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WW1 Armour, Artillery, Vehicles, Ships => WW1 Armour, Artillery, Vehicles, dioramas, associated figures and Ships => Topic started by: chowhound on June 13, 2021, 10:01:46 PM

Title: UB-10 of the German Imperial Navy
Post by: chowhound on June 13, 2021, 10:01:46 PM
Hi friends,
it's time to introduce you to my newest submarine. It is the UB-10 of the German Imperial Navy as it was in 1917. The special thing about this model is that it was created by 3D printing! The scale is 1/72. (Length 40 cm or 15.74 inch)
At that time there were two large shipyards for submarine construction. Weser shipyard and Germania shipyard.
I chose the Weser shipyard because most of the Imperial Navy boats were built there. The boats differ mainly in the shape of the flood slots in the hull (oval = Weser shipyard, almost round = Germania shipyard)
First of all, the three fuselage parts were glued together. Here I can really only recommend a 2-component adhesive. This gives you enough leeway to align the halves well. You could also use superglue, but since the interfaces have slight grooves depending on the print (3D printing), there is a risk that the adhesive connection is not stable enough. This is what the fuselage looks like after being glued together. The tower is just put on with carpet tape to make it a little more interesting.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u1.jpg)

From now on it's time to do the tiresome task of grinding. Since the fuselage was created in 3D printing, it is inevitable that you can feel and see the individual layers despite the finest layer thickness. PLA can actually only be sanded wet, as the material is relatively heat-sensitive. But what also works very well is dry sanding with sanding pads, as long as you do not make too fast movements. Although a lot of dust is blown up when sanding, no precautions are necessary as with resin, as PLA is even food safe

Before grinding
(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u2.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u3.jpg)

After grinding
(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u4.jpg)

As already read in another forum, the evaluation of this kit is rather mixed. There are too few details. But as is well known, model builders are not scared of that.
The biggest shortcoming (in my opinion) is the lack of any rivets. And there were countless on the boat! I guess roughly that the fuselage alone had around 2000 rivets.
Here is an excerpt from the hull of an original photo (sorry for the quality)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u14.jpg)

Big question, what can you do there? There are resin rivets from Archer Transfers, but they are extremely expensive. So fails. It would work with a rivet roller, but since it is a ship, that is not an option either, as I would press indentations into the material with the roller, which would correspond to the sunk rivets of an airplane. What the boat needs are raised rivets. Creating each rivet individually with a drop of Ponal (wood glue) takes far too long and is too imprecise, as the distance must not even be a millimeter! Then the bright idea came to me. From my loft conversion I still had a roll of aluminum tape, which is used to connect the vapor barrier film. This tape is extremely thin and can be embossed wonderfully with the rivet roller. And this is what the first attempt looked like.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u6.jpg)

And the whole thing with primer.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u7.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u8.jpg)

After I slept through my work, I wasn't really satisfied. With the "manual work" one can of course hardly achieve a satisfactory result in terms of accuracy. And then I had the next idea. As the proud owner of a CNC milling machine, I built the gear of the rivet roller onto my milling machine and used it to stamp the rivets. Now it was also possible to bring the distance between the rows of rivets to 0.6 mm so that four rows of rivets run parallel, as can also be seen in the upper section of the photo.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u9.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u10.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u11.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u12.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u13.jpg)

Now the finished rows of rivets were simply cut to size with a scalpel and attached to the fuselage.

After I got all the rivets together, they were of course attached. I think the effort was worth it. I can't guarantee 100% whether the rivets are really in the correct place, but according to the original pictures I have, it should actually be quite consistent.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u17.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u18.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u19.jpg)

The steering gear has also been pimped a little. Some rivets on the rudder blades were imitated using ponal.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u20.jpg)

Now I've started to detail the hatches a bit. The left hatch shows the original state. Using sheet strips, additional struts were now inserted on the inside, as can be seen on the right hatch.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u21.jpg)

In the meantime I have also decided which UB I want to represent. It will be number 10. This so-called Flanders boat was one of the most successful boats in its class with almost 25,000 gross tons of sunk shipping space (including a destroyer). It was scrapped in 1918 because it was no longer operational due to its many uses and poor maintenance.

