For a preview of this kit showing all the parts and a briefhistory, go here.

 As with any resin kit, the first thing one has to do is toclean up all the mold attachment points and get the parts ready to assemble.This kit is blessed by not having the usual huge resin blocks attached to allthe large parts. In fact, the hull was in very good shape. The first thing I didwas to take a piece of 220 or 180 grit sandpaper, and attack the excess stuffand mold seam lines. The key to using this heavy duty sandpaper is not to gonuts with it in terms of pressure and to use it wet. This cuts down on resindust (which is not good to breathe) and makes quick work of the offending parts.This was then followed by 400 grit, then 600 grit and finally 1200 grit. I thenwashed the hull in warm soapy water to get rid of any mold release agent. Whilenot a common problem with mainline injected kits anymore, it is still used withgarage resin kits like this.

Despite careful sanding, there werestill some areas that needed filler, so that was taken care of. Meanwhile, Ilooked at the next parts to be installed. These would be the lower fins, whichincorporate the thruster units and rudders. Once the outside was cleaned up, Itook a look inside. Not exactly smooth. Not surprising either, as these areasare very difficult to mold. I decided that it could do with an easy fix so I gotsome sections of thin wall brass tubing, cut them to size and slid them into thecavity. The resin exhaust areas have small notches cut for the rudders. Fillingthose won't be a problem as all one has to do is slightly trim the resin ruddersto fit inside the tubing. To take care of a yucky looking back section, a pieceof flat cardstock was inserted into the tubing to provide a flat area in there.If you are really dedicated, you can drill out the  length of the lowerfins, but I'm not really dedicated so didn't. The tiny gap between the tubingand the wall was filled with superglue and sanded smooth.

The interior of the exhaust. Not smooth at all!

Installing brass tubing is an easy fix.

Once that was completed, the lower fins were glued to the hullusing superglue. Naturally, the fit wasn't perfect so several applications offiller was needed to fill seams and fill the gaps. I also took this opportunityto repair the broken chines in this area. The chipped sections were cut out andreplaced with card stock then faired in with filler.

Next theupper fins. These are quite thin and long for resin parts. This is because it isso difficult to to completely straighten out the resin fins. It took a number oftries using hot tap water and then pressing the still soft resin between twohard, flat surfaces. I was not entirely happy with the results, but used themanyway. Were I to build this kit again, I would copy the upper fins onto plasticcard and use the small resin fin tips. No problem with warping.

Theseupper fins also took several applications of filler and sanding to get to whereI thought they were acceptable. Once they were done it was time to trim off theexcess resin from the bridge structure and glue that down. Again, some fillerwas needed along the bottom edge to get a smooth fit. All perfectly normal forwhat is basically a hand made resin kit. All of the last three paragraphs tookabout 14 days as I like to make sure the filler is completely cured beforesanding.

Next the dive planes were removed from the resin andglued in place along side the conning tower. There are some slots there to helpwith placement. A bit of filler was needed to fill some small gaps. While thatwas drying, I cut out the chipped parts of the chine and put in fixes withplastic card and superglue. These were then carefully sanded down to match thesurrounding area. Again some back and forth with filler and sanding were neededto get things smooth. 

The nose and underside spotlights aswell as the tail light areas were drilled out to get ready to accept MV lenses.These are really great and add a lot to the finished kit. Meanwhile, I startedcleaning up the stuff that goes in the top of the conning tower. There is aperiscope, radar antenna and two other masts. The radar antenna had a sink markthat needed filled. Naturally, I managed to break this part off its support sodrilled a small hole in the bottom of the screen and replaced the support with asmall length of wire.

Now off to the paint shop. I had decided not to paint it in a single color. Tooboring. The upper surface was painted with Testors Modelmaster ADC gloss grey.Then it was masked off and the rest of the sub was painted with Testor'sModelmaster Canadian Voodoo grey, also a gloss color. When it was dry, it wasapparent that I needed to clean the model more before painting. There were allsorts of horrible spots on the paint. When I removed the tape, a bunch of paintcame up with it. There was no choice but to strip it and start again. I usedStrip-A-Kit and it was done quite quickly. This time I washed the kits in soapywater to make sure that I got rid of all the slick spots. I think the SAK alsohelped. 

After drying, the kit was repainted in the same colors. This little glitchdelayed construction by about a week. I'm not a quick-build expert and like tomake sure that all is dry and ready before going on to the next step. When themain part of the kit was dry, the rudders were painted and the various antennasand stuff attached to the top of the sail. This area was painted and anytouchups done. 

After the paint had dried, I started filling in the various'windows' on the side using a Rapidograph drafting pen. I find this method worksmuch better than using paint, though that can be done as well. The front windowswere a real quandary. They are really too big for a Rapidograph, and paintingthem might really screw things up. While worrying about that, I startedinstalling the MV lenses I had bought. Naturally, the ones I got for the frontwere too big. However, the one for the tailights, though too big for the back,fit well in the nose so that was glued in. I went back and picked up some moreof them for the tail section. 

I made severalfailed attempts at doing a good job of painting in the windows along the side soeventually decided to leave them unpainted. Perhaps one could use stripe decalscut to size for this job. The Flying Sub hatch decal was not used as it has awhite background, and the sub is a grey color. I might recommend that this decalbe done on clear decal paper or left out altogether. The resin display stand was painted flatblack as was the radar antenna.

This really was a nice kit to build. The only real areas that gave me sometrouble were the fins, and though it took a bit of time and work, wasaccomplished without too much trauma. I know that I deviated from the overallgrey of the TV sub, but think that this two tone one looks very nice. One thingI did not do but which I will have to do on the next resin kit is to undercoatit with a lacquer primer such as Floquil. The enamel stuff just doesn't stickwell enough to keep the paint from easily chipping. The lacquer 'bites' muchbetter and would have saved me many days of repainting.

I really liked this model and would recommend it to all who have an interest inthe subject. It would even make a good introductory kit for those wanting to doa resin kit. At $50.00 it is very competitively priced with others of this sizeand complexity. You can only get this kit from the manufacturer at the linkbelow.

February, 2001

Review kit courtesy of Masterpiece Models

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