1/350 Yankee Modelworks Los Angeles Class Sub
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thats the sound of this thread being opened up for the first time in a long time!
Pulled this back out a few days ago, to start tweaking on it.
Last time I worked on it, all I'd done is sanded the hull down and put down some primer and started working on filling in the various air holes.
I pulled it out and got it mounted back on the construction base I made, and started working on trying to lay out the centerline get the rudders and dive planes put on, and found that I was having a really hard time w/ it. When I first started the kit, I noticed that the hull had a bit of a banana shape ot it, w/ the stern area having a noticeable, but not major, droop to it. I had planned on just leaving it alone b/c I was worried that any attempts to heat the resin could cause other issues. But with having so much trouble trying to lay out the cetner line, I decided it needed to be fixed. First I tried hot water, but just couldnt seem to get it hot enough w/o worrying about getting it too hot. So then I turned to my trusty food dehydrator. Turned the temp control to 155° and put the hull in for 20 minutes. Checked it after the 20 minutes and it was hot, but not enough to get the hull to take the droop out. Put it in for another 20, and then it was pliable enough to get the droop out. Took a couple more tries to make it perfect, but afterwards I mounted it to the construction base, and it sat perfectly straight, and visually it looks straight as well, no more droop.
Once that was taken care of, I began the process of gluing on the rudders & dive planes. I spent more time trying to lay out the center line, and after several failed attempts to lay it out, I said screw it and just lined the parts up by eye, and thankfully I think it came out really good.
This evening I started working on getting the bow dive planes and the periscopes put on. I had to drill holes in the hull for the dive planes, and I'm still a bit worried that they arent even, but i figure they're close enough so its good for me.
There wasnt anything on the top of the sail for the periscopes, so I had to post on a ship modeling forum I'm on, to get help w/ that, but thankfully it was pretty simple, so I glued them on how I wanted and went w/ it.
The next task, once the superglue has dried for a couple of days and gotten well & cured, I'll start filling in all the gaps around the rudders w/ Milliput. Got some coaching from Chuk on how to apply & clean it up to get good filled seams by thinning the Milliput to the point that you apply it w/ a paint brush, and then very carefully wipe the excess off, and voila, a perfect fill w/ zero sanding required.
