Making the Alanger Project 971

[Chock]

Back from the grim windswept wilds of London and the joys of staying in a Travel Lodge hotel watching England get hammered by Croatia and consequently knocked out of the footie competition, so I can get back to working on the model again.

No recommendation for Cross Country Trains by the way, the train back from London to Manchester was absolutely freezing cold (one of those crash-o-matic Pendolino jobs), I even hauled my suitcase down from the rack, opened it up and put a fleece top on, it was that bad, and the food in the buffet car was crap too, as was the tea, which tasted of plastic. This train was 20 minutes late too, pretty poor service for a ticket that cost 70 quid. Avoid this train company at all costs.

My replacement etched brass 1:350 submarine screws from Flagship Models arrived today, they are very nice indeed. Not bad sevice either, they made it from Edmund, OK, USA, to the even more grim and windswept wilds of Stockport in dear old Blighty in less than a week, so, in sharp contrast to Cross Country Trains, I definitely recommend Flagship Models for speedy, quality service.

More pics shortly.

Chock

[Kapitan]

Blimey i could have got you home faster, i can do london to manchester in around 2 hours 35 minuets driving !

[Chock]

Update: Examination of yet more photographs reveals the rear decking where it fairs into the sail and middle of the hull, is from the W.A.G. school of modeling (wild-assed guess), not surprising since the kit was probably put together originally when less data on the Akula was available. So, more corrections are needed; I was aware that some work would need to be done in that area of the model, but I thought it would be a lot less than what it turned out to be! Here are some (slightly blurred) pics of the remodeling in progress and the main picture of a real Akula upon which this remodeling work is based:







Chock

[Chock]

Two shots of the reprofiled deck nearing completion of the sanding, some minor filling is still needed, but the profile of the deck where it blends with the sail is now correct, all the raised detailing is also now gone and the rear deck profile is much more like the real deal instead of being a wierd (read: innaccurate) hybrid of the Gepard and earlier ones such as the Pantera and Tigr:





That's the back end of my computer mouse in the shots, which gives and idea of the model size.

In case anyone else is modeling this boat, here is a great shot I found on the 'net of an Akula being built, which is very handy to see the sail profiling ribs and stanchions. The missing bit in the middle of the sail is where the crew escape module goes, the big hole at the front, near the top of the sail is the location for the panel containing the SOKS wake detection array:



Chock

[XabbaRus]

That's a cool pic. Where did you find it, there are some touchy people on the web about photos of Russian subs and I don't mean the KGB.

[U812]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

That's a cool pic. Where did you find it, there are some touchy people on the web about photos of Russian subs and I don't mean the KGB.

So you've been to Subpirates? LOL!! Wayne Frey owns the rights to many of the Russian pictures out there but not all. I've never seen this one in his collection.
His book is very helpful for this kind of build. If you don' have it, get it.

Steve

[Chock]

Yup, I have his book, and very good it is too, but often the repro of pictures in the book is not quite as good as the same ones you find on the web, since all the pics are B&W. Even so, there's a lot of pics in it you don't find anywhere else, and some good explanatory notes too about what all the stuff on the subs is.

I'd still recommend getting Wayne Frey's book (Russian Submarines: Guardians of the Motherland) to anyone - even if you aren't building this model - because it's one of the few books out there on the subject matter you can find with English text, it's also got some great pics of Alphas and Typhoons (i.e. the real Akula).

If, like me, you grew up during the Cold War, when you simply never saw pictures like that at all, it's always a thrill to get a good proper look at them (pictures like that when I was a kid would either have got you shot, or rich). I remember having to settle for grainy pics taken from overflying US reconnaissance planes if you wanted to know what a Russian sub looked like. In addition to which, if you buy a copy of Wayne's book, it will encourage him to do another one! And I certainly hope he does.

Incidentally, as Steve says, subpirates.com is another great place to find sub pics and advice if you are into modeling them, in fact, there are some really great ones on there of the funky little 'Lada' Russian diesel sub, where you can get a really good look at its anechoic tiles, it's well worth a visit to the site just for that alone!

Chock

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Chock

Chock

Wow, that's quite a complicated model building system you have. You really take your building serious! I just use the kitchen table

[Chock]

Black and white pic of the rear deck correction and the corrected blending of the sail into hull, after some more careful sanding.

I gave the part a coat of flat grey to highlight any blemishes and there are very few. Cutting the primer back with rubbing compound should remove any final blemishes and the heavy pigment of the flat primer will sink into any surface scratches and fill them, leaving the surface smooth. Quite pleased with how it has turned out.

Just need to square off the vent holes a bit and this bit will be done (apart from the cockpit and antenna hatches of course). All crappy molded raised detailing I removed will have to be redone with scratch-built bits, but it should look a lot more convincing when all that is added.



Chock

[U812]

Looks great Chock! And thanks for the plug about subpirates.

U812

[Siara]

Its great to see You cought the model making bug now Chock.
Looks good so far. I love the improoved models - theres never two identical projects , and i will be checking the progress closely.

Good luck.

[Chock]

More work on the sail. I was not happy with the rear profile of the sail and so that got some more attention:



That seems to be more in line with the photographs I studied. Now the work of adding the cockpit and antenna fairings begins... I'm going to leave the SOKS array and the retractable cockpit windscreen till last as these are likely to be somewhat fragile, so, disregarding these for the moment, the first thing to tackle is the cockpit itself. This is kind of odd, as it is not symmetrical and has several compartments and a crew access hatch. Fortunately there are a couple of good picturses of this in Wayne Frey's book, and I found a really good one taken from a helicopter hovering in front of an Akula while it is at sea, on the 'world wide interweb', which confirmed that the rearmost starboard cockpit door cover extends further down the side of the sail than the one on the port side. I had to have a couple of attempts at carving out the cockpit, as I was not happy with my first try, and so, refilled it and did it again. Rather tedious, but I'd prefer it to be accurate. From this shot, you can see I have added the crew access hatch tube and the 'T' shape of the cockpit:



It's my intention to place three crew members in the cockpit and so the cockpit detailing can be somewhat spurious, as they will obscure most of it, it's going to be fun trying to create a few crew members in 1:350 scale, but I think it would look odd without them there. The cockpit doors will also obscure things a bit too, these will have to be made from very thin plastic card as at this scale they should look almost paper-thin.

Oh, and I managed to stab myself good style with the scalpel whilst doing this bit, so I presume I now qualify for the Purple Heart since I was wounded while taking on a Russian sub, maybe I deserve to be made a Hero of the Soviet Union too, since I was also trying to create an improved Akula:rotfl:

Chock

[XabbaRus]

Very good cHOCK
Hi U812 I remember the spat with the pictures but it seems many of Wayne's photos have found their way onto the net.

[U812]

True. Isn't it always the way? Wayne is a great guy and a good friend. I wish he would come over here and join this well mannered and adult group of guys. I'll give him a nudge.

U812

[Chock]

More details added, not very good pics here as they are under poor lighting, but you can make out that the cockpit divisions have been added, these are made from sections of metal litho printing plate. Also, barely visible in these shots, the escape capsule lines have been scribed and the forward periscope tunnel has been carved out, I added the cockpit instrument pedestals in brass wire, although they are certainly too small to see well on these pictures, but you can just about make them out glinting at the front of the cockpit area:





Chock