ordered........15-08-1940
laid down......15-03-1941
launched.......30-11-1941
commissioned...09-05-1942,Wolfgang Luth
shipyard.......AG Weser,Bremen
werk...........1021
commanders.....09-05-1942 untill 30-09-1943,Wolfgang Luth
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...............01-11-1943 untill 08-05-1945,Kurt Freiwald
career,4 patrols..09-05-1942 untill 30-09-1942,4th flotille,training
..................01-10-1942 untill 31-10-1942,10th flotille,front boat
..................01-11-1942 untill 30-09-1944,12th flotille,front boat
..................01-10-1944 untill 08-05-1945,33th flotille,front boat
sucesses........27 sunk,138.779 BRT
fate............taken over by the Japanese as I-501 on 15 July,1945
I bought the model at the Engel firm in Germany,
and met Gregor Engel himself.
Here are pictures of the boat from there site.
I found this picture somewhere on the web and I must say,
I wet my pence.Back then I suspect it was a modelbrass deck,so I send Jason Overhulser
an email with the question????''is this you`re work??''
I got an email back from Jason with the answer ''YES''
A few months later got the deck in my shipyard.
These are some the pictures taken from the modelbrass site,
I believe the URL where these came from is no longer in existence.
Here are some 2 old pics of the boat,
I really like........before she went into the testtank.
My first thoughts was .........okay she looks good in the wet,
she felt a littlebit to the left but isn`t a BIG problem.
Well the problem gets bigger.......when I filled up the 2 piston tanks
she felt more than 45 degrees to the left,and that is a BIG problem.
I tried to get more wheight down,ad some some led in the
boat,it didn`t help anything,grrr.
Here are some old pictures during this build.
The turm,
The boat,
________________________________________________________________________________
Okay I start all over again with this baby,
I had to think about for many days,so here it goes.
The upperdeck is way to heavy,I removed all the copper.
Iam installing now some '''L'''profiles,
in the lenght of the boat i will installing a ''T'''profile.
Here is my work on the deck.
Fore,
Mid,
Mid,
Aft,
This area I marked is the connection between the foredeck and the middledeck,
I solder these 2 together,than I solder a rail underneath it for the reinforcemment.
It`s the same rail that will be placed by the external storage containers.
I have NOT much space to fit the brass deck to the upperdeck,
it`s only 2,5 mm wide.Therefore I am creating some more space
for fitting the brass deck to the upperdeck.
I solder an extra piece of brass underneath the deck
for some reinforcement.
Underneath the deck I solder a copper wire......it`s a lever
for opening or unlocking the hatch.
Before I solder the hatches to the deck I used some
masking tape........to hold the hatch in the right position.
I solder hatch with a few points on the deck,
twist the deck around,than solder the complete hatch from the inside.
This is a very weak area,a littlebit bumpy.
I solder some 2mm copper underneath it,
for reinforcement,it`s not that heavy........I hope.
Soldering finished,sanding will be done at a later stage.
These are the covers for the diesels,
lots sanding and removing solder has to be done.
This is the topside...................
still lots of sanding has to be done.
I filled the gaps completly with solder!!!!
The inside.
Almost finished...he he.
These are the three hatches from the original kitt,
a littlebit off scale if you ask me.
Got three of them;fore/aft and the CT.
I will replace them by scratchbuilding all three of them......
Iam using 1mm ABS.
More later about these three hatches.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Cunning tower.
This is a very controversial subject.
The turm Engel dilivers looks not even close like the real thing,unfortunly.
So my friend and I decided to scratchbuild our own turm.
My friend started the project by using this turm.
It`s a scaleshipyard turm IV,in the 1/32 scale.
The scaleshipyard turm IV.
And this is what my friend has created so far,looks very neat,doesn`t it.
It`s just a wood/timber plug.
This scratchbuild turm doesn`t fit on the brass deck,,,,duh.But we decided
to go along with the Engel turm,,,,,,for now.
This my work on the Engel turm so far!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I also removed all the copper from this ''old''turm,
I wasn`t happy with the result at the end.
This is the brass deck for the lower wintergarten.
Here Iam soldering some reinforcements,
it`s much stronger this way.
The copper 12mm is a water drainage pipe we plummers use
here in the Netherlands.
The attack periscope and air periscope:
The IX`s have also these wires attached
on the attackscope like the type VII.
I have seen pictures of the air periscope on the IX`s
with wires attached,I am not sure if the D2`s have
attached these wires on both scopes.
Here is a littlebit of info what the reason is about
these wires.
This article comes from the book
''Ubootwaffe,marine-kleinkampfvebande 1939-1945,page54.
Here are some pictures of the attackperiscope on a VII-C;
Here you see a picture of U-128 in training on may 1941, a type IX-C.
This boat have wires on both scopes(red is the attackscope and blue is the airscope).
Here you see attackscope,it`s from the Engel kit,
a littlebit scratchbuilding is needed.
What I marked in green is a left over from
White-Ensign fred what is used for my Bismarck,
so NEVER throw anything away!!!!!!!
Blue;is what I cut out from the WEM fred.
Red;is what I solder on the attackscope,
one is on,two to go.
More soon about these scopes,stay tuned!!!!
This is my latest new book what I purchaced from Amazon,
it`s a novel rather than a documentery like the forword
in the book says.Unfortunly there are no pictures Of
U-859 or any other U-boats in the book.
But it`s well worth reading and this book was a
''must have'' for my collection.
The second book from Arthur Baudzus
''The Nazi: Coming of Age in Hitler's Germany and the Voyage of the U-859''
isn`t available at Amazon,so I sign up for the book,
when the book becomes available.
Some more ribs,
19/07/2012
This is the work from my friend,some great work,I had to clean my pants when I saw these pictures.
TBC