Finally the first color came up. Whereby one cannot directly speak of color when it comes to dark gray. In preparation, rust spots were first brushed on the fuselage to enable chipping.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u22.jpg)

After the rust dried I was able to move on. I chose the salt method for chipping. 

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u23.jpg)

Now the air brush was swung and the fuselage was brushed with Dark Gray (roughly the same as the color used at the time).

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u24.jpg)

After drying, the salt was carefully removed again and the first step of aging was taken.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u25.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u26.jpg)

The next thing is the upper deck in a light gray including chipping.

I also took on the muzzle flaps. The mouth flaps of the torpedo tubes were more like a kind of bellows, which was folded up to open. I tried to represent this a little through color.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u27.jpg)

Next, the upper part of the hull was designed using the salt method again, and given a light gray. If you are now wondering why I provided the upper part including the tower with such large rust spots, there is a simple explanation. The boat will later be put in a dry dock. The U10 was only completely overhauled once, and that after 2 years of continuous use (1917). I want to display this in the dock. U10 had 115 companies during its period of use (1915-18)! There was probably no time for frequent shipyard idle times, which ultimately led to the fact that she was taken out of service in late summer 1918, and her berth was destroyed by demolition.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u28.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u29.jpg)

Now it's down to the small parts and improvisations. I can fully confirm what a model building colleague said about the tower hatch. The only problem is, if you turn the opened hatch correctly, it no longer fits the opening in the tower, as there is no more space for the lid (the structure of the periscope is in the way). I have now rebuilt the tower hatch. Just didn't give me peace.
This time I took a closer look at the tower. First a lot of small holes were drilled (0.2mm). I then glued ring eyelets from my aviator inventory (etched parts) into these small holes. These eyelets will later take the wire for the side tower railing. Part of the railing on the platform has also been provisionally put in place. Etched parts were used again in connection with a 0.6mm brass tube.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u30.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u31.jpg)

The periscope also got a lens.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u32.jpg)

Before the wires could be attached to the railing, the boat number had to be immortalized on the tower. It is purposely only painted a pale white so that it does not stand out too freshly against the ragged surface.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u33.jpg)

After all the eyelets have been set, it goes a little further. This time a somewhat tricky task that requires a very steady hand. First the wire was cut to size, and then loop by loop tied through. That was a game of patience, as this wire is only one µm thinner than the eyelet. But after that was successful, the resulting railing was only painted with dark iron, and that was it.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u36.jpg)

Now the last tower extensions have been completed. I abandoned my original plan to build the deck railing using brass tubes because I still had a suitable railing in my scrap box. You don't have to torment yourself unnecessarily.
I also swapped the periscope for the extended version.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u37.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u38.jpg)

The U 10 will later be presented in a dry dock, but somehow I was missing a nameplate for the model. The kit hadn't planned something like that. So, without further ado, I engraved one in brass.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u39.jpg)

And the report is already nearing its end. The "rust spots" on the hull were covered with fine gravel particles (to replace the barnacles) and dark gray grass particles (railroad) as vegetation. Everything got a wash with black, salt streak and rust.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u40.jpg)

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u41.jpg)

I also really wanted to have the characteristic eye on the bow. So drawn with Inkscape and printed on decal paper. I think it turned out quite well.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u42.jpg)

The rigging is made with yarn that I still had from my Camel in 1/16. I also used Ponal to shape and glue the paper imperial war flag that came with it.

(https://www.h-j-bellenbaum.de/UB-1/u43.jpg)

Now I'm just waiting for the dry dock and the U-10 is really ready.  ;D

Cheers
Juergen