hmsub

1:250 PaperLab
US Navy Subchaser SC-1029
Horst Muerell

Photos by the author

Michael Cittadino published an excellent construction review about the kit in the March-Issue of this magazine. I would strongly recommend this review to anyone intending to build the model. For this review I shot some photos of my version of the model and would like to comment some items that might be of interest for other modelers.
I printed the model on 120g/cm² card. Although this is a rather light card it was strong enough for this little model. The smaller parts which have to be rolled were additionally printed on 100g/cm² card (for example: typewriter paper is 80g/cm²). The building instructions are outstanding, every step is clearly illustrated.
I always try to work with materials as cheap and natural as possible. Therefore items like railings, mast stanchions and additional anti-submarine equipment were made of painted fly-screen, thread stiffened with glue and paper. The only metal parts on the model are the gun barrels.

Click on the pictures for a larger version.

There are many photos of "real" subchasers on the navy-source website. The two above (courtesy of Navsource ) give an impression of the appearance and the deck layout of the vessels during their career. I used these photos along with the suberb Fine-Art model-subchaser (see resources below) as the main reference for my work.

The addition of figures makes it easier to point out the proportions of a scale model. In this case I used Preiser z-gauge railway personnel. The original scale of the figures is 1:220, so they have to be shortened by 1mm to match the 1:250 scale. But after painting the surgery is not visible anymore.

The kit includes two depth-charge throwers. After studying the various sources I decided to replace them with two K-guns and depth-charge racks made of fly-screen and thread. The depth-charges were cut from tooth-picks. I added eight single-release chocks at the stern and two Mark 20 mousetrap rails at the bow made from stiffened thread and paper.

More than 300 parts in a model just 14 cm long.

The model comes on cd (pdf-files).

Model	US Navy Subchaser SC-1029
Kit/Availability	www.paperlab.com
Designer	Darius Lipinski
Scale	1:250
Difficulty	high
Number of Parts	330
Instructions	detailed construction diagrams, many model photos and computer renderings on cd
Fit	very good, little problems with hull sides
Coloring and Artwork	very good
Printing	no problems
Resources	Ted Treadwells fantastic splinter-fleet website provides a lot of information about subchasers and has helpful links to other related sites NavSource photo-archive site with photos of subchasers Fine-Art-Models has pictures of their subchaser-model
Comments and Questions	horst.muerell@gmx.de