1/400 SLC Maiale manned torpedo

[SG1]

Hi,
this is my first thread on the Ship Model Forum. I've been an avid reader of the forum for years and only now i gathered sufficient courage to submit one of my projects. It all started as a feasibility study, now i think it could be completed with a decent amount of details. My building speed is extremely slow, I started this project in 2020 as a side project, so gathering-up some material i could post took time.

Before starting this thread i made sure no ongoing 1/400 scale HMS Valiant nor HMS Queen Elizabeth projects were on the forum, because of the risk for the Maiale to explode prematurely if the threads happened to be too close

This is what i managed to complete so far. I hope you'll enjoy that. The next step will be the tail section: it promises to be a nightmare

Cheers,

SG (my initials heheh)

[Vladi]

Very interesting and unusual topic indeed. And what a crazy scale
Fingers crossed

[SG1]

Thank you Vladi!

[EJFoeth]

I�m glad you decided to start sharing your outstanding scratchbuilding beyond your blog! Will (continue to) follow�

[SG1]

Thank you EJ, am flattered.

[SG1]

Some more progress. I completed the drilling of the 13 main holes for the housings distributed on the Maiale surface plus 2 more for the pedestal arms at the bottom of the torpedo.

All the main holes are 0.2 mm wide and host sections of brass tubing simulating the housings. Three holes at the stern section are 0,25 mm wide and host stainless steel tubing sections coming from insuline pen needles.

I began with drawing the cardinal midlines on the major axis of the SLC with a bevelled pencil lead and the torpedo body fixed on double-sided adhesive tape, sandwiched between two 0.6 mm plasticard panels. Then marked and drilled the holes and scribed the demarcation line for the warhead (c). Hole (e) was deliberately drilled off-center. (1/35 Model Victoria SLC was used for comparison and reference). I experienced several breakings of the tips resulting in painful dug-outs of the broken tips and the creation of horrific distorted and enlarged holes that had to be repaired (used magic sculpt and/or CA to good effect) or just filled and redrilled.

A special effort was made to recreate the circumferential recesses for the nut rings keeping together the main sections of the SLC body. These are 0.1 mm holes, drilled with a short-tip dril bit on a jig i crafted on purpose from a superfine catwalk PE from the WEM range (spacing between holes should be 0.15-ish mm).

The ring jig was glued temporarily to the torpedo with a droplet of Ca to pin it. Ca was then sanded off after the drilling. I recommend this technique to superdetail any torpedo showing nut ring recesses in the 400th and 350th scales, its easily reproducible. These details add texture to the model and lend themselves to be enhanced with a pin wash at a later stage.
The after ring of holes on the SLC had to be corrected several times with CA, sanded and redrilled, therefore it looks less perfect than the forward one.

The bolted recesses (a) on top of the warhead are 0.2 mm holes hosting a 0.1mm central hole filled with a 0.1mm nickel wire section.

Cheers,
SG

More on this project at: https://3xblackcats.wordpress.com/side-projects/, drop by anytime

[EJFoeth]

Excellently executed ridiculously fine modelling (don't drop it...)

[marijn van gils]

Insanely fine modelling!


From now on, if anyone says I'm crazy, I will refer them to this thread!

[SG1]

hehehe thank you Gentlemen, thats a big morale booster

[Vladi]

Very well done indeed

[SG1]

Thx Vladi!!

[Devin]

Cool subject and amazing work!

[SG1]

Thanks for dropping by and for the kind words, Devin!

[SG1]

Hi! I completed the SLC's tools bonnet, a cage-like structure that was located aft of the wooden block. Accurate study of the few wartime pictures available revealed the bizarre architecture of the "bonnet" and the existence of minor subvariants.

I prepared some pre-shaped sections from Shelf Oddity 0.06 mm wire and assembled them with CA. The joints were reinforced with diluted acrylic glue applied with a brush, trying to avoid build-ups. The shaping phase was a nightmare because of the stiffness of the wire (probably a molybdenum-based alloy), its shape-memory properties and the very small dimensions of the sub-assemblies. In particular, piece D was hell to shape. It took me nearly a month of miserable work before i got a decent shape . RP Toolz micro-handle bender, Tamiya flat tweezers "for Photo-Etched parts" and a 0.6 mm styrene jig helped a lot.

Bottom pic: the completed "bonnet" dry-fitted to the SLC body and compared with my index finger. It is SMALL

Cheers,

SG

[wefalck]

... and I always thought that I am working at a small scale

BTW, I always wondered, why these Italian manned torpedos were called 'maiale' = pig ?

[SG1]

... and I always thought that I am working at a small scale

BTW, I always wondered, why these Italian manned torpedos were called 'maiale' = pig ?

Well, legend says that SLC inventor and operator Teseo Tesei, after a training session during which his SLC particularly misbehaved (the SLC's had the tendency to start sinking out of the blue while on submarine runs) at the moment of mooring the SLC, handed it to his assistant saying: "c'mon, tie this Maiale!"

thanks for dropping by

[SG1]

Hi, a few updates:

Spent january researching on the tools bonnet. Identified two variants of it, thanks to several Royal Navy declassified pictures that a generous friend sent me. Brought to a late-style status the bonnet i had crafted, detached the sloping section at the "headboard" and glued a horizontal bar instead of it (c, in the first picture). More in line with the late-war SLC version i am trying to represent. Easier said than done, anyways

The following month and a half was spent trying to complete the preliminary work on the instrument cluster. The plan was to shape the main body of it and then to add the top frame. The area within the frame should be painted black and then filled with a droplet of Kristal Klear or brushed with some gloss varnish to simulate the glass of the instrument box, at a later stage.

I shaped the cluster base from a 0.5mm-thick styrene panel, drilling a 1.3 cm hole at the edge of it. I left some 0.15 mm distance from the edge of the panel, matching with the height of the cluster and then detached the main body from the carrier.
For the frame, I had originally thought to use a rectangular section from a superfine 1/700 brass ladder/railing PE fret in my stash. But although the PE thickness was fine, the frame didn't look as thin as it would be needed. Opted for a 4-component frame instead, made of 0.046 mm metal (?nitinol) wire sections, assembled with CA.

Did a few feasibility studies on drilling out the various gauges in the box base (2x0.3, and 4x0.15 mm holes ) to improve detailing, but achieving a convincing result proved to be beyond my capacity. I finally prepared two versions of the cluster: a "full bodied" one which is probably the one i will choose (less is more in this case i think), and another version sporting the central compass (a section of 0.3 mm brass tubing), basing on the assumption that the brass detail would stand-out somehow, just like it did for the real thing (the brass compass was usually left unpainted and sticked-out pretty much, as photos showed).
A few pics illustrating the progress and showing bonnet and instrument boxes dry-fitting the SLC. Suggestions on what version of instrument cluster to use are most welcome.

Cheers,

SG

[EJFoeth]

Very good! In one image I cannot tell which finger holds the part

[SG1]

Thanks EJ! I can already figure it out entirely enveloped in a blob of paint

[marijn van gils]

I guess you are using one of these? :