International Scale Modeller

Because I'm insane--and on VACATION!--I thought I'd try to get this one in before the month is up.







The box is packed with runners, I think if I can finish this in 30 days it'll be a miracle. Did I mention it comes with LED? It comes with LED. And little 1/48 scientists.





The manual is practically a reference book for the sub:









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And a bit about this machine from the old Wikipedia:

Shinnkai 6500
Japan
Name: Shinkai 6500
In service: 1989
General characteristics
Type: Deep-submergence vehicle
Length: 9.5 m (31 ft)
Beam: 2.7 m (8.9 ft)
Draft: 3.2 m (10 ft)
Installed power: electric motor
Speed: 2.5 knots (4.6 km/h; 2.9 mph)
Endurance: 129h
Test depth: 6,500 m (21,300 ft)
Complement: 3

The Shinkai 6500 (しんかい) is a manned research submersible that can dive up to a depth of 6,500 m. It was completed in 1990 and it had the greatest depth range of any manned research vehicle in the world until June 19, 2012, where its record was beaten by Jiaolong which dived at 6,965 m. The Shinkai 6500 is owned and run by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and it is launched from the support vessel Yokosuka.

Two pilots and one researcher operate within a 73.5 mm thick titanium pressure hull with an internal diameter of 2.0 m. Buoyancy is provided by syntactic foam.

Three 14 cm methacrylate resin view ports are arranged at the front and on each side of the vehicle.

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So we'll see. I'm out of town for a couple days, then this will get going alongside the end of my Sci-Fi build and my I <3 Tamiya.

Insanity.

Jason that is a really cool subject!! looking forward to follow your progress.

arilo76 wrote:Jason that is a really cool subject!! looking forward to follow your progress.

Thanks, Antonio! I'm looking forward to getting it done in 4 weeks

Lysus wrote:

arilo76 wrote:Jason that is a really cool subject!! looking forward to follow your progress.

Thanks, Antonio! I'm looking forward to getting it done in 4 weeks

4 weeks i am sure that you can make it

With my Sci-fi entry behind me I can turn my attention 100% to this build. First up is the, um, diving bell? I dunno, the place where the scientists sit and look at the fishies. I'll be skipping th edivers, I might come back and add them someday, but for now I'm going for the underwater look and I think they'd be having a hard time a mile under water...

The sphere is made to be opened if you like, in fact the whole kit is built in layers allowing you to strip it down to show the mechanics. This leads to one problem, without gluing the bell it isn't a perfect fit. More on that in a moment.



Interesting side note, each runner has a sea creature printed into it somewhere:



Crabs, fish, bugs, you name it. Cool detail. I suppose you could use them as a casting mold if you wanted to.

Need to assemble my scientists. I've never painted little 1/48 people before, so this should be fun.





My seat is rather uncomfortable, my good man...

After they were together and primed, I started in on the shell of the...cockpit?...with Stynylrez/Ultimate white:



While that dried I started brush painting my peeps with some Citadel Ultramarine blue, varying shades of black and brown for the hair (with one getting some drybrushed Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey for some "salt-n'pepper" hair). Flesh was Citadel Dwarf Flesh because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Once that was done I added some preshading to the shell with some Tamiya XF-54 Dark Sea Grey--ultramarine, sea grey, sensing a theme?

Is it me or does everything on this kit seem to have a face?



These were covered in Tamiya XF-2 White. I think I might go for Mr Color white for the exterior, the Tamiya white, while nice looking, is finicky.



Next up was to paint the interior and decal the controls. I could have, and probably should have, painted them. The details are excellent and well defined, but I'm just not confident in my tiny detail painting skills...and I've never encountered Bandai decals before so I was eager to see how they were. A few canisters, emergency floats, and the like were painted.

Instrument cabinets were done with Tamiya XF-71 Cockpit Green, while the seating cushion was just XF-5 Flat Green. The decals are still settling here, but more on them below.



The decals were alright, if a bit on the thick side. The main problem came from a couple of the smaller decals, for example the speakers. The raised details are so sharp and well done the decal has no chance of ever conforming well. I should have painted. Oh well. Most of the others aside from that stuck down well and conformed after some MicroSet/Sol treatments. A couple needed to be trimmed up as they had way too much carrier film surrounding the prints. The color difference between the decal green and the paint doesn't bother me, it's just some panels I reasoned, they could be made with different paints from the cabinetry. Still, maybe if I had painted them...

