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CDW
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Everything posted by CDW
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I am not happy about you having the eyesight issue after you've been working too long on the small items, but glad to know I am not the only one who has that problem. After a rather short time, I have to get up and do something else for a while as the strain to see small modeling items makes my vision very blurry. And this happens even with all the great magnification tools being used. The problem is directly related to the small size. The smaller the objects, the less time I can spend in one sitting.- 473 replies
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- greek bireme
- dusek
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Drill Bit Sizes Appropriate for Ship Modeling?
CDW replied to Mike40's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
I think you are going to find the metric sizes graduate on a .05 mm interval. The imperial number sized bits fall in between the metric sizes, so there is no direct correlation between the two. Here is a link with a chart: http://www.csgnetwork.com/drillsizeconvert.html -
We are on the west coast, while the eye of the storm is passing south to north along the east coast. We will likely see tropical force winds early this morning and maybe tomorrow unless the storm makes a course adjustment. Then all bets are off. But for now, we are fine. I'm just glad I'm retired and can stay at home with my family rather than be locked in a command operations center like I used to do when these type threats came across.
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As in flat clear coats, or flat color coats? I have not used any flat clear coat rattle can paint on my models in recent times. But I do use Tamiya gloss color coat paint in rattle cans for my car models. Excellent, very high quality. I would think their flat coat rattle can paints are good as well, but just guessing.
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Have never tried the Vallejo rattle cans, but use Tamiya and Mr. Surfacer all the time. For some reason, have never seen the Vallejo rattle cans in any local hobby shops and as a consequence didn't know they existed. Both Tamiya and Mr. Surfacer have very good light fill characteristics IMHO. The Vallejo primer in the bottles work well on photo etch and small detailed parts as they don't tend to fill in details.
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I love the progress on your Yamato, Greg. Looks super. My Yamato will sit for quite a while before I am ready to build it. Too many other models in the queue. One thing to note, items from Japan have become much more competitively priced recently when ordering directly from Japan rather than local. Even with the shipping charges, I have bought several items at a much lower price than anything I could find in the USA. I ordered my Yamato from a shop in Japan and even with shipping, saved close to $100.
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Once you start working with this small photo etch stuff, you'll probably find that a single PE bender is not enough. You'll want PE benders, plural. They come in various shapes, sizes, and types. One will do a job the others won't, so multiple tools are preferable. Tamiya makes two different hand tool PE benders. Both are extremely useful for very small photo etch.
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Here is a sample of the Quad 40mm Bofors units after the parts have been assembled. What I learned was that the resin parts are much easier to see after they have received a coat of primer. It's strange how they are so difficult to see without paint, but with it is a breeze by comparison. The primer seems to bring out the details that are camouflaged before painting. Just in case anyone else decides to do a build of their own which includes these Pontos Quad 40mm Bofors gun tubs, I highly recommend that the front shields be bent to the proper shape using the resin gun tub as a pattern before any of the other sub assemblies have been attached. This makes it much easier and faster to do because you won't have to be concerned about knocking off some of the minute, small details. Some of these extremely small pieces include the gun sights and gunner's seats. My paint was applied with an airbrush this time as a brush might be more likely to break away some of the small details. The primer I am using is Vallejo Acrylic Polyurethane which I highly recommend due to the fine pigment and ease of cover provided. I apply it straight from the bottle with a gravity fed airbrush using no reducer at all. Only a couple of drops are necessary to cover one gun assembly so there is almost no waste of paint whatsoever. With my Harder and Steenbeck airbrush, cleanup of the brush after paint is a snap. it literally only takes seconds to do, whereas other types of airbrushes take considerably longer to clean up. A huge plus when you are doing small items like these. I might also mention that I primarily use two types of glue to assemble small parts like these. One is Gorilla Glue (CA) in the bottle with the blue top. The other is Gator Grip extra thin Acrylic glue. As an example, the gun barrel/breach assemblies are glued to the gun tub mounts using the CA glue, while the front gun shields are glued with the acrylic glue. The acrylic glue is much more forgiving in allowing fine adjustments for correct part positioning while CA is not so forgiving. Suprisingly, the acrylic glue does not take a long time to set and get tacky. Only minutes.
- 135 replies
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Such a beautiful model. Congrats on a great project. This is one of those models that could cause a guy to be a grumpy grandpa when the grandchildren come over to visit. I would be watching like a hawk to make sure one of them didn't try to float it in the bathtub when I wasn't looking.
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Robin Man, I love this model. So clean and neat. The finish is just phenomenal!
