Hi Guys,

Doug This is one of my cockup's.

I have attempted to make an enigma machine for U552.
Unfortunately i suffer badly with the shakes.
It is my forth attempt so this will have to do.
Not much of it will be seen.

Martin555.

Hi Guys,

I noticed that the figures provided for this compartment were mainly seated the only problem was the kit only supplied two stools, one for the radio room and one for the sonar room.

So some extra fold up stools had to be made for the crew sat drinking coffee at the fold down table.

Blankets and pillows made from toilet tissue and thinned white wood glue.

Made the coffee pot from a bit of sprue and wire.

Again modified the crew figures to look as if they are doing something.

Martin555.

Hi Guys,

Finished the second compartment.

I have found when it came to do the final assembly of this compartment you need three pairs of hands and a lot of patience as there are a lot of bits that have to be lined up at the same time.
Admittedly i had to walk away a couple of times as the air started to turn blue.

I did not go mad with the modifications or the weathering.

Fitted red and white LED’s and made the wiring to look like pipe work.
Again the final wiring will be done later.

As i have said in my last post the figures have been modified.

Altho i placed the white LEDs in the suggested positions I am not that happy with the lighting as it dose not light up the radio and sonar rooms.

It is to late to try and change it now. (I know it will bug me until i do change it so maybe later.)

There are a couple of photos of the two finished compartments together.

Only four more compartments left to do then i will resume work on the main hull.

The Scene

The radio and sonar men are testing their equipment and the other crew members are enjoying a cup of coffee before their watch.
One of the crew is looking in his locker for his cup.

Martin555.

Hi Guys,

I am starting to get the hang of modifying these 1/48 scale figures.
This little guy took quite a bit of time to do.
This is just setup to see what it will look like.
He will appear somewhere on U552 but i am not quite sure where yet.

At the moment i have just set it running from my Arduino but thanks to a good friend on this site I have a small AtTiny 85 IC that i will program for the welding flashes.
The flashes will need a bit of tweaking.

I hope the little video works so that you can see what i am trying to achieve.

Martin555.

Hmmm! I was afraid of that Martin.
That's an old Quick Time MOV format vid, which the site simply interprets as a JPG picture file☹️ I'll try and convert it. Don't hold your breath! Doug.
OK Gents, Ignore the Invalid File label, click on the file, then on the little download arrow top left. Select OPEN, with Windows Media Player, and it should work 👍

Video fixed 😊
Cheers, Doug 😎

Hi Guys,

Spent most of the day tinkering.

I just wanted to see if it was possible for me to get this lookout moving without having wire linkage visible.

So the first thing i did was to cut his body in half lengthwise then hollowed out as much of his chest area and down one leg as possible.

Then made a small linkage that would fit inside the body.

Added some small pieces of 1mm off cut plastic to make up for the saw cut.

Glued him back together and then added his arms and head.

I won’t be using him on U552 it was just an experiment.

Martin555.

Breathe again Marky😮
We don't want any blue shipbuilders!😉😎