SPA Modeler

I've been playing around with this a bit over the past week or two, I haven't built a Heller kit in years and thought it would be fun. Plus, I though it would look kind of cool with the red markings on the sail



It doesn't look too complicated in the box and even includes a choice of noses for the original sonar fit, and a later upgraded one.



Part of this simplicity stems from the fact that this kit is 40 years old! I seem to have gotten an original release which hit the market in 1979. So, this was going to be a simple out of the box build, but like many of my builds it began to take on a life of its own. I think because it is a 40 year old kit and I felt sorry for it, plus I figured with a little of this and that it could polish up pretty well



I started by filling the door on the port side of the sail, as there is not one there. Then I replaced the raised panel lines that I sanded off by laying out the lines with parallel pieces of tape with a space between them matching the width of the panel line. The gap was then painted over with Tamyia surface primer. After it set up 15 minutes, the tape was removed leaving new panel lines I also drilled out the rear torpedo tubes.
As I was looking a pictures of the subs of this class I noticed that there were retractable bollards on the deck, as well as hatches for the crew and access to the mechanicals under the deck. So that is where I am now, scribing in hatches and adding the bollards. I suppose I will also make up new periscopes and antenna's for the sail as well.
It was kind of interesting realizing why I am doing this; some would say the semi-gloss black finish will hide any detail, or lack there of, while adding the details and ever so slightly emphasizing it will add more interest to details that otherwise would not be seen

Nice sub! It looks great!

I love submarine kits! That’s an interesting looking design. Is it a diesel/electric boat or a nuclear type?

It is conventional diesel / electric. In fact two were lost because of suspected malfunctioning snorkels. A third was almost lost this way. The French sold some to the South African Navy, Pakistan, Portugal, and Spain. During the Indo-Pakistani War in 1971 one of the Pakistani subs sank an Indian Frigate, the only boat of the class to sink another warship. They had 8 forward torpedo tubes, and 4 rear ones, none of which had reloads on board. I believe all have been retired from service from their respective navies.

Tres joli! (As the French would say)

I have made progress with this, adding some details and scribing in deck hatches. It is an old kit, so I added the details the old fashioned way. The bollards were made from stretched sprue glued into holes drilled into the deck. The bits on the forward deck were made from small pieces of stretched sprue glued in place and when dry shaped with a file. The new masts for the sail were made from telescoping tube. A sliver cut from a piece of Contrail styrene tube was thinned down and glued into the front well on the sail. This is where the surface radar antenna is stored, and when retracted into the well is partially visible. The deck hatches were scribed using various shapes on an old Verlinden scribing template. Lines of thick primer were used to replace the raised details lost to sanding on the sail.



Been having fun with this old kit, using old techniques with no frills to dress it up a bit and hopefully elevate it somewhat from its 1979 heritage to look like a more recent kit.

And now with the paint and gloss on. The box art, along with written descriptions indicate that as originally painted these subs were a black color with a blue cast or tint, so I figured the way to go would be to start with an almost black color and make it look kinda blue. I used Tamyia XF85 rubber black with several drops of X-4 blue. Lo, I got an almost black color that depending on the direction and intensity of the light source looks bluish or black, so happy with that. Gave it coat of Tamyia gloss as well.



So I'll let it dry until sometime later today and then we'll see how the 40 year old decals work. Earlier this week I gave the decal sheet a coat of Micro Scale decal film just to be on the safe side.

Good call on using the liquid decal film. Better be safe then sorry.

Brilliant job on that construction. I agree with Borg, Good thinking on using the Decal Film.