Of the old mold and kit of the Lindberg USS Nautilus (SSN-571) first nuclear submarine. The kit was first introduced in the early 1950’s. Commissioned 30 September 1954 and decommissioned 3 March 1980. She was built by General Dynamics and launched 21 January 1954 under the command of Commander Eugene P Wilkinson, USN. Following her commissioning, she remained dockside for further construction and testing. After all lines were cast off on the morning of 17 January 1955 at 11:00 am EST, he signaled the memorable and historic message, “Underway on Nuclear Power.” She is now part of the submarine force library and museum at Groton, Connecticut. I tried to paint her with flat black Testors spray paint to represent the way she looks today as a museum boat at Groton. This old model kit has limited detail as one might expect from way back then, but I added a few things, eliminated a few things and swapped a decal around and hand painted the number on her bow. I also have a framed picture of her, underway, in a nice dark wood frame, hanging over my fireplace mantle. Taped to the back of the picture is a certificate of authenticity with the actual autograph of Eugene P Wilkinson. For her badge, I ran the image off of Google images and printed it on my printer, cut it out and glued it to the modeling plywood base. I colored the plywood with a felt furniture touch-up pen to achieve the darker color. Those pins are just lapel pins with the pins removed from the back and superglued to the base.
You mean a blue light cast on her? Never thought of that. I must see if the wife will let me switch light bulbs. I could always paint one blue first. lol
Yep…like light filtering down…the white reflections become a deep blue…a blue bulb, painted blue (although most paints will dry and peel on a bulb - unless LED) or even some blue cellaphane SP?
Hi Half Track, another great model! I agree with CAC about putting a blue light on it. I made myself a Titanic wreck model during quarantine in 2020. I got a case for it, and rigged up an inexpensive led light strip to put on top of the case. (It’s and adhesive strip that I bought on Amazon, and I attached it on a metal track that was for a sliding door I had). It just sits on top of the case. I love the light on it, and you can change the color on it (although I stick with the blue). I think your model would look great with something like this.
Thanks. They had originally included a rocket with a launcher plus a deck gun to glue on and the Nautilus never had either. But that was the 1950’s and I guess Lindberg thought it was cool. So, somewhere on line I saw a photo of her with something in red that a modeler had painted. For what, I have no idea, forward of the conning tower. So to fill in the slot that Lindberg provided for that rocket, I painted it red. lol And I also saw on line a really professional model of her with something red both fore and aft of the conning tower.
There is one towards the bow & one towards the stern...They were the hatch covers for the Nautilus' rescue buoys. However, they were not red, but a yellow-orange.
I’ll paint over that red with flat black and paint the two hatch covers. I never noticed but they came right where you said and they have them molded to the deck. Thanks a lot for the drawing, much appreciated!
Just another update on a model and I thought it improper to begin another thread, I made changes to the old kit. As probably noted before, this kit originally came out around 1948, probably the first plastic model kit produced. Lindberg did it and called it their fleet submarine. And they are still available. But it was produced as the USS Gato ((SS-212). But I changed it as said in an earlier post and now made more modifications. I believe I’m done moving and adding things. It could use some railings but that won’t happen. lol
