king derelict

Thank you Mike for a lot of really useful information. The Sea Sendor system is completely new to me and I missed the shape of the gun turret. I need to add the ladders too. Your files look very nice, your usual high quality work. Thanks again Mike alan

Thank you very much for the solid advice Mike. With being so bothered about what’s been going on with my father I think I’ve been allowing myself to get overly worked up about minor issues like the missing parts. I’m back at work on Monmouth again and I’ll put that all behind me and move onto the rest of the kit. again alan

Thanks Andy. I think you are correct, they are simplified Seagnat launchers. From your photo it could be possible to improve on the kit parts, but they are so small that the improvement might not even register. alan

Thanks Mike, much appreciated alan

Thank you very much for your kind offer Mike. The offending items are C35 and D4 in the instructions. I have no idea what D4 is. They look like some sort of triple barrel weapon but nothing like that is listed in the ships inventory. Possibly they are chaff launchers For reference the sprue is 3/32 inch or 2.5 mm thick so the bits are tiny. I got fairly close to the chaff dispenser ( if that’s what they are) by cutting down a spare quad fifty cal gun. The C35 radar at the front of the bridge was replaced by a bit of PE and spare styrene rod and I think it might be better than the original kit part. Thanks again for the offer. alan

He’s immensely stubborn. He is finding hard to stand for very long but flatly refuses to have a walking frame. He feels it’s a show of weakness.

Thank you very much OC, these are going to be very useful. alan

Beautiful models Yves. The route to VTOL / STOVL flight passes through some fascinating prototypes and exhaustive efforts by the engineers. Even as recent as the 90s there are some interesting examples by Northrop and Macdonnell Douglas that didn’t make the final selection for JSF (X-32 and X-35 being selected for prototype builds) using gas driven fans and lift engines. alan

Thank you very much Mike. Painting these little chaps is proving very enjoyable, the trick now is getting hold of the kits, the makers all seem to be Europe based. Luckily I still have a few Art Girona kits squirreled away alan

I’ve decided to move the WE PE over to the new kit and build that as a completely separate project. I only used one piece of the WE PE and it’s duplicated in the Trumpeter PE so nothing lost. In the spirit of inquiry after looking at online photos of Monmouth I had a go at making the last missing piece, the radar unit on the front of the bridge. A bit of PE fret and a bit of Flyhawk sprue and I actually think it looks better than the kit part. So I might just be building two Monmouths The picture quality is abysmal but you get the idea. I’ll see how it looks with a bit of paint. Thanks for looking in, the likes and comments. alan

Thanks for the good wishes Andrew, he gets the Kings telegram in April so hopefully there won’t be any more balancing tricks. The Type 23s are graceful ships, I always liked seeing The Black Duke prowling around. Alan

Thanks LED, I think you are right. I will move over to the new kit along with the WE PE and build it up as a complete kit rather than use bits of both. Alan

My return to the maritime world but a rather fraught one. I want to build the 1/700 Trumpeter Type 23 frigate HMS Monmouth. An interesting choice of name by the Admiralty, the Duke of Monmouth led the failed rebellion against King James II and was beheaded as a result. Accordingly HMS Monmouth has the distinction of being the only RN. ship to carry her name in black on the name boards instead of red as all other ships do. She also flies a plain black flag to commemorate the erasing of Monmouths coat of arms. HMS Monmouth is of personal significance to me, she was our escort frigate in 2018 in the North Atlantic during carrier trials. To satisfy the rough sea state requirements we sailed into the edge of Hurricane Michael and rather overdid things. The motion on HMS Queen Elizabeth was impressive but must have been spectacular on the frigate. My plan is to try to incorporate the model into a seascape resembling these conditions, at least that’s the ambition which might fall short. The contains a lot of parts, including a Lynx helicopter which is wrong for the period I’m working on but I doubt they had the hanger doors open in sixty mph winds anyway. Trumpeter provides a nice PE sheet and I have the White Ensign set of PE which provides some duplication but crucially the Trumpeter set does not provide railings. And so it started with building up the hull and structures, priming and basic deck and superstructure colors added - and that’s when things rather unraveled. My father tried to reach down a new jar of coffee from the top cupboard by standing on a wobbly kitchen chair and lost his balance and fell. At age 99 I ask you! The doctors say nothing is broken and no internal injuries but he is very fragile and recovery is very slow and painful. Lots of distraction there but he seems to be doing better and I’ll be heading over there soon to visit him and help out. The modeling sessions have been appropriately limited but I started adding the details to the bridge structure and managed to lose three tiny pieces in less than an hour. I scratch built replacements but I’m not really happy with them so I abandoned the build and closed the door on it. Given my lofty ambitions I wanted to make the best build possible so I ordered a replacement kit. It’s taken a bit of time to get motivated to pick it up again and I’m now wondering if I can make a convincing job of the initial build and just keep going. Really the bridge structure is the only element that needs reworking so that may be the way forward. Hopefully things will be a little more settled for a while and some positive progress will be made. Thanks for looking in Alan

Beautiful finishes on the body and cockpit Rob. The aluminum looks excellent. alan

Beautiful work Jav. I really like the color variation between panels. alan