CDW

Hi All,
Update:
 
I think that I am progressing.
Interesting, you want to assemble something, i.e Funnel and you get hit with a sheet of PE to detail Hangers, I guess that's part and Parcel of the Part works doctrine. I call it down a rabbit hole.... 🙂
 
Aft Superstructure:
Added Vents Exhausts, Radiators, etc. (I think that's all for the short term anyway.)
 
Mast:
Is this the Main or Mizzen? (Seems to be the Main at the rear of the ship.)
It took me some time to assemble, again.... Patience is definitely a virtue and so is knowing when to "Walk Away.... 🙂"
The "Cross" Yards are 2.0mm dowel and they were supposed to have a series of 0.5mm holes drilled along thier length to accommodate the PE "Footropes."
I grew tired of trying to drill these and lucky that I have plenty of spare dowel!!
I tapered these Yards and notched one side to accommodate the PE. It look o.k and after filling the excess "Slot", you do not notice at all. (I think anyway....)
 
Funnel:
As per the intro to this post, I wanted to get tis on to see what it looked like. The ship now a little more "Purposeful" with this placed on.
(I guess I'm going to start the Port and Starboard Hanger PE next.... 🙂)
(Please forgive the quality of the photos....)
 
Cheers....HOF.
 
Photos:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Slow progress I'm afraid due to really poor planning of the flow of work. Most of the time being lost waiting for paints and washes to dry.
The last major jobs before the railings were the boats and rafts. With the superb example set by @Old Collingwood with his boats for the Hood i felt I had to improve my game if I could. The rafts were given brown washes over the tan planking. The highlights on the sides are still a bit bright but the final washes will subdue it. The rafts were fitted.on the racks with Gators Grip glue

 

 

 
The davits for the boats were made up with the PE ladders (which will be virtually unseen in the final assembly). The boats were detailed with black and brown oil washes

And added to the ship

At this point, ready to move to the railings I suddenly realised I had a boat still on the sprue. There is a fourth boat that lives on chocks on teh port side and I had missed it. That will now be painted and detailed.
Thanks for looking in
Alan
 
 

Hey Denis
 
Is this what you are looking for? It's available online right there in New Hampshire from scalehobbyist.com
 
https://www.scalehobbyist.com/catagories/Model_Cars/freightliner-flc-semi-tractor/AMT00001195/product.php?pr=1

Nice! Great info.

How did you know what to do to correct the suspension? Would have never guessed it was that far off from AMT.

Beautiful model, very well done.

Evening all,  - still more boat building - 
 
OC.

All the upper deck PE is installed and the lockers, depth chargers and throwers are placed on the main decks. A late Christmas present showed up today.

The scissors are very nice and should allow precise cutting. They seem sharp and well made. The blue tool is a pair of fine tweezers. I'm still getting used to them. They seem good for control when placing small parts but at the moment I am experiencing a higher percentage of "ping" events with small parts departing the tweezers at speed. That is probably my lack of familiarity.
So, touch up of the paint and washes are next. 
 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking
Alan

I did find that all three depth charge rails are needed so the first one will go in the middle where it is harder to see the detail. I made up the others by making the first fold and then gluing the solid floor onto the side frame and letting it dry before folding up the rest of the rail frames. The Gators Grip glue worked well. The slight elasticity that remains when the glue has set means that it floor didn't ping off while being worked around. The picture shows one set of rails completed and the last one in process

The I fitted the repaired main mast and this time it dropped into place first time. I had taken the precaution of putting a little Gators Grip on the forward leg but no fiddling was necessary this time.

Then it was back to adding the PE ladders and continuing with the railings. So far it is going nicely although the PE is very flimsy.

 

 

I'll finish all the upper deck railings and then add the depth charger throwers and rafts and boats before the main deck railings.
 
Thanks for looking 
 
Alan
 

I suffered a minor setback today. I was dry fitting the main mast and managed to drop it as i was trying to line up the three legs. I managed to repair it but it also needed to get a better paint job so attention switched to the PE railings. I focussed on the upper decks at the aft end of the ship because I'm likely to forget myself and put my stubby fingers in the wrong places when I make a second attempt at getting the mast in. 

 

So far so good. I then spent an inordinate amount of time on the first depth charge rails. Folding the body was quite straightforward but setting the solid floor in the frame was extremely vexing. I think this is adequate but after leaving it alone for a while I think I have a better way to do it and there is also a spare set of parts so I can choose the best of three.

