Gwen's Arkmodel 1/48 scale RC Type VIIC build log

[Onkel Neal]

Do you glue brass parts together or braze them? Looks great, Gwen.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Gwenydd

I decided today I just wasn't comfortable with the fragility of the railings on the Arkmodel Type VIIC so I am replacing all the plastic railings with soldered brass ones.

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Do you glue brass parts together or braze them? Looks great, Gwen.

Of course she solders... 'brazen' ing is forbidden!

[Gwenydd]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Do you glue brass parts together or braze them? Looks great, Gwen.

I'm using silver solder and a propane torch. I built a little wooden jig to hold the wintergarten parts in position while I soldered them. It was still pretty tricky at this scale. =)

[Gwenydd]

I now have all the brass railings built except for the main side railings on the conning tower and a couple details on the deck rails. I also decided to try making my own cloth scale Kriegsmarine flag so I found an old piece of fine woven cotton bedsheet, ironed it nice and smooth, and backed it with a sheet of adhesive vinyl to make an 8.5x11 size printable sheet. I then ran it through my Canon inkjet printer and it actually worked really well. I carefully cut it out and removed the vinyl backing and sealed the edges with CA glue so they wouldn't unravel and folded it and carefully glued the edges only together. Now I have a pretty nifty little homemade all cloth flag that looks darned good if I say so myself. The flagstaff is removable from the holder on the back of the wintergarten and I will mostly just use it when displaying the model.

*Note to admins: if the historically accurate flag image presents an issue I will be happy to modify the image so as not to offend anyone.

[mapuc]

Not if I had something to say-because for me it indicate that you are building your model 100 % historical correct.

About the model-What is there to say other than-You have done a great job so far.

Markus

[Onkel Neal]

You work fast, it's looking really good. What's the status, model 75%, R/C ..% ?

Great work!

[Aktungbby]

I love the flag; but I like that background Kaleun's hat even more!

[Gwenydd]

I finished the conning tower side railings today.

[Gwenydd]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

You work fast, it's looking really good. What's the status, model 75%, R/C ..% ?

Great work!

I'm not really moving all that fast. I would say the model build is maybe 50 percent complete right now. The decks are just fitted on the top of the hull for now and I still need to add a set of magnets to hold them in place. I have to finish the torpedo door opening mechanism, glue the forward hull section together and then I need to fill cracks and seams, final sanding and cleanup, and then paint work. I'm probably forgetting a few things along the way... I am still trying to locate a 75 mhz 6 channel receiver but the WTC and electronics build is otherwise 90% finished.

I didn't mention this before but RC subs require low frequency radios to function under water. Modern 2.4 ghz signals won't penetrate the water. So I have to use what would now be considered "antique" radio gear for the u-boat. The 75 mhz frequency band is the FCC authorized range for "surface" vehicles which also includes boats and submarines. Sadly, nobody makes 75 mhz RC radios any more... so I pretty much have to scour ebay for them.

[Gwenydd]

Here's a tip for modelers: if you need to add rigging/wires/cables that need to stay stretched tight try using stretchy bracelet maker's cord. It's made of silicone rubber or something similar, is pretty strong, and nice and stretchy. It's also pretty cheap.

[Gwenydd]

Today I worked on what has to be the trickiest and most difficult part of the build. First I had to trim out 4 bulkheads inside the hull (2 at the forward end of the center section and 2 at the forward end of the aft section) to make room to install the WTC into the hull in the proper position. That was the easy part.

Here you can see where I ground out the two bulkheads on the aft section:


The difficult part was grinding down the inside of the hull right in front of the exit point for the two drive shafts. I had to do this to make clearance for the universal joints on the drive shafts so that I could shorten the shafts enough to make the turn to connect to the gearbox on the WTC.

Here is where I had to grind out clearance for the U-Joints:


And here you can see the drive shafts installed in their proper positions:


I replaced the delrin bushings for the drive shafts with brass tubes because the delrin was sticky and didn't allow the shafts to turn smoothly.



And here you can see the finished rudder control mechanism.

[Onkel Neal]

Wow, tiny U-joints.

[Gwenydd]

Still working on all the various linkages to get everything working smoothly and with full travel on the controls.

Here's the aft end of the WTC in the hull where it connects to the drive train and servo pushrods.



The servo movement wasn't enough to get full travel on the controls so I had to add a few levers to increase the travel.



I am continuing to tweak the linkages to get everything working as it should.

[mapuc]

Are you going to add a camera linse in front of the sub or somewhere else pointing forward ?
I remember a friend from a hobby club who put a fisheye linse on his sub.

I presume you are constructing the sub being able to dive will it be static dive or dive by driving(can't remember exact phrase)

Markus

[Gwenydd]

Not planning on a camera right now. If I did add one I would make it mountable on the deck gun mount. I used a magnetic mount for the deck gun so it can just be pulled right off the deck and replaced with a camera easily if I want to.

If you read the post on the first page of my log about the WTC it explains all about how the sub will work. (Hint: it's static diving - that's why it has a ballast tank and pumps).