Time to fit these poor souls together. I gave them each a touch of Vallejo Game Color 72.019 Night Blue to add some shadowing to their uniforms and some Vallejo Modoel Color 70.951 White for the uniform piping. CA was used to fix them into place, applied with a toothpick (the decals are starting to conform better):







View ports assembled with some glass, and the shell is put together with the consoles, and the intrepid souls are about to be sealed up:





Bye-bye! See you later...



As you can see the bell doesn't really fit totally snug, without some glue it'll be a bit wonky. I'm hoping this doesn't repeat with the hull, Bandai is usually much better than this. Then again maybe it needs to be loose so you don't break the bell trying to open it later if you want to strip off the shell to view the mechanics. We shall see, LED wiring and inner mechanics are up next.

Up next is the inner hull, lighting, and sub-assembly.



First the bits are cut and de-nubbed, then primed with Stynylrez/Ultimate Black:



After everything was primed, I started mixing up my colors. The side ballast tanks were Tamiya XF-2 White with a few drops of XF-53 Neutral Grey, XF-3 Flat Yellow, and X-6 Orange.



The rest of the inner hull ("flotation material" it's labeled) was done with XF-1 Flat Black, XF-9 Hull Red, and XF-7 Flat Red at 50/25/25. The metal bits were XF-16 Flat Aluminum and XF-1 Flat Black at 90/10. The white bits are just Mr Color 1 White:



I made a generous portion of the ballast color and the flotation material for touch ups and bottled them up for later, if needed.

There's silver barring that I needed to do. I masked them off a bit--not to make a perfect edge but so I didn't strike the brownish parts. I struggle with this stuff a bit, and maybe it would have been best to spend a lot of time masking this so I could spray it, but I felt like working with a hairbrush instead. I dunno. Most of it will stay behind the outer hull forever, but I'd still like to practice on this.



Details painted with some Vallejo and Citadel colors.



After that was all done, I glossed all the bits and set them aside for 24 hours. Next was a little bit of Tamiya Black Panel Liner to bring out a little detail and then I started to put it all together:



There. All set. It's funny how the camera brings out some slop I missed. After this is all done maybe I'll touch those up a tad before I start the next stage.





Now for some lights:





They give you a little ruler to mark your cord for the forward light; it needs to be 45mm:





Of course being a Bandai kit, the two halves were super snug going together. This meant though that since I didn't mask off the pins on the male half and on the diving bell it took a lot of work to get done. Not to mention the bell kept popping apart from the pressure--my scientists came unglued and will need to be reset.

Is that irony? I can never tell anymore.



Next up are some propellers, the first parts of the outer hull, and some robotic armatures.

WoW that it is looking really nice well done Jason!!
I have done nothing for any of my builds (SIG, GB's or personal projects like Gundam or the A10)

Thanks man!

I know what you mean, I've been on hold all week due to unexpected travel, but hopefully I'll get back to this come the weekend. I need to fix up some of those silver bits and time is running out!

How cool is that
I thought you just played with big fighting dolls and then you roll out this cool kit
LOVE IT

Twokidsnosleep wrote:How cool is that
I thought you just played with big fighting dolls and then you roll out this cool kit
LOVE IT

Heh, thanks! I'm not ALL battle dolls. After this, the Tamiya truck, and then the PHANTOM! Really itching to build that...even though I grabbed the wrong kit...

Hopefully tomorrow I can burn through the rest of this build. No family to slow me down until Sunday afternoon...

Hm, well time is running out, and what was once a yawning canyon of VACATION is drawing to an end. I've been rushing this one a bit, and that isn't always a good thing!



Treed up all the next phase bits and pieces. Exterior parts primed in Stynylrez/Ultimate White, mechanical parts in Black.



Paint was simple, the same 90/10 mix of Tamiya aluminum and black as before, and the outer hull was done in Mr Color 107 Character White. It's a tiny bit less WHITE and more white, if you know what I mean.

Upper hull slip was Tamiya XF-2 Flat White, a few drops of XF-3 Flat Yellow, XF-53 Neutral Grey, and X-6 Orange. This was also one of the few parts that needed masking as there is no seprate piece for the upper hull slip panel.