Tomorrow the Christmas decorations have to come down so progress might be a bit slower than usual

Thank you for looking in
Alan

Happy New Year All. I hope you had a great holiday season.
I've been making slow progress in short sessions and haven't had a chance to catch up the log. Some photos also got omitted but nothing serious.
The sub assemblies, parts on the sprues, PE frets and the hull all got a coat of the Vallejo black primer. The hull got a coat of Tamiya XF24 after masking the hull the decks got the deck grey.

Its difficult to see the difference between the hull and the deck.
The decks were then masked
The superstructures were painted with 507C along with the majority of the parts still on sprues and the PE frets.

Now its back to the Flyhawk magic. Those tiny pieces that make up the details.
These are the capstans for the foredeck

New year and a new cutting mat. I'm hoping small parts might show up better than on the dark green one. My clumsy handling of the epoxy glue has spoilt the old one. New magnifying glasses too. The old ones just failed at the side pieces - again.

The superstructures and main guns have been added and the detail is starting to build up. Still a a lot of parts on the sprues and in the PE frets

 

 

 

I'm pretty happy that I didn't bother with the brass gun barrels; the plastic ones are not really clumsy. That pink mat seems to have messed up the colour balance in the photos. I'll do better next time.
Thanks for looking in
Alan
 

Back to tiny world with a vengeance today. I'm still building the modules that will be painted before assembly and then PE is being added in places as part of that. As @Boydie noted the PE is very thin and the hinges of the folds are well perforated so I don't think there would be a second chance if you bend the wrong way. I was trying to go slowly to minimise that problem. 
The breakwater for the foredeck was a good example. Just the flexing of the part as I was cutting it from the fret saw three of the ribs breaking away from the breakwater. Actually I found it easier to cut them all off and then glue the breakwater to the deck. Once the breakwater was solidly set i attached the ribs. At least that way I wasn't dealing with trying keep everything in place and orientation at the same time. However the little triangles are tiny.

 

I decided that the plastic gun barrels on the 4 inch guns were good enough to retain. I think anything I gained in the neatness of teh brass barrel would be lost in the lack of neatness in drilling the tiny holes in the barrel stubs to hold the brass barrels

I'm definitely working at my PE limit. This is the mainmast platform

The plastic mainmast is very well done by Flyhawk but I thought the brass version might be better so I assembled the main components without too much trouble. I made up the plastic version to get the correct placements of the brass parts. The antenna at the top of the mainmast is a very fragile piece and two of the H antenna broke away as I was folding them to the correct angle. I managed to find the broken pieces and glue them in place (approximately). Its not as tidy as I would like but it might look OK once painted (if it survives the airbrush).
The photo shows one of the ribs for the breakwater and above it one of the H antenna

 

Thanks for looking in and all the helpful comments
Alan
 
 
 

I was all set to start SMS Lutsow but I made the mistake of looking at the PE set which includes the torpedo nets and my nerve broke! They look delicate and horribly fiddly.
So I decided to reenter the 1/700 world in easy stages and lifted Flyhawks HMS Lance off the shelf. This is the deluxe kit with metal barrels and two sheets of PE, mostly railings and davits. I'm not sure i will used the PE davits; the plastic ones look very good and are three dimensional.

A box full of parts along with a nice card with the art work on it. Instructions for the kit and then instructions for the PE so there is the need to cross reference. I tend to go over the kit instructions and make up where the PE parts will take the place of the plastic part number.

1/700 scale seems to have got smaller while I have been away playing with 1/72 armour and the corvette. The PE is thin and fragile. There won't be many second chances

The overall plan is to put the decks on the hull and then build up the superstructure separately as much as possible and hopefullu avoid some masking marathons.
So the bridge structure has been started with the tiny pieces of bridge equipment added and the first bits of PE

I hope everyone has a great Christmas
Alan

Beautiful model, very well done.

Hi All,
Small update:
 
 Aft Starboard Superstructure Side Railing, (Already completed), got damaged.... Not all of it but about 60mm of the curved pieces.... 😗
(How did this happen? I thought I'd be smart and hold the structure in a Dremel vice while I attached the Port side Rails. All went well until the Jaws "Slipped" and the Starboard side impacted the base of the Vice. Not happy about this and took me a couple of hours to carefully "Tease and Coax" the Railings back into shape. I think a good save!!)
 
Continued with Port Side Railings and completed. They are not perfect but they are o.k.
 
Added some components to the Aft Superstructure and I think that that's all the PE for this, perhaps?
(I lost one Resin Exhaust above the Hangar door, it "Pinged" away somewhere into another dimension. I should be able to duplicate a plastic replacement. 🙂)
 
The way my instructions are, the next task over three issues is the Mast and its' many components.
So, I intend to do this over the next two or three of days. I then would like to return to the Hull, get some traction, install Aft Grab Rails and get some paint on the Hull.
 
