytoo]

Hi guys! (And thanks for the compliments above, Paul and Tom C.!)

Been working a lot on Harder but progress is agonizingly slow.

Some successes:

1) You know that roughly t-shaped under-keel piece which holds on the stern planes? Following Merriman’s video advice, I cut it in half to sever the lower prop shaft bearing struts so they could be attached separately. Then I took that piece and split it in half longitudinally, so each of the two struts could be worked with individually on their separate stern hull halves (so much easier than trying to finalize everything later once the stern halves are already joined). The kerf from the saw blade cuts bothered me though, so using CA gel, I filled in and sanded/shaped-to-match the missing kerf material. Now these parts will retain a no-gap seam when fully assembled. Neat!




2) Worked and worked with the stern plane and rudder pieces so all fit well and moved effortlessly when nesting fully in place. This took ages, especially for the aftermarket rudder, which wasn’t a matched fit to the kit part without significant modification. Here’s a stern planes fitting-in-progress shot which also shows the hull cutouts for the forthcoming prop shafts.



(I see the forum is still occasionally rotating my iPhone photos in weird directions. *sigh*)

3) Installation of the prop shafts was problematic on multiple levels. Practical alignment of the two shaft bearings on each side was tricky, involving a lot of trial and error and additional reaming of all separate bearing parts to ultimately achieve non-binding spinning of the shafts within them. This was very time-consuming too.

Then, once fully and permanently installed I found to my horror that the final positioning of the props showed them significantly out of alignment—not symmetrical to one another, that is. I just couldn’t live with this, so bit the bullet and ripped out both starboard bearings (which, per reference material, seemed of the lesser scale position) and started over to better permanent effect. Now the props themselves looked correct, thank goodness, and still spin freely, but upon further inspection I noticed that the hull-penetrating elongated bearing on the port side was much farther proud of the hull than the one on the starboard side (which I had just “successfully” redone!). Not wanting another difficult total do-over, I settled on cutting off the rounded end of a spare Merriman resin shaft bearing from my parts stash and hogging out its interior so it would fit like a cap over the existing bearing’s rounded end—thus lengthening it the correct amount to match the bearing on the boat’s opposite side. Worked like a charm! Faired in the joint with two-part epoxy putty and sanded it smooth. As you can see from the photo, once painted you’ll never notice a difference. A relief!



4) Fairing in the prop shaft bearings with two-part putty at the hull joint also destroyed nearby weld lines, of course, so I replaced them, then also reworked the shape of the large, Harder-specific flood holes over the stern tube nest for better accuracy and to more closely match one another.



5) Scribed in a large panel on the stern that I found in a Harder reference photo. Didn’t turn out great, but right along with some of my prior efforts, a not-great panel is better than no panel at all. Used the label tape scribing method preferred by Tom Kisler (helps keep the scribe lines straighter than softer tapes).



6) I cut and shaped some tiny oval welded cover plates from thin styrene and glued them to the stern on both sides to match those shown in the Harder photo below. Didn’t realize till I had them in place but it turns out these are the plates which cover the holes where the boat’s propeller guards were attached while she was in port.







More tomorrow,
Jeff

[salmon]

Excellent detail work. You do really great work!

[jefftytoo]

Thanks, Tom. Unfortunately my reach far exceeds my grasp—though it’s always fun to at least try, custom detail-wise. Have plans for many more Harder-specific modifications for this boat...

[salmon]

I really look forward to seeing this in person!

[jefftytoo]

Tom, I’ll be hiring far more talented hands than my own to help. WTC installation (Big Dave’s): Steve. Paint job: Lars. It’s another group project so it’s gonna take awhile. And I have SUCH a long way to go on the build itself!

[jefftytoo]

I’ve now assembled the entire stern section—with control rods connected—and affixed the two halves with a few tiny drops of CA gel to tack them while gluing the rest of the joint with silicone aquarium sealant (RTV). I employed two of the kit’s styrene positioning pins too, glued only to single opposite sides. All this should hold things together firmly enough for patrol operations, I believe, while also offering internal access via X-Acto-blading the seam and popping the halves apart should I ever need to get inside for serious repairs or adjustments. Silicone holds on the piece which captures the stern planes and rudder too—for similar repair access—because I’m just not comfortable adding screws and have indeed heard one isn’t really necessary here.

Gave the whole thing another shot of primer and was surprised to find a significant gap along the top of stern joint after earlier flat-sanded test fits showed a tight seam there. Oh well; I’ve already started the process of attacking it with some acrylic putty. Anyway, here’s how Harder’s stern stands now.

https://youtu.be/6A-x-hYvX7E

Next up: scratch-building forward gun platform main deck extensions. (Yikes!)

Later,
Jeff

[PaulC]

Really looks great, Jeff! I'm officially in third place now I think as far as progress goes.

I must confess I'm a little uncomfortable with the your RTV plans. There's a lot of vibration through the prop shafts, etc. It could be fine. But I'd hate to see a joint fail while on war patrol.

[jefftytoo]

Your point is well taken, bub, but I think there’s still enough CA to hold the halves together. I guess eventual extensive dunks in the test tank will afford a good chance to fully check out things before war patrolling. If I lose my nerve, a screw upgrade wouldn’t be much trouble. P.S. I’ve got a lot of faith in the staying power of RTV: pulling out stuff RTV’d inside of Blueback took superhuman effort!

Oh, and you’re still ahead of me in this group endeavor—but I’m starting to come up on the outside!

Jeff

[wlambing]

Ha! I've got you all beat as the professional 1/72 Gato laggard!! Haven't touched mine in about 2 years!!!! So there!!!!!!! B^P

[jefftytoo]

Time to join in the fun, sir!

[eckloss]

I've got you beat, Bill. My thread stalled in 2010. It still sits in its unfinished state.

[steveneill]

I just posted and it did take.

[steveneill]

That did. My Gato is still running. Great boat been running for years.

great.