Paul Jarman

More work on the shelter deck. I decided to build the two funnel bases as there are various hatches that will sit against them. The rear base has a lot of the MK1 upgrades attached to it. I painted the base of the dinghy's in leather matt and the oars in brown. It just adds a bit of detail in amongst all of the grey. The ladders have come out very good. Considering that they are as bad as the PE handrails to construct because of how fragile they are. It all looks a lot better than the photos. the close ups do pick out all the bits of dust and glue spillage that doe not show when viewing it normally. I will carry on with the smaller structures on this deck before moving on to the bridge. I will probably build the ships boats and various guns and searchlights. I've added some before and after photos to give an idea of how much extra work has gone into that rear funnel base.

The shelter deck is starting to look a bit busy now. The ships boats are not necessarily in the correct order. I have added them to make sure to boat crutches are all correctly aligned, which they are. I have also added stanchions to the hatches that are shown in the anatomy of the ship book that where used to hold open the water tight covers. There are 35 of the larger lockers on the deck and 16 smaller ones. There are now 17 reels and winches to make up and add. and then various davits and ladders to add. I will then concentrate on the smaller structures before moving on to the main central part of the ship. Building the model the way I am out of sequence and not following the instructions to the letter is proving a much better way of working on the model.

The shelter deck complete. Not glued down yet as there are a few little areas need attending to. I changed the semtex deck colour 4 times. I originally painted it concrete but that was to close to the deck tan colour. I then went with a dark grey. I then tried a light green colour as was mentioned on the HMS Hood web sight. But that didn't look right. I finally settled on the medium grey which HMS Hood Association are fairly confident is the correct colour based on pictures from the wreck showing the colour. I have used the upper hull grey toned down with some white to achieve the colour. In the first picture the deck has been sanded flat inside the taped area. In picture two the yellow areas have been removed and the blue sections are the added PE for the splinter shields. The front section has been changed from rounded to straight. The portholes have also been changed on the port side as recommended on the web site. I have also raised or lowered various areas with PE. I have painted the bottom black. This allows you to see inside the deck better so you can pick out the details under the deck. I will add all the smaller parts like ammo boxes, flag lockers, reels, winches and the chocks for the ships boats, of which there are around 200 parts to fit before starting on the super structures. The name plate may be a bit to high up. But the letters are individual PE ones and to remove and replace would almost certainly ruin them.

Sorry to hear that. I'm in the same boat as they say. Failing eyesight,shaking hands and generally a lot slower when working on my models. All age related. I find the small parts hard work. And rigging is just about doable without to many blocks. I find wooden models to much work now, so have turned to plastic kits whitch are a lot more easy to do, And then I make my modelling harder by adding PE to the model. I use a 10x table magnifier lamp and is a huge help. Paired with some 3x glasses it has improved my modelling enormously. Some of the lamps also have a smaller higher powered magnifier at one side. And a headband magnifier is also a good investment.

The bow deck completed. Including the rocket launcher on top of number 2 gun. I've added a bit of black paint to the rockets so you can see there is something inside the cage. I have also invested in a second resin funnel. There is nothing wrong with the correct plastic one. But because it is a two part build the join is visible down the sides. The resin funnels are one complete part so look better having two the same. The first picture shows how the funnel bases would look without clipping at one end. One of the bases would cover the two hatches. The second picture shows the clipped bases which sit in place a lot better. Picture 3 is the paravane derrick and boom, used to pull the paravane through the water. I did wonder what the two housings where behind the breakwater. They are the sheds that had paravanes in. I have got two extra ones that come with MK1 upgrade kit. So may see if I can attach one of the plastic ones to one of the derricks and hang it down the side of the hull. picture 4 is the parts for the rocket launcher. The very small parts are only used if I have the door open, which I won't. It's onto the shelter deck know. I have started to add the PE, of which there is a lot both on top and along the sides. The area inside the yellow outline needs to be filled and sanded flat to match the area the arrow is pointing to. This is then painted up as the semtex part of the deck. The red mark is where the front part needs to be flat rather than rounded. And the green marks are where a small piece will be added to make the sections slightly longer.