That's the plan anyway.
 
Cheers....HOF.
 
Photos tomorrow hopefully.

After the supports for the rafts, we need to install the cabinets and lockers for the ammunition. Again, this is done from historical pictures and the readers should keep in mind that this arrangement has evolved multiple times throughout the life of the ship. We also add the rear gun turret, after improving it a little bit.
 

 

 
The anti-flak cabin is just a big block of PLA, in the kit. It would take way too much work to hollow it (the material is so hard) and I wish the designer would have done it in parts to assemble. So, in order to give it more dimension, I added a front wall and frame around the opening. The "stuff" above the cabin is made of brass wires, welded together and provide 5 hooks for the lines between the main mast and the rear gun tub.
 
One painted and installed, it looks pretty decent and gives the illusion that it is indeed hollow:
 

 

 

 

 
That pretty much concludes the Module #5. The machine gun is being 3D printed in resin and I do not have it yet.
 
A few overall pictures to satiate your impatience and curiosity:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Next will be Module #6, the rear deck.
 
Yves
 
 
 
 
 

Beautiful model, very well done.

Part 11
 
 
Here is the bottom after a coat of Alclad II Lacquer Klear Kote matt.  The weathering was applied before the Klear Kote.  Wheels were added along with the radio antenna.

 
Starboard Bottom wheels and boarding ladder.

 
Aft view of the weathering streaking back on the booms from the turbo-superchargers.  The heat quickly damaged the paint.  The effect was a freehand airbrushing of tan followed by a light dusting of buff.  Then the heavy staining was applied powders using a brush,  followed by Klear Kote.

Port quarter view.

Focus stack of the business end.

 
Cockpit.

 
Turbo-superchargers.

 
Antenna mount.

 
Starboard Prop.

 
Starboard side.

 
Port side.

 
More to Come
 
BobW
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Part 10
 
I've been applying decals,  169 of them in all.  A good portion of them were so small that they measured less than 1/16th of an inch.  Every panel on this bird has a data decal.
 
Here is a little jig I made to line-up the prop markings.

 
 
This is a overhead view.  She is still in gloss coat for the decals to set down.

 
 
The bottom view, one can just make out the data blurbs in the small removable panels.

 
 
Port side view.  "PUDGY" was McGuire's wife's nickname.  This is "PUDGY III',  Roman numerals were not applied until 'PUDGY IV" which was a P-38 J.

 
 
Starboard view,  the white decal on the nose side under the windshield lists the ground crew. 

 
 
More to Come
 
BobW
 
 
 
 
 

Part 1
 

 
This is a build of Tamiya's new P-38H-5.  The kit is the second P-38 released this year.  First was the P-38F/G back at the beginning of the year.  I have one of those that I was going to modify into a G model.  When this kit was announced in March I put in a pre-order.   It didn't show up until the middle of August.
 
I have wanted a early model of the Lighting for a very long time,  Just love the sleek lines.  When Lockheed moved the Inter-Coolers from the leading edges of the wings to the lower nacelle in the J and L models it spoiled the smooth lines of the air frame.
 
The subject will be Tommy McGuire's PUDGY II, His second P-38 of five He flew in the 475th FG 431st FS.  McGuire was the second highest Ace of WWII with 38 Kills.
 
The Kit Sprues: A

 
Sprue B

 
Sprue C

 
Sprue Dx2

 
Sprue F

 
Sprue G

 
Sprue J

 
Instruction booklet

 
Color decal placement

 
Decal placement 2

 
Instructions

 
Kit Decals

 
Aftermarket Decals

 
Color Profile

 
 
More to Come,
BobW
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi All,
Small update:
 
Decided to do some "Plastic" components today, Aft Signal Station thingy, Uppermost Tier Aft Superstructure insert and what the instructions call a "Fighting Mast." (I actually think this is part of the Conning Tower.)
 
Decided to push myself into more PE work and attached the 1st Tier, Aft Starboard Superstructure Side Railing, this went together quite well. (I surprised myself.... 🙂)
(I'll do the Port side tomorrow.)
 
Nice to see the ship grow....
 
That's me for the day.
 
Cheers....HOF.
 
Photos:
 
 
 
 

Evening all,   more little work in tiny land  - this time with Three motor cruisers  - they were put togther  (canopy added to hull)  then painted and  washed and glued in place.
 
OC.

Beautiful model, very well done.

Evening all,   A bit more done this evening  -  I painted the wood sections of the boats and floats  then  added a few washes to  shade them and bring out the wood,  then I did a  few details washes  including  some of the vents and port holes.
 
OC.

Beautiful model, very well done.