welcome Phil Great can`t wait to see your pics regards Phil

Welcome to the forum and I am looking forward to seeing your build pics.
Graeme

Hi Phil,

Welcome to the forum.

Enjoy your time here and I`d really like to see some pics of your U-boat and follow the rest of the build in a diary.

Regards
delboy271155
(Derek)

Hi Phil welcome to the forum.Looking forward to seeing your build.

Carl

Thank you for the warm welcome. Just trying to figure out how to reply to my own thread and also uploading my U-Boat build pics.

I've just added a couple of pics attached to my first comment that date back to March 2015. At that point in time i was 6 months into the build following the part works week by week. Not long after I discovered 'that guy from Germany' who was selling after market parts to convert the torpedo compartment. Without hesitation I ordered some of these parts but not all [as they were expensive] and waited and waited....4 weeks later they arrived but due to the lengthy time for them to be dispatched and the guy not replying to my emails I fired off another order for the remainder of the parts [minus the figures and torpedoes] and waited and waited and waited some more. One day while I was waiting I clicked on this guys face book link and it said he was shutting down! Panic!! Then I saw he would honour any order already paid for!! Phew! So I waited and waited some more and one day in July a parcel had arrived. Woohoo!! I must admit I was equally thrilled as I was slightly disappointed at the quality of the castings as there was a lot of warping. Never mind I thought I'll scratch build any parts that require attention which is where my build goes on a tangent. From that moment on I envisaged a wonderful idea and since then I have been trying to fulfil it. More pics soon. Regards, Phil W

I'm interested to see what your wonderful idea is

Evening everyone,
Carrying on from yesterday where I was up to July 2015 and had just purchased the Torpedo Compartment parts; I did a bit of research and came across a couple of excellent 1/72 builds of this same type of submarine. There are plenty of after market parts available for this scale and the builds I had seen were excellent. Furthermore, they had more of the inside of the submarine exposed showing lots of detail. I was just a tad envious as there isn't much out there for 1/48 scale, but concluded that I would scratch-build all the parts I required. In addition to the Torpedo Compartment I would also add the Officers Quarters, Captains Cabin, Radar Shack, Galley, Junior Rates Quarters, No.2 Battery Compartment, No.3 Main Ballast Tank [3MBT] and the Motor Room [aft of the Engine Room]. Needless to say this was when I discovered that MDF is very, very dense and trying to remove small sections without damaging any other parts took a considerable amount of time. The Motor Room especially took 5 months to get it how I wanted it, but it was worth it. Please see the attached pics taking you from when I started cutting out the Torpedo Compartment [Aug 2015] through to completion of the Motor Room [May 2016]. I have done a lot since then but these pics will follow shortly. Kind Regards Phil W [

Great work Phil love that your doing modifications too look forward to more regards Phil

Hi All,

I will be still adding pics of my build taken earlier this year over the next couple of weeks before i'm up to date and can start posting 'real time' for this build diary. The attached pics show the scratch-built Kingston valves for No.3MBT [Main Ballast Tank]. Wasn't sure if Hachette are going to provide these later in the part-work so I decided to make them myself. As a side note it would be helpful if Hachette wouldn't jump around too much regarding the assembly. My main aim is to get as many details and photo-etch parts attached to the hull before I start undercoating, top coating and varnishing then weathering. After that I can concentrate on the internals. After looking at the pics of U995 [which has 6 Kingston valves - 3 per side] and reading somewhere else that the Type VIIc's also had 6, this is the number I went for rather than 8 [4 per side] as I've seen on other pics of 1/72 models. In real life there were lots of variations between boats depending on the dockyard in which they were built so I guess this build will involve lots of modellers license! I will try and build as accurately as I can, having spent hours trawling the internet for research material and data but even this can be vague.

The rivets were made using Archers Transfers. These are excellent but a tad expensive and look good when painted over. The Kingston valves will be painted the same as the hull eventually. I just sprayed them over to seal in the Archer decals.

Love all the extra detailing, it's going to look fantastic. If you want to know what's coming up in future issues the following German sight has the complete set of instructions issue by issue
http://www.u96-bauen.de/vorschau/

Graeme