Dorsal fin and, um, front bulge, were both Mr Color c58 Orange Yellow and 1 White at about 70/30.



In a way it's sad to see most of this work disappear forever as the outer hull cladding goes on. Though it's made to be removed if you wish to show off the mechanical stuff, it's not likely I'll ever do that. The fit of these parts is so snug that if you paint it and don't protect the contact surfaces on the pins it's nearly impossible to fit together without hearing some ominous cracks and creaks. If you do ever get this kit and want to play with panels later on, consider yourself warned.



I do think owing to this I will indeed use the clear panels provided for this side. I didn't paint all those wires and nobs for nothing.

Getting there. I do like how all those little details are given slots to poke through on the hull, it's some nice engineering on Bandai's part.



Starboard "pusher" before assembly.



Yeah, I've glued some stuff. One other negative to this kit is that since it's made to go to bits if you want to see all the detail you did inside, there's going to be seams everywhere. Now most are perfectly hidden by virtue of the hull paneling, but there are spots where some gaps will torment you--especially if you're accustomed to traditional kits. I sneaked in some sticky to some spots where the panels join on the bottom and the tail cone so they wouldn't look a stiff breeze from falling off.

So tomorrow I hope to get a gloss coat down in preparation for decals and some pin washing, then a second coat to seal them in and I'm calling it good. Once again, down to the wire.

Always sad when a vacation comes close to ending...I start counting down days and it interferes with fun sometimes.

yes very definitely ...lot's of skills...

A lovely clean build

This is a cool thing! I've seen them in catalogs but never built. They are almost like space ships.

Twokidsnosleep wrote:Always sad when a vacation comes close to ending...I start counting down days and it interferes with fun sometimes.

Truly sad...it's like the exact opposite of waiting for Christmas when you're a kid.

digger303 wrote:yes very definitely ...lot's of skills...

Johnj wrote:A lovely clean build

Thanks, fellas!

DBMiller wrote:This is a cool thing! I've seen them in catalogs but never built. They are almost like space ships.

Yeah, almost! There's a Hasegawa version at 1/72 as well, I think it comes with a plastic oarfish, too. Not sure, I wanted the 1/48 and Bandai stuff is always fun to build. I think if you really wanted to they can be loaded up with tons of details (like inside the bell, etc.), I'm just going for a straight build.

Nice clean build Jason, to bad the holiday is coming towards its end..

That always takes bench time back down to miniscule levels for the most of us any way

Tuning in to see this one unfold, not my usual subject so well interested

As always happy modeling and keep sticking styrene.

Paul

It's a nice kit and build. Can't wait to see it finished...

Vleugelmoer wrote:Nice clean build Jason, to bad the holiday is coming towards its end..

That always takes bench time back down to miniscule levels for the most of us any way

Tuning in to see this one unfold, not my usual subject so well interested

As always happy modeling and keep sticking styrene.

Paul

Thanks, Other Paul! I'm hoping to get it done tomorrow so it's just my Tamiya build and the F-4 to do once I get all busy-busy again.

digger303 wrote:It's a nice kit and build. Can't wait to see it finished...

Thanks, Digger. It's pretty fun to put together, as I said above hopefully decals and pin wash tomorrow and done!

Last little update.

I'll need to pick out some details with some panel liners (after a coat of Aqua Gloss, of course):



Grey for the white parts, black for the greebles. The fantastic manual has loads of full color photos of the real sub, and it always looks sparkling clean. I checked out some internet photos as well, and it's usually just as the manual shows: pristine. I imagine that being a scientific research machine the scientists keep it pretty clean. Thus I opted not to weather it beyond the panel lining.

Ahhh...nice and sloppy!



There are So. Many. Rivets. I thought about counting them (me, a rivet counter!) but I got bored. Needless to say it took a long time to clean up with some mineral spirits and a bushel of cotton buds. Last step was to slap on the remaining decals.



And done!

Reveal: http://www.intscalemodeller.com/viewtop ... 05&t=19874

ya beat me.....well done it looks fantastic

Hi Jason that looks the business, really cool

digger303 wrote:ya beat me.....well done it looks fantastic

Heh, well I started on Aug 31, so I think really YOU beat ME

arilo76 wrote:Hi Jason that looks the business, really cool

Thanks, Antonio!