- 473 replies
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- greek bireme
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Really had to drag myself through the tedious construction of the 40mm brass Bofors barrels on the resin breach pieces. I swear, I have razor stubble after two days without shaving that's longer and thicker than these gun barrels. And then to top it off, each barrel needs a smidge of filing on the aft end so as to shorten the receiver pin just enough so that it will slide inside the pre molded hole that's in each gun breach. Now that I am past this part, the rest of the quad Bofors gun mount/s construction will go smooth as butter. Phewwww........ Then, there are the nearly finished 5" 38 cal twin gun turrets, and the single mount 5" 38 cal guns. The guns have a primer coat and will receive a finish coat of paint and some weathering later on.
- 135 replies
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Advice on Billing Boats Endeavour and/or shrimp cutter
CDW replied to innkeeper's topic in Wood ship model kits
My first serious stab at a wooden sailing ship model was the Artesania Latina Harvey kit. Went together beautifully and looked great when it was finished. Took me about 5 or 6 months to finish that model and was very proud of it when completed. I can highly recommend this company from past experience, although there are others equally good and even better. The cost of the Harvey was small, but it is not a small model. Good value I think. -
Really looking forward to your build of the kit, Mike. This type of boat brings back a lot of good memories for me, having grown up in a family who owned boats almost just like this one and have spent many weekends out in the Gulf of Mexico in them. 200 miles off shore in the middle grounds.
- 146 replies
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- dumas
- Chris-Craft Commander Express
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Plating kits have been around for a long time, but have never taken an opportunity to try them out for myself. Also owning a Dumas boat kit or two, have pondered what to do with the fittings and perhaps home plating is the answer. Thanks for posting this.
- 146 replies
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- dumas
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It's going to be a great lesson and primer watching you build your Yamato. Will follow with great interest and admiration.
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Oh dear...my mistake. Looking at the instruction photos, it appeared as though the resin parts I thought were missing were all part of a resin sprue where each of four separate parts were attached. But that was not the case. Even though it was pictured as such, making me think the parts were missing, they were actually each individual part on a single sprue and not as they were pictured. All's well that ends well, and this ends well. I had my parts all along. Disaster/inconvenience averted.
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I started to build the Quad 40mm Bofors gun tubs today and found that the kit omitted a lot of the resin parts required to build those guns. I'll find out now how Pontos does customer service for missing parts. Sheesh, I hate that those parts were missing and that Ponto is on the other side of the world from here. Oh well, there are lots more things to work on while I wait for replacement parts.
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I like this technique a lot. It gives a very realistic finished appearance in my opinion.
- 414 replies
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- riva aquarama
- amati
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Arguments over shades and minutia of color are like fussing with how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Regarding the photos of Aydingocer's Riva interior, I think it looks super great. If and when he is happy with it, go with it. Overall, this boat project is very very nice. I like it a lot.
- 414 replies
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- riva aquarama
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OC, What amazes me is the level of detail they are able to produce with resin castings these days. I remember when resin detail parts first started coming out I would be lucky if the parts were not broken before I opened the package, or would be broken just trying to assemble the things. And on top of that, they were very crude by today's standards. Now, the resin parts are detailed in a way I can't even wrap my head around. Cannot imagine how a mold could be made that small to that level of detail, and then cast the parts and remove them from said mold without breaking the parts. It feels like the resin is maybe a little more "plastic" than it used to be so that it flexes a bit rather than breaks. Amazing stuff really, and Pontos is top notch for sure. No wonder the sets cost as much as they do. One can only imagine what it would take to create an original at this level of detail.
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So, I've been plucking away on these Pontos detail pieces, spending maybe a couple of hours per day with it. That being said, it's going to take a while to build all the little sub assemblies and this ship has quite a few. Here are just a few pieces for reference, a single mount 5" 38 gun, and the gun tubs for a couple of the twin 5" 38 gun turrets. The single 5" gun on the left consists of about 10 total pieces; resin, photo etch, and turned brass gun barrel. The photo etch gun tubs consist of somewhere around 15-20 individual pieces to make up each tub. And let me tell you, if you accidentally drop some of these pieces on the floor they are so small the chances of finding them are slim and none. For size reference, a ball point pen sits beside the 5" gun.
- 135 replies
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Glue efficiency (most useless topic ever!)
CDW replied to Robin Lous's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
Lol, Robin. You know, there is always a first time for just about anything. But after all these many years/decades without any negative or harmful incidents, I am going to use whatever glue works best for me regardless of ingredients and what California thinks of it. I believe much of the outcry about the ingredients of various products are due to the idiots who abuse them. Keep in mind there are mental midgets who put these types of glues in a paper bag then huff the fumes to get high. No doubt, some of those people have died or got sick. Maybe even exploded. -
Wow, that's a great find. Had no idea those were there. Being able to zoom in helps tremendously and is just what I needed. Thanks!
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These Pontos engineers do their products pretty well. The photo etch fits together very well, much better than some other brands I have used. I do wish their instruction sheets were printed just a little larger. The photos of the finished work are helpful, but very hard to see due to the small size of the printed photos.
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