ccoyle

Welcome aboard and good luck with your project!

Good choice, methinks. No doubt substantial modifications were made to the original to configure her for exploration, and retrofitting the kit would probably have been as much work as building the bomb vessel from scratch. Looking forward to seeing your progress!

I have always thought that the Tiffy's big radiator intake gave it a particularly hulking and menacing look. My card modeling interests lean toward the interwar years, but I think that I might one day have a slot in my queue for a Typhoon.

Beautiful -- congratulations!

Welcome aboard, Shepherd! Your job description sounds very interesting. Getting started in the tool department is always kind of tricky, and probably every modeler has tools in his possession that he thought he would need but never did, or tools that he once though were indispensable but now seldom uses. It's part of learning the craft, as well as developing your own particular style and methods. Starter tool kits can be problematic, because of course they're based on what someone else thought were the required tools, not what may work best for you; on the other hand, they can be a good way to get started. Personally, I started with a tool set aimed at model railroaders and got by reasonably well for my first couple of beginner kits. Much of what you need in addition to such a set can be acquired at any local craft or hardware store. Good beginner kits also include some advice on what tools and materials are needed to complete the kit. Take care!

Allen, hull and deck questions go here. Cheers!

Not to my knowledge.

Love the number of bulkheads supplied in the kit -- that's about twice what's normally included in most kits.

Hello, Termi. I have only built one Corel kit, their schooner Flying Fish, which I bashed as Jack London's Ghost for a teacher friend to use as a visual aid when doing a unit on The Sea-Wolf. It was truly an awful kit with a long list of issues. However, I have heard members speak well of higher-end Corel kits -- I guess it's one of those "get what you pay for" things.

Hans does indeed offer some interesting and not every-day subjects. I'm looking forward to seeing this come together.

She positively oozes that mid-20th century style.

I can't answer the question about covering boards, but that area will be difficult to see once the cockpit benches are installed.

Man, I'm pretty sure I built the Gosling, too!

Congratulations on a beautiful model, David!

Very, very nice, Andrew -- congratulations!

Nice work, Larry -- congratulations!

Wow -- she's looking like she's seen some hard use. I mean, like, HARD use. 😮

I think I actually built the Airfix Swordfish back in the day.

Welcome! The two ships, Stephen Taber and Smuggler, do have very similar lines, so it should not be terribly difficult to pass a model of the latter off as the former. Cheers!

Fabulous work, Mike!

BTW, for our members who are not up to speed on all things card modeling, WAK is a Polish publisher with an e-commerce site that sells their own line of kits along with many others. Click here to see WAK's current stable of 1/200 scale ship models.

Welcome aboard, Charles! We have a few finished Heller Victories around here, and to see one being super-detailed, check out this log by dafi. Enjoy!

Slow progress. Was held up a few days by the need to get some more spray adhesive. I wasn't paying attention and got the wrong kind too, 3M 90 instead of 77 (90 is the heavy-duty spray and is not dispensed in anything like the fine pattern from a can of 77). Whoops! Made do with it anyway. As I hinted earlier, I'm still trying for that elusive "perfect hull." These kits have a longitudinal profile former spine that glues down to the base by means of a series of folded tabs. I don't care much for that method, since the folded paper fibers store some elastic energy, resulting in the tabs tending to push upward on the spine. What I did instead was remove the tabs and add two card strips on either side of the spine, creating a slot for the spine to fit into. Next up are the transverse formers. As you can see in the accompanying photo, the horizontal lines on the formers do not match up correctly with the corresponding line along the spine; if all is glued in place like this, the deck will not have a perfectly flat surface to lie on. The transverse formers will need to be shimmed to fix the alignment, and the amount of shim needed is slightly different at each station (due simply to the tiny variations in the cutting out of each part), so that will be the next task. EDIT: Forgot to mention that I also laminated the formers onto a second sheet of card, which substantially stiffens them. This simulates the practice found in most Eastern European kit designs, but is not standard practice for Paper Shipwright or HMV designs. Cheers!

Welcome aboard from a former teacher, now turned textbook writer. Well beyond thirty, though. 😋

You did, thank you! Have fun with this -- cutters are good models for neophyte builders. Check out the other logs if you get stuck, and remember that this kit's designer is a regular member here (Chris Watton), so he'll probably check in from time to time. Cheers!