Here is the Trumpeter Seawolf Submarine as promised. Again no construction pictures but I am new to this and all the next ones to come will have the entire build. As far as the kit is concerned its Great. Trumpeter makes a good solid kit. I had the entire thing put together in a day. It does however need filling on both ends of the hull. The bow and stern pieces had a few small gaps but nothing to really worry about. I also strengthened the hull with sprue fr
om the kit and spaced it out every two inches to add more strength. I didn't put any of the antenna's on the sail only because I wanted a sleek version of the sub. As far as researching the colour scheme I've seen quite a few different versions. I did learn however that there is no red on the hull of the Seawolf Submarines as they have in the model photos. There seems to be different shades of Grey and Black (If that's possible). I wanted to add some colour to this so I used Black with Euro Grey from Testors. Although I'm not the biggest fan of Testors I find their spray to be quite good. The Euro Grey on the sub is a lot darker than what is shown in the photos. The most interesting part of the sub is the decals. I probably did one of the stupidest things anybody can do when painting a model. I had the entire thing completed when I went to clear coat it. I accidentally grabbed the grey that was sitting next to it and started spraying the model. Now that I had ruined the paint job and the decals there was only one thing to do. Repaint it and get some more decals. Well, repai
nting the model wasn't a problem. Finding decals for the Seawolf was. You can make your own decals using decal paper from your local hobby store and a colour printer. This method works great and makes very strong and clear decals. Unfortunately you need a special printer to do white. I wasn't about to go out and buy a new printer so I went to my local hobby store and talked to the owner. Well let me tell ya, this guy saved me a whole lot of trouble. He handed me over some dry transfer decals and I never looked back. Don't get me wrong, I did pay for them before I left. The beautiful thing about dry transfer decals is that there is no decal out line. The difficult thing about dry transfer decals is lining up the nu
mbers which is solved quite easily by using tape. All you do is line up and rub on. The great thing about ruining my original paint job is that I learned quite a bit about all the options you have if you do happen to ruin your decals. These actually turned out better than the decals the kit came with so I was quite pleased with that one. I wasn't impressed with the hatch decals so I left them out. Next on my list was clear coating the model and sealing the decals. That was obtained by three light coats of clear coat. With the bow I wanted the sonar dome to stand out only because it is all one colour on the real Seawolf. I did this by dull coating the entire bow section. I spent a lot of time debating on this colour scheme only because I have seen some great models of this sub. Each one has been a little different including ones with red bottoms and ones with black. I have also seen one that was modified into the SSN 23 Jimmy Carter adding 3 to 4 inches to the sub. The Gentleman who made this did a great job. I would've had a link to that but I haven't been able to find it since. So basically to sum it up I kept true to the colours but lightened it up to add some contrast. I'm now in the process of having a case made up for it and I can't stress enough on how important that is. Not only does it keep dust off but really finishes it up and adds a whole lot of professionalism to it.
Here is the Trumpeter Seawolf Submarine as promised. Again no construction pictures but I am new to this and all the next ones to come will have the entire build. As far as the kit is concerned its Great. Trumpeter makes a good solid kit. I had the entire thing put together in a day. It does however need filling on both ends of the hull. The bow and stern pieces had a few small gaps but nothing to really worry about. I also strengthened the hull with sprue fr
om the kit and spaced it out every two inches to add more strength. I didn't put any of the antenna's on the sail only because I wanted a sleek version of the sub. As far as researching the colour scheme I've seen quite a few different versions. I did learn however that there is no red on the hull of the Seawolf Submarines as they have in the model photos. There seems to be different shades of Grey and Black (If that's possible). I wanted to add some colour to this so I used Black with Euro Grey from Testors. Although I'm not the biggest fan of Testors I find their spray to be quite good. The Euro Grey on the sub is a lot darker than what is shown in the photos. The most interesting part of the sub is the decals. I probably did one of the stupidest things anybody can do when painting a model. I had the entire thing completed when I went to clear coat it. I accidentally grabbed the grey that was sitting next to it and started spraying the model. Now that I had ruined the paint job and the decals there was only one thing to do. Repaint it and get some more decals. Well, repai
nting the model wasn't a problem. Finding decals for the Seawolf was. You can make your own decals using decal paper from your local hobby store and a colour printer. This method works great and makes very strong and clear decals. Unfortunately you need a special printer to do white. I wasn't about to go out and buy a new printer so I went to my local hobby store and talked to the owner. Well let me tell ya, this guy saved me a whole lot of trouble. He handed me over some dry transfer decals and I never looked back. Don't get me wrong, I did pay for them before I left. The beautiful thing about dry transfer decals is that there is no decal out line. The difficult thing about dry transfer decals is lining up the nu
mbers which is solved quite easily by using tape. All you do is line up and rub on. The great thing about ruining my original paint job is that I learned quite a bit about all the options you have if you do happen to ruin your decals. These actually turned out better than the decals the kit came with so I was quite pleased with that one. I wasn't impressed with the hatch decals so I left them out. Next on my list was clear coating the model and sealing the decals. That was obtained by three light coats of clear coat. With the bow I wanted the sonar dome to stand out only because it is all one colour on the real Seawolf. I did this by dull coating the entire bow section. I spent a lot of time debating on this colour scheme only because I have seen some great models of this sub. Each one has been a little different including ones with red bottoms and ones with black. I have also seen one that was modified into the SSN 23 Jimmy Carter adding 3 to 4 inches to the sub. The Gentleman who made this did a great job. I would've had a link to that but I haven't been able to find it since. So basically to sum it up I kept true to the colours but lightened it up to add some contrast. I'm now in the process of having a case made up for it and I can't stress enough on how important that is. Not only does it keep dust off but really finishes it up and adds a whole lot of professionalism to it.
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