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Figure 2 (9/98) |
Figure 3 (9/98) |
Figure 4 (9/98) |
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Figure 1: Looking down at the Conning Tower of the 17ft studio model of the Seaview. Note the swept-back shape of the sail planes - a detail missed on the Lunar Model's Seaview. The 8.tft model had moveable planes that produced a small straight space between the plane and the tower. This photo, and others on this site, are courtesy of Phil Broad and his Modeler Builder's Reference Vault website. |
When I planned the construction of my Seaview, I determined that I would need to separate the upper deck/sail section from the main hull (the kit included the port and starboard hull pieces (vacuum-formed), with the conning tower section attached). I felt this was necessary for several reasons:
I wanted access to the interior for lighting and other purposes.
The thin plastic was structurally weak. Separating the sections improved their strength, and aided in reinforcing the model.
There were a number of problems with both the fit and symmetry of the model. Constructing it in this way assisted in addressing these problems.
It just looked better!
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Figure 2 (9/98) |
Figure 3 (9/98) |
Figure 4 (9/98) |
The three figures above show the two halves of the conning tower and upper deck structure attached. I widened the the structure by adding strips of 1/8" wide plastic at various locations between the two halves. This was to emphasize space between upper deck/ballast structure and the rounded hull. Unfortunately, this also widened the already too-wide conning tower. Figure 3 show the cutout made in the port side of the sail so that I could access this area for lighting.
The oblong hole in the forward section of the deck is where the sonar housing structure was placed in the movie version of the Seaview. This was removed for the TV conversion. I also removed all existing detail (including the original ballast vents, conning tower hatches, and missile hatches), as I intended to add these myself.
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Figure 5 (9/98) |
Figure 6 (9/98) |
Figure 7 (9/98) |
The underside of the conning tower section (Figure 5) shows the construction of the ballast vents. The kit included molded impressions for these, but I decided to make these myself. My approach was to cut out the area where a section of vents were to be located. The vertical spacers were made from cut notch-shaped pieces cut from card plastic; these were sized to fit snuggly through the cutout vertically, but were not uniform in length (it was important that they were long enough to extend through the cutout in the side of the hull). Once in place, the excess plastic could easily be cut and filed smooth with the side of the outer hull. I found it to be an effective but tedious approach.
Figure 6 shows the upper deck attached to the primary hull. The two structures are held together with strong magnets, and are easily separated. Note the long vertical slits in the upper deck (just below the conning tower proper). I had to cut several of these in the mid-section of the port side of the upper deck to compensate for warping in the structure toward the starboard side. In this figure, they have been filled and smoothed. Also note the addition of the hatch on the conning tower and the missile hatches along the top of the upper deck. In Figure 6, the missile hatches are hollow rings cut from stock plastic tubing. These will be filled with Milliput putty later.
No, Figure 7 is not a photo of one of Irwin Allen's rubber-suited monsters attacking the Seaview. It's my son holding the model with the two sections together.
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Figure 8 (10/98) |
Figure 9 (11/98) |
Figure 10 (11/98) |
The conning tower on the TV version of the Seaview had no flying bridge windows. I choose to keep this detail in my TV-version model because I liked the look, and I wanted to gain some experience in creating lighting effects before tackling the interior lighting of the observation nose. Originally, these windows were simply cut out of the conning tower. Unfortunately, the thin plastic in this area (made even thinner by my attempts to overcome its problems with symmetry) broke while I was adding the clear window pieces. Figure 8 shows the work necessary to repair the damage. To do this, I replaced the area around the original windows with a window frame that was filed to conform to the contours of the structure. Once painted, clear plastic was added to the interior surface for the windows.
The top of the conning tower had a lop-sided appearance. I corrected this by building the area up with Milliput.
(Figures 9 and 10) Lighting the conning tower was accomplished with two 12v incandescent lights (from a 9v power supply). One of these bulbs is located in the tower itself, and illuminates the inside. The effect I was after was a subtle light, not to be too noticeable. I had tried using a white LED, but found the color to be too bluish.
The other bulb is located below and forward of the conning tower, and is used with the fiber optics used for controls and exterior running lights. I'm not sure if there were four running lights on the top of the conning tower (one on each corner) or three (one each on the forward port and starboard sides, and a single light on the aft end of the conning tower). I chose four. These were created with clear lenses for electric trains (sub-HO scale) that worked well with fiber optics.
Another diversion from accuracy: I added various hardware details on both the conning tower and the upper deck. Also, the movie and TV props used for the lower port hatch of the conning tower included a port hole. I included this detail in all four hatches on the conning tower, and - of course - these have a slight glow when the lights are on.
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| Figure 11 (12/98) | Figure 12 (12/98) |
The two figures above show the completed sail assembly - sans periscope assembly (it looks much better with the opening in the port side closed!) I applied a little dry-brushing to some of the details; I used Testors Acryl Dark Ghost Gray as the base color. While I'm happy with the overall look, I'm still disappointed with how wide the conning tower is.
Figure 13 (12/98): Looking down at the lighted conning tower. The control in the flying bridge actually glows blue. The light above the diving plane is the glow from the hatch porthole. Periscope and radar parts will eventually be placed in the three holes aft of the flying bridge. |
With the exception of the 17 ft. model, the studio models of the Seaview used a two-tone color scheme for the hull along the entire length where the ballast vents are located. This was a very subtle effect. Having watched the series originally on a B&W television, I was not aware of this detail until fairly recently, after studying video tapes from the series. From what I've observed, most modelers apply a similar scheme, using varying degrees of contrast between the two shades. I have chosen to use a single color for my model.
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