1/48 Hachette U96 Part 1

[Bigfoot57]

1/48 Hachette U96 Part 20

Just finished adding all the brass strips to the outer hull so here’s what it looks like before it gets painted and all those shiny brass strips disappear under paintwork
I’ve also included my way of measuring where things go on a curved surface basically I used a 10 thou strip of plastic laid alongside a steel rule measured of the required length then marked the flexible strip which I could then lay over the model to mark where the next brass strip was going to go
It would have been easier with a dressmakers tape but I didn’t have one so I improvised

Regards

Colin

 

[Bigfoot57]

1/48 Hachette U96 Part 21

Just a short one this time after a week of trying I finally have a paint scheme I’m happy with so here’s the hull fully painted the dark grey used was mixed from mouse grey , dark grey , dark green & black which explains the slight colour variations caused by having to repaint the brass strips which the paint seems to fall off at the slightest touch need to come up with some way of stopping that
The light grey was just standard acrylic humbrol mouse grey for the upper part

Regards

Colin

 

[Bigfoot57]

1/48 Hachette U96 Part 22

Well I have now finally fitted the engine room and the control room after hours of restructuring the internals and drastic plastic surgery not how it was supposed to be but I’m happy with end result next comes the decking and conning tower followed by the rigging

Regards

Colin

 

[spanner570]

Great stuff Colin.
I'm really enjoying this build....

I'm intrigued with the earlier shots of Bismark too.

 

[Bigfoot57]

Great stuff Colin.
I'm really enjoying this build....

I'm intrigued with the earlier shots of Bismark too.

Ah yes the Bismarck that’s an ongoing monthly collection what you saw was the metal hull which is bolted together
The superstructure is also being built and includes rotating elevating & recoiling main turrets rotating radars working search lights working internal lights navigation lights and rotating secondary turrets oh and working anchor chains and probably although I haven’t got that far yet rotating prop shafts
Here’s a few pictures of it so far

Enjoy

Regards

Colin

 

[Bigfoot57]

1/48 Hachette U96 Part 23

So moving on next we have the decking being fitted no issues here just 14 sections from bow to stern basically glue each one down next the previous until you get to the stern
Next comes the fun bit making the stand and nameplate I chose a sea blue to contrast with the black stand
Next up is the net cutter the supports were unusable as you were supposed to bend the brass work into a 90 degrees angle but both sets of supports were twisted out of shape and unusable so I fashioned my own using some brass strip off cuts once painted you couldn’t tell the difference
Also a multitude of tiny triangular angle plates were added in numerous parts of the deck along with the 2 torpedo loaders as they call them which were made from several brass strips then a copper tube was glued on top along with end pieces again made up of several brass pieces why they just didn’t use a thicker piece of brass or plastic is a mystery to me instead of multi glue several pieces together which just needs the glue to fail and it will separate into its component part whereas they could have used moulded plastic
Next come some more decking details along with fitting the conning tower the main gun and 2 main hatch’s all of these items have tiny parts attached to them see the pictures to see the details they mostly are tiny eyebolts made by bending a brass piece around a former I used a 1mm drill shank to get the curve radius
Then comes to fitting the main railings to the deck as you can see time for a power tool to drill the holes for the railings to fit into as all they did was mark them out on the deck and left it to the builder to drill out the holes
To conclude this section next comes all the insulators construction again made up of in some cases 13 separate pieces which again they could have moulded it from a single piece of plastic
Finally a couple of pictures of the sub to show how it’s progressing still got some hatch covers to add a bit of clean up and then the aerial rigging to finally finish it off

Regards

Colin

 

[Bigfoot57]

More pictures from Part 23

 

[adt70hk]

Colin,

That's coming on really well. Apologies got a bit behind with it. A truly mammoth enterprise.

Keep up the good work.

ATB.

Andrew

 

[minitnkr]

Awe inspiring.

 

[Bigfoot57]

1/48 Hachette U96 Part 24 & Finished

Well we’ve reached the final stage and again a frustrating and four letter wording one to boot so 1st off measured the lengths and positions the insulators would occupy along the various lengths of fishing line supplied by the kit which as it was nearly 15 years old was all coiled and totally useless for this type of work so I’ve used my paper flower wrapping wire instead
Next added some tiny eyebolt to the front of the conning tower and 2 more to the rear next took the tiny hooks and attachment plates and attached them to the eyebolts previously added to the top of the conning tower sides took my 1st measured length of insulators and attached them to this attachment then run a wire from the last insulator in that sequence all the way down to the net cutter where the next set of insulators were added tightened this section up then run a wire from the eyebolt at the front of the conning tower to the last insulator in the 1st sequence again tightened the wire this time too much as it snapped in the middle so had to start from scratch anyway got the front section done next came the rear
This time a similar arrangement without the snapping wire start with the 2nd set of measured insulators running to the 3rd set finally attaching to the tripods on the rear then a short run of wire to eyebolts on the deck
Next those 1 of the 2 eyebolts came into use running a wire from it to the to link up with the last insulator in the 2nd sequence and finally a wire from the flagpole mounting to the 1st insulator in the 2nd sequence see the photos they should make it clear I hope
Next added various angle plates to the hull deck edges and remaining hatch covers then had to repeat the entire process on the left or port side of the model I did it like this so I could match up the placement of the other insulators so they all more or less lined up with each other
Finally added the flag pole as I kept snapping it off whilst working on the model went round with the paintbrush to touch up any areas that looked shabby and then painted the propellers brass which for some reason the kit has had a multitude of brass pe fitted to it but they decided to make the propellers out of pewter why not use brass you wouldn’t needed to have painted them oh well they probably had their reasons
So here is U96 from Das Boot in 1/48th scale it’s not perfect but it’s the best I’m able to do I hope those of you following along have enjoyed the build and maybe some tips have emerged so onto my next project which will be the Silver Spitfire

Regards

Colin

 

[JMARC]

Just stumble on your post .. Wow, pretty impressive and you bet I'll be following your WIP ..Keep it up !