Submarine Kitbash Spaceship part 1

I came across this image of a kitbashed spaceship on Facebook made from the two halves of a submarine Plastic model kit. The modeller was Tony Murray 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2043682082594379/posts/3266027093693199

I thought this was a genius idea and as I had the front end of the hull of a large 1/72 scale U-boat  sitting idle in a box I thought I might be able to have a a go at doing something similar myself.

A spaceship that it built from two halves of a submarine kit brings to mind the Prison Barge model, part of the rag tag fleet from the original Battlestar Galactica.

The rear end of the submarine kit hull had been chopped off for another as yet unfinished project and I had never had any idea of what to do with the rest of it, until now that is.

Below is the hull before I cut it up in 2021. The picture following shows what I have left over.

I glued the two halves to the deck section with styrene strips re-inforcing the seams.

The edges were superglued to some strips of 6mm thick foamed PVC sheet. A mounting plate which was a furniture leg mount with a 3/8" thread was added top and bottom of a 10mm thick piece of foamed PVC. Wiring was added for the various lighting systems with panel mount DC connectors for the 12 volt DC power input.

A slot has been left at the front of the submarine sides for a bridge window. This means a cockpit section had to be built and lit. I used the figures from the Haseqawa 1/72 Leopold railway gun kit to populate the space.

The cockpit/bridge was then sprayed with  grey primer and then painted and weathered.

While the submarine parts comprise the top of the hull, the bottom is made from two ABS covers I found in the bin at work. I have no idea what they came from. They had to have a section cut from the middle to more closely match the width of the upper submarine assembly. Leftover parts of the submarine deck were glued over the seam externally with scrap ABS strips on the inside. I added a couple of shrouds from the Pilgrim Observer kit to the rear.

At the front I have added a 1/35 Bradley kit hull to extend out that area a bit.

There were two holes in the side and a large hole on the bottom that needed filling. Foe the bottom I constructed a shallow tray from styrene which houses the bottom threaded rod mount, a DC power input and a push button switch the turn the engine lights on and off. This will eventually get filled with nurnies.

I decided to use the side holes as a sort of EVA bay. It is a tiny area that has been detailed out and provided with a strip of LED lighting. A beam has been placed across the space to mask the LED strip light so you see the effect of the light rather than the direct light itself. 

Because it would be difficult to paint these bays once the top and bottom hulls were glued together I decided to paint them first. Like the bridge they received grey primer and then weathering with an oil wash and acrylic paint dry brushing.

The picture below shows the LED strip light stuck to the ceiling

Picture above grey primer, below with oil wash and dry brushed with white acrylic.

Now the two halves could be permanently glued together.

At the rear, glued to a bulkhead made from 6mm foamed PVC, I have added six 3D printed engine bells sprayed matte black, each with a "eagle eye LED 12 volt light inside.

Thanks for looking.

More soon...

AI Desert Racer RC Vehicle part 4

 The HPI Savage XL chassis received a few slight modifications. 

Mainly the custom electric motor mount combined with a small platform for the ESC (electronic Speed Control). A custom aluminium plate was added where the original nitro motor mount plate used to sit to hold the battery. The motor is mounted quite high where it has plenty of room under the high body.

Old Savages used to have 8 long skinny shocks 2 in each corner whereas these days they have a single large bore shock per wheel. Because my custom body weighs considerably more than a thin piece of vac-formed lexan I combined both a skinny old school shock and a big bore shock on each corner which gives me about the right amount of droop in the suspension. It would also be possible to add two big bore shocks to carry even more weight.

Weathering consisted of an oil wash followed by dry brushing with acrylic white paint. The oil wash was laid on and then wiped off in the direction I wanted to leave streaks. Hand painted chipping was then applied to the edges of panels using a grey colour. I also painted the wheels yellow and weathered them with a thin wash of brownish blackTamiya paint.

Finally here is the completed model.

The stats for this model are;

1/12 scale

680mm (nearly 27 inches) long

430mm wide

I have reached my average of two completed models per year. Both the completions the previous one being the Light Attack Vehicle, have been RC vehicles and I will take both to WASMEx (Western Australian Scale Model Exhibition) this year in early August.