Behind the wheel.

It's been over a year since I last updated this blog. A difficult year, taking into account the economical unrest. It certainly clips your modeling wings, and thus it is that I have tried to build models whenever possible. Right now, there are five projects on the table. Four submarines and an airplane. Two of the submarines are scratchbuilt, another a conversion and the last one almost straight from the box. The plane will get bits & things added along the way.

The first one is R.3, one of the Royal Navy's R Class boats, built as hunter-killers at the end of 1917.

Second is Hajen (Shark), the first swedish submarine in service and preserved today at the Nava Museum of the Royal Swedish Navy in Karlskrona.

They will be both built in 1/350 scale, with a wooden hull, and plastic bows, fins, sails and a plethora of other small appendices.

Third in the series is the Crichton-Vulcan CV707 Vesikko. The prototype of the Typ II u-boote, it saw considerable use by the finnish navy during both the Winter and Continuation Wars and part today of the Museum Complex at Suomenlinna. The kit used is Mirage's Typ-IIa, suitably modified.

Last, but not least, is the ORP Orzeł, a dutch-built polish submarine famous for scaping from the Baltic Sea to the U.K. and then misteriously disappearing in the Northern Sea during 1940. The Mirage kit in 1/400 is rather nice, but requires some putty and sanding.

So, it is back to one of my first passions, submarines. Oh, and just to keep things balanced, a 1/72 ICM Fokker E.IV Eindecker. Not the best of 'em - Eindecker wise -, but rather the more quirky looking.

In time, they'll get finished.

Take care and good luck,

TMU.