Thursday, 14 May 2015

MOEBIUS 39" 1/128 SCALE SEAVIEW

Well Folks, I’ve finally found some time to finish my 39” 1/128 scale Moebius Seaview build and I have to say I’m reasonably pleased with it.


It’s been a fun kit to build and most of the parts fitted together very well, especially the Flying Sub bay door which, considering its curved  shape clicks fairly safely into place.



Although it’s a reasonably simple kit, assembly in a certain order does make it easier to deal with the lighting and the painting.



 I assembled and painted the control room first, followed by the Flying Sub hanger and lower bow.   Moebius do provide a small plastic hook to attach the Flying Sub in place, but I didn’t think that was robust enough and looked fiddly, so I preferred to use magnets, one hidden in the Flying Sub bay circular section, and one in the Flying Sub itself.



The lower bow and control room have quite a few lights, so setting  that up was next, ensuring that there was enough wire to travel the full length of the sub, as when assembled  I intended to leave the rear Cadillac fins loose and  fit the battery and switch beneath it.


I assembled both the front and back sections of the hull, but didn’t put them together at this point.
The sail and diving planes were next, ensuring the navigation lights fitted okay. Then I assembled everything apart from the lower bow which I wanted to leave till last.




After filling and sanding any gap lines, followed by several priming coats, I applied the final coats of matt white for the bottom of hull (it is supposed to be camouflage grey according to the instructions , but white looks okay to me and is a lot easier to find!) and a matt light grey to the upper hull.


As I chose to build the version of the model that is seen underwater in the series I wanted to add the darker grey detailing along the length of the sub which highlights the ballast vents ,sail  hatches and the 16 missile aft deck hatch covers as this colour scheme appears to be more prominent in the underwater scenes.


Once I was happy with the finish, I glued the clear plastic windows in place, obviously making sure they were clean on the inside. I’d already prepared the Cadillac fins, so all that was left was to fit and glue the lower bow in place and finish soldering the wiring at the rear of the sub.



 Overall, I’m fairly pleased with it. There’s a couple of lighting issues that I'm not 100% happy with, LED’s that didn’t work and, although the model gives little other choice I’m not over keen with the brightness of the fibre optics in the Cadillac fins. But apart from those minor niggles it’s still an impressive model from  Moebius.

8 comments:

  1. Looks fantastic Scoop! Good job! When do we set sail?

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  2. I'm gonna have to dig a really big pond in the back garden to float this little beauty, Woodsy ; D

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  3. Superb! That looks magnificent.

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  4. Thanks Kev. It a superb model and an enjoyable build .I'm toying with the idea of picking up the movie version kit.

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  5. That's a gorgeous piece of work Mike!

    And you're way too modest to be only "reasonably" pleased - I can't think what could improve on that level of quality?

    Best -- Paul

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  6. Kind of you to say so, Paul, cheers. : )

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  7. Wow! That turned out great Scoop!!! Super job!

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  8. Thanks Ed, it was a labour of love : D

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