Many know the story of the capture of the U-505 and it's journey to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, plus it's total refurbishment and placement in it's own unique indoor display. It was restored close to operating condition in 2019 and as such is the only Type IXC museum U- Boat in existence.
Here is the U-505 just after capture on June 4, 1944. So this is a modeling blog - let's get to it!
There is not much of a story here other than my brother Bob had this very rough model of unknown (neither of us could recall it) origin. It is over 14 inches in length making it a scale of approximately 1:200. The bulky and non-detailed look caused me pause on how I could make something out of this and was it worth the effort?
Missing dive plane arms (note the poorly defined molded-in anchor).
More missing pieces of the stern gear, plus poor excuse for propellers. Ok, let's get CUTTING.
Snip, snip. No more railings or guns!
No more submarine net cutter - the IXC did not sport one of those.
The sound of Taps in the background, please,
I researched my stash and I still had quite a few parts from my 1:350 scale DE Buckley. The extra props were especially appropriate and wonderfully to scale. The arms are adapted from extra Buckley davits that miraculously were the right length and bend radius!
I was able to snip from the sprue and shape a piece of styrene for the starboard fin. There is more on this later.
This is rough looking as I cut out a spot for the anchor - also harvested from the Buckley sprue - although it is upside down it is better than the - molded-in - shape!
This is from the U-505 website showing the battle damage that was not repaired as part of any refurbishments. I attempted to duplicate this in my rehab as can be seen in the next photo.
Whoa, where did this come from. It was a left over after market 40mm Bofors twin mount with brass barrels. A little sculpting turned it into the twin 20mm flak mount. I did a scale conversion and the 1:350 40mm is equal to approx. 22mm in 1:200 scale - close enough! Based on the armament of the
U-505 there was 1 x twin 2cm flak 30 AA gun mount, 1 x 3.7cm SK C/30 AA gun and a 10.5 cm SK 32 deck gun; however, the deck gun had been removed as were many North Atlantic, U-Boat deck guns (after 1943).
The pin vise drill was used to attach 26 gauge wire uprights for the upper platform. My favotite cyano - Loctite Gel - holds the wire to the plastic. I used a wire drilled into the gun base and through the platform so the gun can rotate.
I was not crazy enough to try and place the railings on in one piece, besides as you will see later there is a ladder between the two platforms. Small drops of cyano and a steady hand with the tweezers were needed to attach the railings.
A ladder is added from some left over PE as well as PE mesh left over from the Buckley. I used it because the U-505 photos show it.
Not only can you see the mesh in the upper platform railing, but this is also a good photo showing the conning tower markings of the seashell and the submarine on the lower front. I had no choice but to try and hand paint these, which can be seen later.
Although more angular that the real thing the upper platform railing is completed and painted. Model Master Light Ghost Gray was a close match.
A top down view shows an example of left over PE parts used to simulate hatches in the platforms and decking.
I move to the bow and the bow planes snipped and shaped out of bits of sprue, glued to the hull. Then layer on layer of window glue to smooth it out prior to painting.
Moving back to the stern I took a piece of sprue along with more 26 gauge wire to form up the rudder control spindels.
I started to paint with the dark gray I had on hand but it was not dark enough so I mixed in a bottle of flat black to get a darker gray for the hull and platflorms and conning tower interior.
The stern gear is complete, props painted a mix of gold and yellow to get a bronze color, then the custom dark gray is applied. Note that the hull is masked (along a specific panel line), after which I applied the dark gray mix to the hull.
Now with the hull painted I continued work on the conning tower.
A few PE pieces were added as steps to the platform. A piece of masking tape was applied to block out the insignia area for the painting of the conning tower with the Ghost Gray. I then filled in with green and applied some white in the form of a shell as best I could then used my xacto tip to etch in the flutes of the shell. Zoom in and it is not great, but to the naked eye about as good as I can do at this scale. My only error was being too hasty and putting the sub. symbol in the upper instead of lower front of the conning tower. It took me days of editing this post to notice. Oh, well, I'm not going back now!!
Masking tape was re-applied to the hull and I carefully used the Ghost Gray for the upper hull to match the conning tower. It was not as fiddly around the casing hull holes as it might seem.
A coat of the standard dark gray is applied to the deck. Now I had to move onto the lower, larger platform which was a different challenge.
The uprights were drilled in and glued as with the upper platform, but since I had to add a circular rail in one piece I had to form it and then glue to the uprights. I picked out strategic uprights and laid toothpicks on the deck so that the circular rail would sit at the correct and even hight. The rail is laid down on the toothpicks and touched with cyano at the uprights using the tip of my xacto. I followed with the upper rail using the same toothpick procedure, then filled in the rest of the uprights.
As the cyano dries I just snip off the tails of the uprights.
In order that I don't get too far out of sequence let's review how the 3.7mm Flak gun is developed. I searched for after market kits, including Shapeways 3D prints. The gun is out there just not in 1:200 scale, so I had to DIY it. I had kept the gun I cut off and used it as the base. I snipped out part of the splinter shield above the barrel then laid on pieces of PE to enlarge the shield and shape it as seen in photos of the 3.7 mm Flak.
I added some other PE bits to simulate what I saw in the photos of the gun, plus shaved down the barrel to make it more to scale (including leaving the muzzle a bit wider).
After painting the 3.7 mm I added a wire spindle as I did with the 20 mm so it can rotate and be removed as necessary to finsh the platform railings.
Here the remaining uprights and railings have been applied with the inclusion of the extra angle braces at the attachment points of the rear HF radio wire. Some Tamiya Weathering Master rust has been added. Note the opening left in the railing above the molded steps.
The only purchase made was some 0.5mm styrene rod. I discovered that wire would be too flexible and would not look good as deck railing. It turned out to be a good decision.
I measured, cut and bent the ends for the top rail. I taped it down on wax paper then cut the mid rail to length and at angle and applied a drop of gel and let dry.
I glued the center three uprights first to the molded railing nubs on the hull after which I used thin cement to fuse the uprights with the railings. I worked my way outwards and snipped off the uprights tails as the thin cement dried. This photo also shows the front HF radio wire.....
......which is made from my "good for every wire imaginable" spool of monofilament. I tied a bunch of knots in it, notched the inside edge of the conning tower and glued with cyano. The bow end of the wire was an easy thread through the nose and glued.
Also note that I have a base! I was able to adapt the un-used Buckley base!
The HF wire to the stern required some of the styrene rod to form the small tripods, but then it was a simple tie and glue to those and back to the platform railing.
Stern view.
A print out pasted on the base plate and this rehab is nearly done. I am going to try and add a flag to the upper platform.
For an American Flag (the U-505 has been an American ship since June 1944), since I could not find decals, I copied a j.PEG I liked to a Word doc. , shrunk it to scale, flipped it and printed out both sides. I glued these back to back on a piece of 0.5mm rod and attached it to the upper platform!
The long view showing weathering and final painting of the deck (notice the PE base for the deck gun?). Once again lightly brushed on the Tamiya rust.
A final mid-shot and I am calling her done. If you look at the Museum photos, the dark gray is all the way up to the casing hull openings so you would not see any rust - I kind of like the rust.
Hey, if I change my mind it is easy to re-paint and move the gray line up😆
This was a challenge I was not sure I was ready for. To take such a rough old model (Bob and I figured it is a Revell) and transform it into the U-505 with some detail to boot? I believe I did Ok and that the old girl would be pleased with the effort.
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