Okay, so Iโve just finished the Graupner Taucher Wulf, and Iโm one of those modelers that likes to have the workbench..ahh..working. Now, the Wulf was a bit of a pain in the rump to build, mainly because the instructions were almost non existent. There were pictures, mind you, lots of pictures, some even contradicted each other..but precious little info, measurements, that sort of thing. Anyway, I swore up and down that I would never build another modern Graupner boat again. I have a small stash of kits and a couple of boats to restore..nope, not doing it.
Then, that little voice in my head returned..same voice that tells me itโs okay to drop the
hammer
at a red light because that voice didnโt see the police cruiser in the parking lot..same voice that says โyouโre not THAT full, one more slice of pizza wont kill youโ. That voice. The one that said..โLook! The little Hertha Jeep is on sale! Youโve already seen the worst with the Taucher, go ahead and buy it. You KNOW what your getting into this time...ahhhhahahahahaha!โ
So theres a Hertha Jeep on my bench. And, again, lots of pics, a little more info this time, some things that make me scratch my head and some that make sense. The hull is blow molded..I think itโs ABS but it just looks different from any plastic Iโve ever seen. Nicely made though. The kit parts and fittings looked good, so I dove in.
I decided that this time, I was going to build everything as sub assemblies and make sure everything fits to my satisfaction before I build myself into a corner like I did with the Wulf. The first thing I started was the cabin. Itโs built from some very thin laser or machine cut abs. Much thinner than the Wulfs pilothouse. The cabin roof is molded in either resin or plastic and primered, and I used that and the hull to jig up the cabin. Everything fit okay until I got to the forward windscreen. The oblique angles and the way the darn thing fit had me stumped. Then I trimmed it, which was a mistake. However, it started to look decent when I realized that some of the ca had dribbled down and glued the bottom edge of the windscreen to the hull. !!@&&%!!!!
I had to break the bottom edge of the windscreen to get it loose from the hull. However, I was able to fix the damage with some scrap plastic and a little โmodelers bondoโ (Tamiya plastic filler). This was a rookie mistake, I was thinking of protecting the hull with wax paper, but I didnโt heed THAT voice, and got burned in the process. Lesson learned.
Once the cabin was done, I built the insert that goes into the aft part of the hull. I donโt have pics of that yet but Iโll post them soon.