First a Toast to all those brave souls that stormed the beaches to keep us free.
Now back to The Enemy Below. Last time I said I would get back to the DE, but I was captured by the build of the U-Boat so I just went full tilt and finished it. After all it is the enemy BELOW.
Back to the potential diorama. The conning tower has been added.
Painting begins with a dark gray slate mix for the deck. The instructions for the kit are very good in description and even mix proportions for the various shades of gray used. I followed closely except for the black wash seen later to highlight hull detail fore and aft.
This shows the black wash and the install of the conning tower platforms and kit platform weapons.
Customization begins as PE parts are added to the guns from left overs from the DE build.
Unfortunately the kit supplied platform railings are too thick, but you can't have everything. The single customization that I had to do was the addition of the forward deck gun - the "88". While many of these were removed in 1943 from Atlantic U-Boats, the movie sub has this gun. When comparing photos of U-Boat types it appears that the movie model is a type B (no lower conning platform of gun, but it has the 88 gun forward of the conning tower). My kit is a later type C. So I have a hybrid U-Boat - so be it
The stern gear was fiddly consisting of 8 parts applied and painted in strict order!
Not sure why I include this photo as it shows the macro crudeness of the model parts, but it does highlight the PE parts added to the guns.
The display base is not attached but it is a nice force fit on the keel that makes work on the model much easier. Also some painting detail can be seen, as well as the snorkel in the down position to right of the deck gun. The model display shows all parts upright, but in the diorama with the sub just coming to the surface after running on batteries it does not make sense to have the snorkel raised (used for running the diesel motors while the sub is partially submerged).
PE railings are used from the Tom's Model which helps the scale of the model in total. It also is needed to have railing forward at the forward deck gun.
More paint detail and showing the forward dive planes installed (an easy single piece installation). The black wash shows up well. The forward cable is also installed (I pin drilled and glued mono filament, then tied and glued at the conning tower.
The kit has the stern tie offs (which I broke snipping off the sprue. I end up with two legs instead of three - Oooops!). The kit box artwork shows the wires, so I added them. It was a fairly easy tie and glue procedure. Just tie, glue, wait to dry then snip off the leftover tails.
Bow shot starboard.
Over all. Note that I do have the periscope in the up position, which conflicts with my rational for putting the snorkel in the down position. I may alter this later in the diorama, whenever I get that figured out. Hey, I just realized that during the building of this U-Boat, not once did I end up on my knees searching for little bits that flew off my tweezers!! A First for me.
Potential.
Okay, now I have to get back to the USS England/Haynes. More later.
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