king derelict

I seem to have been moving very slowly in the last few days. Weekends always seem to bring a lot of errands and tasks away from the work bench. Current events finally inspired a friend to have her accordion hurricane shutters checked and serviced. Its much more fun doing it now instead of March. Anyway that's a digression. I'm still in the little details. I was highly delighted to paint the PE life rings and attach them to teh cabin roof of the motor boats. That encouraged me to attempt the Arado which has a lot of PE including the cockpit frames and float frames. I had trouble getting the wings to align properly on the fuselage and the primer got beaten up in the several attempts. I was also disappointed to realise that the tail plane wasn't on the sprue and there wasn't a spot on the sprue that it had fallen from. A scrabble through the remaining parts turned it up on its own tiny sprue. The machine gun took a bit of fiddling to get in the right place and I'm not confident it will survive painting. The instructions require you to cut the spinner off the plastic propeller and glue it onto the PE blades. I stuck with teh whole plastic assembly - its very hard to see the difference between the metal blades and the plastic ones. I added boats to the racks and found I would have been better to have done this earlier in the build. Working under the derricks is a bit nerve wracking and the boat racks are delicate too. I detached the starboard rack while trying to add the boats. I might have been better adding teh boats to the racks and adding the whole assembly to the ship but that also felt very delicate. I'm left with the rest of the boats, the guns and the railings along with a few bits of deck equipment at bow and stern to finish the build but I suspect there are still some days ahead before its finished. There are an awful lot of parts and PE still left - presumably the Scharnhorst bits. There is a sprue of life rafts and I have been puzzling to find them in the build instructions or photos but looking at Craig's (CDW) Scharnhorst I see she has them. Geisenau just has the boats and the life rings. Does anyone know why German ones are square? Thanks for looking in Alan

Thank you very much Popeye. I'm glad you enjoy the log. Its still a big learning experience for me and I am still daunted by a few of the kits I have lined up for the future. I have a 1/700 USS Wasp (LHD-1) that I am rather in awe of. If Geisenau and Prince of Wales come out well enough I may screw up the courage. Alan

Thank you kindly OC. Been a bit slow these last few days but still working on her. Alan

Thank you very much Roger, your comments are much appreciated and I'm glad you find useful items in the log. I'm still very new to model building with about a year of experience now and I am still learning a lot with each build. I can't imagine tackling the Geisenau six months ago. PE is still a huge challenge to me; trying to keep it neat and sharply folded. Some of the parts seem to be a deliberate challenge to the builder rather than necessarily enhancing the model! With all the tiny stuff on Geisenau I am increasingly using a cocktail stick with the end rubbed in beeswax to pick up and set the parts in place. It gives me more control of positioning the part than the big wax pencils and you can use a lighter application of wax to make sure the glue pulls it off the stick. My two biggest issues are 1 - no looking far enough ahead in the build sequence and making some later steps harder than they should be and 2 - situation awareness. I get so focussed trying to get perfect positioning as I add a part to the model I ignore the feeling that something is touching my fingers until I realise I just bent or knocked something else off the model. On Geisenau I am deliberately leaving everything off the bows and stern to allow me two places for my stubby fingers to go. Alan

Thank you Lou It feels like its going slowly working with the details of the Arado and the ships boats but I'm taking my time. Alan

I know the feeling. The top yard of the aft mast is my bête noir. I have knocked it off so many times. I actually found it on teh floor yesterday while I was looking for something else and hadn't realised that I had done it again. Thanks for the kind comments. Looking at your Scharnhorst photos I think I got the easier of the sisters to build. Alan

There are some parts in the PE fret that I look at and think - its not going to happen. The Flyhawk plastic provides so much detail anyway so apart from masts, railings, gun barrels the majority of the PE can be ignored. I chose to use the plastic hose reels on Geisenau because although the reel end pieces of the PE are nice the detailed hose in the plastic is a better look to me. Mashed up and bent PE looks much worse than a decent plastic part too.

