Halinski USS Archerfish 1:200 build

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causticphlegm

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Jun 4, 2007
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Well, this is going to be my first foray into commercial models. Which also means my first time with edge coloring and former laminating. I'm scared! :mrgreen:

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One of the reasons I chose a sub is the much less detail compared to other types of models (only 2 pages)...plus it was only a lousy 8 bucks so if (when) I mess up it will be no big loss. :twisted:

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I'm hoping to get the formers cut and laminated by Sunday nite. Gotta go for turkey dinner with the family, move my brother's water heater, do high res scans of both pages and go shopping for printer ink, markers and no. 11 blades first. :mrgreen:

Wish me luck!
 
Careful attaching the skins. Make sure you do some test fitting. I built the model only to find that the skins did not mate at the bulkheads That was a real disappointment. I cannot tell you if the mistake was mine or not. I keep thinking I used cardboard that was too thick for the bulkhead formers.

Regardless, allow me to suggest you temporarily tape skins together with a section of Post-it note for a test fit. Also, the kit does not make allowance for joining strips, another rookie mistake I should have known better than to make!
 
Thanks for the tip. Joining strips is exactly what I was going to do. Dang. Oh well, guess I'll make some duplicate formers and paste them on both sides of the primary ones. Will give me more surface area to work with. Plus i'll use the scanned skins for test fitting, that way i don't have to be so gentle with 'em and worry about ripping/damage etc.
 
I am sure you can use joining strips - you either need to forgo the formers or make them a bit smaller so that you can glue a strip around the outside of the former. I always have a dickens of a time with those joiner bulkhead former thingies :)
Chris
 
You should be able to use joining strips - you'll just have to do a little tweaking to the formers. What you'll want to do is make the joining strips and glue them onto the skin. Cut the formers just on the inside of the line. At that point it's just a matter of trimming or sanding the former down in size until the skin fits. Depending on the shape I'll just trim slowly around with my knife or put a bit of cyanoacrylate on the outside edge of the former and then you can sand it down with a nailfile pretty easily.
 
Thanks for the tips guys! Unfortunately, I already had about 1/3 of the formers cut out (my fingers hurt!!!!) to the exact size --and I ain't starting over!!! :p-- so I'm gonna do the sanding/nail file thingie. The boss has no shortage of those for sure. :thumb:

And since dinner got moved over to my house (I'm still not clear as to why wall1) it's gonna be even longer before I can get back to this. The wife is right now frantically scrubbing the house, muttering something incomprehensible under her breath.

Ahhhh, family. Gotta love it.
 
One last word about skins from me. The WWII Gato and follow-on Balao class boats featured butt-welded skins with the later using high-strength steel to achieve a 100ft greater dive depth (unknown to the Japanese). When you stand within 20-30 feet of one of these boats, you can see the seam lines from the welds (same with the German U-Boats...or at least the remaining examples at Kiel and Chicago)

But, at the scales we build at, we are "standing" on the order of 75 feet away from the sub which makes those seam lines disappear. And, therein lies the problem for me when I build a sub. If you overlap the skins the result will be a gangbusters big seam line which destroys the scale effect in my mind.

I am experimenting with a technique to pre-shape and butt-glue the skins before attaching them to the bulkheads in order to eliminate to the greatest degree possible those ugly seam lines.

I'll post results as I progress on my next project, which, incidentally is an airplane.
 
Get some 3M medium grit sandpaper mounted on the flexible foam backing. This stuff is great for shaping the formers. I think many fit problems are due to not sand the formers and test fitting. if you sand too much, you can build it back with paper strips. This will be an interesting build to follow.
 
Fred, you live in Windsor? No way! I live there, too. Near Giles and Oullete. In fact I can see Hotel Dieu Hospital from my front porch. LOL, it truly is a small world. :mrgreen:

Thanks for the tip, too.
 
Well gents, I came about a nanometer away from scrapping this project. The more I got looking at the parts and directions (or lack thereof), the more scared I got, especially considering the small size. Then I thought of just doubling the size so the parts would be more manageable but the kicker of that is the specialized printing I'd have to get done...so that was out.

Then I figured the reason I got this in the first place was to test and improve my skills. So, without further ado I present the formers:

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Gonna give the ol' digits a rest for a day or two before I start gluing/shaping



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Finished the skeleton. The picture actually magnifies the wavy parts, but believe it or not...the top is straight as a rail like it should be. Any "waviness" will be removed when I fit the skins..still lots of sanding/shaping to do. Yes, I'm a total noob at this. :oops:

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causticphlegm said:
Fred, you live in Windsor? No way! I live there, too. Near Giles and Oullete. In fact I can see Hotel Dieu Hospital from my front porch. LOL, it truly is a small world. :mrgreen:

Thanks for the tip, too.
Click to expand...

I live in the west end by Tecumseh and Banwell. I forgot to mention that you can get the sandpaper at Michaels. They also have the Uhu all purpose and the Uhu glue sticks, which works grwat for laminating. I have stopped using spray adhesive. regards
 
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