Building the WSW 1/700 T-35 Torpedo Boat

Introduction

I reviewed this great little kit in the November 2001 issue of Internet Modeler. This German company makes a fine line of waterline resin ship kits. This is my first experience with WSW products and it will surely not be my last. I just love the lines of these rakish and deadly little German ship and couldn't wait to dive in. Read on.

Building the T 35

Opening the box I found a plethora of very finely molded resin parts with no evidence of air bubbles anywhere. I mean this is some of the better resin I have seen in a water line ship kit. Instructions are basic, with little more than a few drawings and some basic painting instructions. They do a good job of identifying kit parts. You'll probably want to pick up some additional references on this ship anyway, so the limited information presented here shouldn't be too much of a hindrance.

Hull and Superstructure

The kit directions give an overhead view of the completed ship with numeric designations for the kit parts. Parts are identified on the reverse side of the sheet. I did quite a bit of flipping back and forth as I built up the kit.

I couldn't stand it so I skipped the many detailed gun and fittings at this stage and assembled the superstructure components and placed them on the hull. I started with the bridge components. There is a superstructure with a bridge topped by a gun director. There are no alignment marks molded into the hull or parts so care should be taken in aligning components. I used CA throughout assembly. I built the major hull components up easily due to the extremely clean condition of the parts. I have never seen a resin kit with so little cleanup required

I then assembled the mid superstructure consisting of the funnels, gun mounts, and searchlight platform. I dry fit these assemblies and once happy I glued them in place. I then assembled the mid ship triple A platform and aft turret mount without difficulty. About those turrets - the kit come with four main battery turrets and a plethora of AAA guns. All were cast intact including barrels! I then glued the two three round torpedo launchers in place. At this point I was ready to try for the neat razzle camo scheme suggested by the box art.

Basic Painting

I sprayed the hull with a light coat of gunship gray and let that dry. I then carefully masked off the hull and superstructure to go for that neat splintered effect. I mean this took tiny slivers of masking tape to achieve this. You have to stand back and look at the ship at a waterline view to really see what you are doing. Once I was happy with the masking I sprayed a couple of light coats of haze gray on all horizontal surfaces tanking some care to keep it off the deck. Once this dried I pulled the masks off and had a look. Not too shabby! I then did general touchup of the deck and I was happy.

Details, Details

Kit directions have you make individual small AAA gun mounts. There are PE gun shields for the single, double and quad mounts. I painted all remaining unassembled parts haze gray. Once dry, I bent these shields as directed and soon I had a small pile of very fine looking guns which I. I placed the AAA mounts around the ship as directed. I then glued the PE boat rails in place behind the bridge and glued the painted boats in place. I then attached the various ships cranes in place around the ship. There were five individual cranes all complete as cast. I then assembled the two ship's masts out of the resin and PE components and painted them separately. The two PE radar antennae really look sharp. This made for very nice scale thin parts with enough detail to be convincing. I did not mount them on the ship quite yet though. I did touchup painting and dry brushing of all the details in preparation for the PE railing.

Final Assembly

I decided to put complete deck railings around the ship. Most of the superstructure railings consist of splinter shielding so I did no railing there. The kit supplied PE railings were large for the scale but I wanted to use them. I sprayed the PE railings haze gray and carefully cut out a few spans. Switch to max magnification here. I bent one rail carefully into a tight V and glued the apex at the bow point. I then tacked down the railing on first one side and then the other with the tiniest amounts of CA. I then glued to lengths of railings on either side of the hull and stern. I then installed the Main and after masts and their supports to complete the model.

Conclusion

I painted a wake on a royal blue surface and took some pictures for this article. I enjoyed this little build and recommend the kit for the average ship modeler. I have never seen such clean castings in a resin ship of this scale. There was virtually no cleanup of parts making this kit a snap to build. If you want to build your first 1/700 scale resin waterline kit this is a great place to start! The German WSW T 35 destroyer will make an interesting addition to any collection of WWII era ships.

My thanks to Lisa Norman of the company formerly know as The Rocky Mountain Shipyard for the review sample.