I started building subs in 1985 after seeing a model of the VIIC scale unkown, i was not uncommon with modelships.
Had a sovjet rocketboat OSA II and the battleship Musashi scale 1:350 modified for rc use.
The first build was a dolfijn three cilinder submarine scale 1:100, makes a length of 80 cm, tried some modification with selfbuild gyro's for underwatertravel to keep the model on the peroscopes
Second submarine was the same type and scale, but with the experience of the first one a much better build.
In 1988 i could buy a hull from the VIIC/41 scale 1:35, so the journey started all over again.
After two years of building the first maiden was made in 1990, and the boat was more or less ready in basic finish.
Last winter i started with the build of the extra's, like schnorkel moving, antenna's up and down and the difficult task to get the launchsystem for the torpedo's working.
For this blog i'll search for the early pictures of the dolfijn and the build of the VIIC.
These pictures are made in 1985, the model is made with a wooden plug, reinforced it with resin an glassfibre.
Broke the wooden plug out after sawing it open on the waterline, this is the easy way to make a model, it only takes a lot of filler an sanding to get it smooth.
Because of the size divingtime was about 1 hour, i used this model mostly as a testbed for the build of the gyrosystem.