--Originally Posted 12/12/12--

The top-casing, that is - at long last, beginning to take shape:


After completion of the deck attachment (not shown - basically just tweaking the alignment and then troweling in as much superglue/talcom putty as possible, everywhere) the deck was now seriously ON - and as such, a suitable foundation to support additional elements - notably the casing, seen here being fitted. On each side a continuous strip of 0.030" plasticard was both flexed and temporarily tacked using vertical strips of (aluminum) tape, seen here. Note the limited number of tape strips suggest the points at which the "plating" might later be "spot-welded" (using quick-set superglue), to both tack- and flex the casing during permanent installation.

Not simply straight lengths of plasticard, these side "plates" had each been cut to follow the lines of a paper template (not shown), itself tacked/formed/marked and trimmed, earlier. Which, remarkably, had not proven that complex; the paper very clearly "suggesting" exactly how it "wanted" to go on. For a "natural fit" which - even more remarkably - suggested very good agreement with the appearance of S-18 type boats in all my reference pics and drawings.

Yet betterstill - and something I did not dare dream to hope for: a single template, developed for the starboard side, above, fit just as well on the port side. Here are a couple pics of the plating dry-fit on that other side:


Click on Image to EnlargeWith apologies for my camera's macro-mode, playing hell with the apparent proportions, I think you can still get the basic idea, regarding the casing. Accordingly, here you can also clearly (again) see the one, substantial inaccuracy contained (on both sides): the straight-line joint forward, descending from the gun platform to the bow. On the real thing, this joint gradually curves downward - however here, on the Revell Nautilus hull, which is more beak-like forward, such a downward curvature of this joint is simply not permitted. (Short of putting the plate sides through some very odd contortions; there is much more to this that I won't go into here, unless anyone out there expresses interest in discussing such additional details.)

Meantime, truth-to-tell I had long been living secretly in fear of precisely the above type of incompatibility ruining all chance for a decent, final resemblance to S-37 - so I was indescribably relieved and gratified to see the compromise developing such that the casing will look (IMO more than) acceptable:


Again, despite my camera macro wreaking havoc on the apparent proportions (not to mention the tape beginning to let go and casing popping off, astern) still I trust you can agree she is going to end up looking unmistakeably like an S-boat. For which - especially now, regarding this casing-to-hull joint-line - I give major credit to all the prior, indespensible shaping, checking and reworking of the pressure hull.

Next planned is to cut the tape along the joint-line, to remove the casing plates and leave a painting mask - in turn producing a color-border, to serve as a guide during final attachment. And enable some major progress, coming up soon.

And that's how the "sausage is being made" - the casing (pun fully intended) - going onto this pig boat!

Cheers,

-Matty