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Well, not resting on my laurels here -- moving right along to the next project. I wanted to get back to ships and do something not terribly difficult. Tijger fits the bill, so off we go. Tijger was one of five Heiligerlee-class monitors laid down for the Dutch navy in 1867. Roughly 192 ft in length with a beam of 44 ft, they had a draft of only 9 ft 9 in, displaced 1555 long tons, and carried a pair of 23 cm guns in a single turret. Tijger was auctioned off in 1895. At 1/250 scale the finished model will be 23 cm long. In the second photo you can see one of my earlier models, the Spanish monitor Puigcerda, sitting atop Tijger's deck for a size comparison. Build pics to follow soon. Maybe. P.S. My understanding is that HNLMS (His/Her Netherlands Majesty's Ship) is an international prefix for Dutch ships, and that internally the Royal Netherlands Navy uses the prefixes Zr./Hr. Ms. (Zijner/Harer Majesteit's). Here in the American Deep South we would probably just call them "Y'All's Ship," as in, "Y'all's ship is blockin' muh party barge."

Acrylics and regular ol' acrylic matte clear spray.

Nope. The parts sheets were sealed before construction started.

All done! I added control horns and/or actuators for ailerons and rudders. Of course, I also found sources that showed such devices for the elevators as well, but with no parts in the kit and no clear illustrations, I opted to go without. Good thing I'm done, too, because I had just barely enough of a couple of edge colors to finish the job. Enjoy the pictures! Now, remind me not to do any more 2-for-1 builds in the near future! 🤪

I edited the email addy out of the post.

Absolutely mind-boggling retail price differences are not unheard of in our hobby. It really does pay to shop around!

I have to take back an earlier observation. While I was working on the planes this evening, I did find where the fuselage is marked for the rudder control rod fairings. Bother! 🙄 But no parts for these were included.

I forgot to add my congratulations for finishing your degree. That's an important milestone for a young person.

Look for build logs with "first build" either in the title or in a tag -- these will show you what other beginners have tackled.

Yep, I noticed that. There is no provision for that in the kit. I think I will skip that bit, otherwise I may lose my sanity by looking for additional super-detailing opportunities! 😬

Small boats make excellent first models. A company called Midwest Products used to manufacture a great line of such kits, though they have since dropped them from their offerings; they still turn up on eBay regularly. Model Shipways and BlueJacket Shipcrafters have both been working to fill the gap -- check with Cornwall Model Boats to see what they have in stock on your side of the pond.

That makes sense and appears to match what can sorta be made out in the photos. Of course, the kit makes no provision for either the rod or the fairing, but it does look a little weird with just the horn and no connector. I'll have to see what I can drum up. Some good pics there, Egilman! Our Polish friends publish some pretty good walk-around volumes.

Ya lost me -- I can't picture what that looks like.

Thanks, Egilman. I may not have gotten all the jargon correct -- I just know that there is a doohickey that enters the wing at some point not marked on the wing skin. 😁 I'm also very happy that aircraft of that period were transitioning to all-internal controls; nevertheless. more than a few of the kits in my stash still have some external cables (thinking in particular about my de Havilland Tiger Moth). BTW, here's a picture that shows a similar control horn. What I have to guesstimate is where the control rod passes through the wing skin.

You know how sometimes when you go digging for information online, you find more questions than answers? Many of the images I have found online for the PWS-10 show the plane without any obvious control horns, or at least not any that can be picked out of the grainy images. But I finally found the one shown below at https://www.smartage.pl/pws-10-zapomniany-poprzednik-mysliwcow-pulawskiego/. The photo appears to show two horns on the right aileron. Interestingly, they are on the underside of the aileron, while the horn locations on the kit ailerons are marked on their upper surfaces. The kit doesn't show at all where the actuators enter the wing, so that will require a best-guess. Also of interest in the photo is the chin-mounted radiator. The kit radiator models the type shown in the photo, but I have seen other photos and drawings with different radiators. Sources also disagree on the number of bracing rods behind the radiator. In addition to the starboard side rod seen in the photo, which clearly attaches to the rear of the radiator, some sources show an additional rod that attaches to the side of the radiator. The kit drawings show this additional rod, but, unlike for the first pair of supports, neither the radiator parts nor the fuselage are marked to show where this rod should attach. I'm guessing the second pair of braces may have been an in-the-field upgrade, so I feel comfortable about leaving them off. Also also of interest, this photo (as well as others I have seen) shows a Spanish example with spoked wheels, which I will in no wise try to imitate! 😬

Okay, we are sorta halfway to the finish line. Spanish Nationalist is mostly done. There were quite a few more fiddly bits at the end than I had anticipated, and there's still a few left that I need to wrestle with. The kits contain control horns (but I lost Spanish Nationalist's), but the diagrams don't show their locations clearly. The photos I have looked at don't help much, either. Also still need to add a pitot tube, which is misnumbered on the diagrams and for which there is no template for making the wire piece. Not deal killers by any stretch, just things that need to be thought about. Will try to finish White Tail this week.

Congratulations, Phil! Scratch + card = a tough challenge, but you pulled it off. Cheers!

Sounds like the seller might be a navy veteran, judging by his seller name "ssbn663," which was the USS Casimir Pulaski.

Whew! All landing gears and ailerons complete. I can't hardly fit both of these birds in one frame together. All that remains are skids, radiators, and propellers -- the radiators might be tricky.

That is a candidate for Understatement of the Year -- he is a master! This caught my eye. Rounded parts with petals are one of my card-modeling kryptonites. Any idea what that tool is and how much it might cost? Of course, there has to be a pressing tool for each size of mold.

I have used double-sided tape, too, but I'm not familiar with a brand that has any peel-off backing. What I did was apply the tape to the canopy frame, cut the panes out while the tape is laid over a sheet of glass, and then stick the frame to the canopy material. The problem with that method is that inevitably too much of the adhesive on the second side would rub off on the glass during the cutting, which adversely affected the frame-to-canopy bond. But tape with a peel-off backing might do the trick.

No. Despite whatever interest has been on display here, card models are still a tiny fraction of what gets shown at MSW. Anyways, ships would just go in the general ship builds area, and aircraft fall under "non-categorized." This area is more or less a bonus area, offered as a courtesy to our members; offering more than this would conflict with MSW's primary mission. But there are numerous dedicated card-modeling forums on the internet. Some of our members are active on one or more of those sites.

Brushes come in a wide range of quality, and their prices reflect that. Avoid packaged sets that sell for like $1.99 at Hobby Lobby. But neither do you need to lay out the dough for top-end brushes (though they are nice). I have found mid-priced white sable brushes work quite nicely for me. I use large-ish square-tipped brushes for doing large areas, like hulls. I use an assortment of medium- to small-sized round-tip brushes for detail work; I use such brushes for applying PVA glue as well.

Yep, considering that they cater primarily to crafters, they do have a decent selection of modeling-specific supplies. Every time I stop by there, I see something to make a mental note of for later.

Well, gents, I stopped by Hobby Lobby to find some Pacer/ZAP 560 -- couldn't find it, and staff said they'd never heard of it. Oh, well. In the meantime, I am plugging away. Got one set of ailerons done today and finished up the second set of wheels. I will probably post a pic once I get White Tail's gear done (for which I picked up some music wire while I was at Hobby Lobby).