RGL

next is the armored citadel and bridge section. The instructions are just woeful here, so a lot of guesswork. Part 27 is not mentioned in the instructions at all (I've drawn the number in pencil) but somewhat important.

The two bridges, the metal one from Eduard and the boring little piece of resin from Artwox. I'll be using the Eduard piece and doing in the inside. The mast holes need to be widened to accommodate the Master Models Masts. 

The citadel roof should be curved but it's not.

Apart from that fairly strait forward.

Funnels complete. The slowest part was ensuring the rings on the funnels stayed in as they are soo tiny the glue did not want to hold. Whilst some of the ladders look a little out of alignment as they will be facing forward it will not be obvious (I hope). The flue on the final funnel has three pipes which were made with brass pipe, and the vents on top were cut off the resin and plonked on top. The top and bottom halves have not been glued yet so as to allow them to be painted separately, black on top and yellow below. 

Those ropes look so real! Just magnificent work mate.

Using a aftermarket set of flue rings in 1/700 scale I have made up belaying points, as well as replacing the flue with .4mm brass tube for the flue. I have finished 1 so far and that took 2 days. I used the top funnel rings from the Eduard fret which had to be cut down to sit flush. 

I will not glue them until they are individually painted, yellow on the bottom and black on the top.

Noe the research. Each funnel has rings for the tops of the funnels, flue rings, and belaying point for the rigging. The Eduard fret provides the funnel rings but they are out of scale and need to be trimmed. 

As there is no linear progression to the kit, I thought I'd make a start on the funnels. The Artwox resin comes in 8 pieces and only the front funnels was in reverse which is fairly easy to fix. They each have a  flue and photo etch ladders and spirerweb thin grates for the tops.

OH&S wins every time

After 3 days, the companionways are finally complete and back into a box for safety. The blueprints prove my point on their design. I made 10 (it needs 9) as an emergency. A bit of black wash to bring out the details and a dry fit on the deck.

So, back to the drawing board. I used a .4mm brass rod to make the top rung, cut offs to make the side rungs and then the remaining frets of large companion ways to utalise the third and centre arch. To put the size in perspective when in my hand this is bloody fiddly.

My head hurts. I now have to attach the rims with the dogs on them and do the doors then paint the base, black on the outside and white on the inside and leave the struts in brass.

The photos of what i expect is the Varyag post the battle with the Japanese and a more modern photo is what I expect came from a refit. 

Yes, so clever until I looked at the original photos again.

Wrong wrong wrong.

Going back to Post 26, the companionway covers. The instructions show this thing, which may have been used in a later variation of the ship, the the photos show a brass cover.

So I started on the North Star covers. When put together they were a bit small for the hole in the deck so I used the Artwox base as they have fold up dogs.

I then used the Eduard doors filed down to fit within the rectangle.

Scan-002.bmp

Thanks, it's a challenge after working at 1/60 for such a long time and a lot less forgiving as you usually just can't re fabricate the damaged piece. Luck I'm shortsighted!

The deck, alignment at the bow was a bit difficult as the hull needed a little work to get it to fit snugly, requiring the dremel to dig a bit out. The rest of the pieces fit well, but the stick wooden deck requires very very precise alignment, as .5mm out means you require a little bit of file work.

I dry fitted a few of the pieces and they come up nicely. I'm still not happy with the doors and will probably replace them. I intend to attach the ladders internally beforehand as well as the pieces that I blackened that will be bases for the cannon and bollards.

The centre piece is snug enough that I probably will not need to glue it, but the bow and stern pieces will require gluing. It is my intention to have most things done prior to fixing them so I can check alignments before throwing it all together.

Gun cleaning grates (I assume). The kit included 6 of the little grates that are stored inboard, but the instructions only place one set near the fore cannon. The other two attach to the hull. I blackened them so as to get some contrast, intending to dry brush them white but they are so small that it just did not work, so I used the rattle can which did!

Good to see the Endevour club growing

Since I'll be working on the hull for a while, I thought I'd upload negatives of the side profile from the blueprints . I still cannot upload the blueprints as the server will not take anything close to 2 MB. They are incredibly detailed which is unfortunate.

Now the pointy end, the Bow scrolling seems very ornate, and the kit left it on, which is clumsy and quite ugly. the eduard fret offers a nice bit of PE to attach, so the Bow was scraped down before painting for this purpose. It is not as ornate as the real thing but sometimes less is more.

A couple of updates. the stern on the real thing has the Russian eagle, the kits and Kagero book make no reference to it. The North Star models aftermarket fret has a couple, so I added the smaller one to the stern walk. I also added the nameplates, it is the only inaccurate thing so far but I just love them. I painted them white then scraped the letters back to brass.

Back to the Hull, the brass portholes. I wanted them to stand out so I have left them off to date, and after 2 hours I have gotten the Starboard side done. They are tiny and have to be cut from the fret to trim them. Applied with one of my kids colour pencils as it is the only thing that won't get stuck on the CA.

Deck fittings and netting. There are a heap of very small pieces that need to be affixed to the deck, and they all require to be the colour black. Instead of painting, I used the Krick blackening agent so as not to lose the details under paint. There are little bit of netting that need to go onto the hull, which appear to be grates that go in front of the barrels for cleaning. 

The base of the bollards and also the base of the turret rings are also in this lot. A boring post but it will make sense eventually.

Now the top layer. Nice strait line. There are a few errors above the line that I just cannot fix without a complete strip of the paint. I'm getting an airbrush again I think, much more accurate than the rattle can.

My first attempt at masking ever. I used a Tamiya rattle can with tamiya mask. A little bit of overspray but there are that many protruding bits above the waterline, when I reverse the mask to pain it white above the waterline it should work fine.

I think I'll leave it 24 hours to let it set as hard as possible.

First primer coat (well, I did do a layer and found a huge gap in the Bilge Keels which needed fixing). So many sins.

The kit has not included scuppers on the hull. There are a few tiny shapes that might be them but they are completely too small. I got a soviet navy 1/700 hatch set to use as sundry hatch covers and these do nicely. The masking tape is so they can run properly upright.

There are two little hatches that fit near the base of the funnel which I have added. Next step will be doing the scuppers.