The bow deck nearly complete. You have to be very careful fitting the middle and bow deck. I added the shelter deck to make sure it fitted, which it did. But after carefully removing it when I glued the decks in place I must have added a bit to much weight to hold it down towards the stern and it moved down, probably because of the wet glue acting as a lubricant. A few days later when I fitted it back on there was a fairly large gap where it connects to the hull. After removing both decks and spending a few hours cleaning them up I glued the centre deck on first keeping it lined up with a mark I made for the end. And it now sits perfectly. As shown in the first picture. The anchors are the white metal MK1 upgrade ones. I have set one being let down and the other in place. Just the hand rails and some davits and the bow staff to add then onto the main part of the build in the centre of the ship. This Trumpeter kit is excellent, with just the odd exception everything fits so well. And with all the upgrades I have added it is looking like an excellent model.

Some of the PE glued onto the bow deck. I did this because it was better to glue it onto clean plastic rather then painting it first. This will be painted in situ. Then there are all the other parts that can be added once painted. Still a fair bit to do along with plenty more PE.

Middle deck completed. Didn't take long to do this section. There are over 90 PE enhancements from the MK1 upgrade kit on this deck. Which will be all but invisible once the shelter deck is in place. the Hawser reels where the worst part of this stage of the build. The parts are so fragile that most of the sides broke away. But managed to make a good job of repairing them. The cable drums are painted beige to allow them to stand out rather then using red paint which would be to overpowering. Onto the bow deck next. just have to decide what to replace and what to enhance.

Stern deck complete. The blast bags are painted with ocean grey with a bit of white added to lighten the colour. I have added the brass tompions to the barrels which I think makes them look better than open barrels. Onto the middle deck next. There is quite a bit of work to do on this deck with all the added PE. Most of which will be hard to see once the shelter deck is in place.

The stern deck is now complete and all the hand rails are in place. They look very good considering how fragile they are. Of all the PE I can put up with some of the very tiny parts, but I really hate PE handrails. These are the MK1 upgrade rails. They have the various areas cut out where there are cleats and bollards. The kit PE does not have this option. There are a few parts that will attached to the side. These will be added on completion. The davits are soldered together rather than gluing them, they look a lot better doing them that way. Number 3 is the davits for elsewhere, they have the advantage that when bent into shape they will have a tab on the bottom to add them to the deck which these ones did not have. The picture of the stern booms has had a part made up from plastic rod. The original supporting part was so fragile it bent out of shape. The part is not as big as it looks. I will concentrate on the stern guns next before moving onto the middle deck.

The kit comes supplied with two extra gun turrets. A is as built from the box. There are no blast bags with kit and nothing to hide the gap where the barrels come through the turret. B is the Trumpeter upgrade blast bags and barrels. C is the MK1 upgraded barrels with blast bags. As can be seen there is a marked difference between the three versions. Especially in the length and diameter of the barrels. I am now almost certainly going to go with the MK1 upgrades.

Starting the detailing. I like to work stern to bow on my models. The deck is painted deck tan as I don't like the wooden decks. I like it and it has come up really well. A lot of the fittings have been added. the guns are the replacement metal ones from the MK1 kit. The only thing I don't like very much are the resin blast bags. I did not realise working in resin is so complex. The slightest bit filed down to much could ruin the part. They are not terrible but there is a very slight gap where the guns fit in. There is a PE ring that goes around the base of the guns. They might look better once that is added and they are painted up. If not they can be removed and replaced with the Trumpeter gun upgrades. Although their version of the blast bags are almost twice the length of these ones. They are growing on me as I keep looking at them though.

Thank you.

The hull is complete except for a few ladders and bits that will be added once the model is nearing completion. I reckon the mix I have made up for the upper hull is very close to the Home Fleet grey used on the ship. The degaussing cable is visible above the props and has not disappeared as I was worried it would do once painted. The model is now bolted firmly on the baseboard and I can work on the decks and superstructures without the need to touch the hull.

The hull repainted. I did not have enough of the Tamiya neutral grey to make a good mix. But I did have a number of different Vallejo greys from previous models. They where far to light to really look authentic. But I mixed them with some black and a candy racing blue also from Vallejo. I have manage to mix just over 200mls and that has been decanted into 50mls jars. So if I have another accident which I almost certainly will I won't loose most of the paint. I think I have come up with a better colour than the neutral grey I was originally painting the hull. Not quite as dark as I would have liked but looks good with the dark grey bottom. I also remembered why I prefer The Vallejo colours the are so good. Excellent coverage and all round better paints to work with. The black boot line is Tamiya lacquer paint. This is very good paint and covers well. It dries very fast. But looks good. It looks lighter than it is in the photo because of the flash on the camera.