The pond water came out really nicely. Looks very wet! Alan

The pond looks great OC - sorry - darn autocorrect Alan

The pond looks great OF Alan

I hate plumbing work. It always seems to involve fittings that have frozen in place after thirty years and the damage created in getting them off leads to an even bigger job before it's finished. Alan

I'm still working away in the details of the ship. I started the ships boats. There are several very small PE parts to enhance the boats. Some of it may be a bit excessive. I'm not sure I see the value of adding the brass cabin roof. Its plain; just like the original. I omitted it but the windscreen, rails and canopy rails dress the boats up quite a bit Detail painting to finish them and some PE life rings. to add The last boat racks were added to the edge of the upper deck. I'm a bit confused about them. The instructions show railings running along the deck edge in the same place so I'm not sure if I have this wrong but it seems to match the diagrams in the instructions and there are notches in the deck for the boat racks where I installed them. I think I will have to cut the length of railings short to cater for the boats. Guns are slowly being added. I'm trying to complete the areas that will difficult to access when teh railings are added and adding the railings before other parts make them vulnerable. I'm leaving the bow and stern bare until last so I have somewhere to hold without ruining the delicate stuff. I have started with thin black weathering washes and to help with the shadow detail. The main runs of railings and the ships boats will be next to be added. Its starting to get busy. Thanks for checking in Alan

The view through the front gate looks like a real farm yard photo already Alan

OC, You probably know all this but if the resin is anything like the one I used for the Penelope diorama its a good idea to "tent" the pond with a cardboard box or sheet of cardboard over it to stop dust (or in my case cat hair) drifting into the setting resin. Watch for bubbles and pour slowly to avoid them. Its going to look great. Alan

The brickwork always looks so good. Very realistic Alan

Its looking very nice. The doors are very good Alan

Not as much progress as I would have liked today. I built the PE boat rack that sits between the rear two structures and started to move it into place. It was a tight fit and as i added a bit of a nudge the rear structure popped off. I guess the wood deck was too tight and it wasn't really glued down fully onto the deck below. It did allow me to place the boat rack and then press the structure back into place. Unfortunately this had the effect of popping the forward structure off which has the catapult and all the other PE on it. It was not a good moment watching it bounce across the work surface. Luckily it seemed to land on the few substantial parts of the piece and little real damage was done. I was able to restore it to its place on the ship without any damage beyond the need to touch up some (more) paint. I decided to go off and do something else after that excitement So I went and brushed the cats. That will teach them! Have a great weekend all Alan

Wishing her a speedy recovery. I'm sure she is badly shaken as well as bruised. My 95 year old dad did exactly that two months ago. Badly bruised also and nothing broken. Very miserable for the first days; couldn't find a comfortable way to sit or lie in bed. He made a full recovery and was digging the garden two weeksd later and walking his daily four miles by the end of the month. Alan

I've been using Vallejo black and grey primer in my air brush since I started ship modelling a year ago and it has been fine (to my inexperienced eyes). It goes on smoothly and stays on (plastic and brass) and the coat is thin enough to not obscure detail. I have been using it in the air brush undiluted or with a few drops of their thinner. I'm almost at the end of the bottle and will try the Mig One Shot next. Alan

Thank you for the encouragement OC. My plan is to finish the Geisenau which is suddenly looking like the end is coming. Lots of details still but I think I may have it completed in a week or so. As a change in scale I will work on the corvette hull see how that comes together and finally make up my mind about whether to make the corvette a RC kit. Then print the next stage while returning to the world of 1/700 for a bit. Lots of fun Alan

Thank you for the comments about the value of an auto levelling system. I think that levelling is at the core of the problems I have (and still do at a lesser rate) experienced. The Creality auto levelling kit doesn't seem too expensive and their video makes it look easy to install so I think I will give it a try. Thanks again for the input. This is still all a bit of a black art to me. Alan

Yves That looks spectacular. It is a great spur to keep me moving forward with mine. I'm sitting the fence about whether to make mine a static or RC model. Initially I had planned to go for a RC model; especially as I have a lake behind my garden fence and I have never made an RC model. Seeing your wonderful results has me swinging towards a static model. I suppose the obvious answer would be to build two! Alan

The last pieces of superstructure were added and the PE enhancements began. The platforms are mounted on girders made out of two PE with the edges bent and them glued together to form a box structure. The bending tool was a huge help to get the thin section to bend cleanly to 90 degrees. The railings and platforms were added and the assembly installed. More boat racks to add around the area but i was PE-ed out for the day Thanks for looking Alan

Thank you for the kind comment OC. The parts and PE still to install seems to be going down but there is a lot a lot of stuff still to install. No rush; its fun working on a new area each day. Alan

Thank you Grant I was beginning to think I was in the wrong part of the hobby for a while. Alan