king derelict

I am afraid things are moving much slower than I hoped. Life at the test stand has got busy again so I am back on the 3pm to midnight routine and that doesn't seem to leave a lot of spare time to work on the model. Little bits have been done here and there. I dug around the paint colours and found that MS4 is actually light grey and MS4A is grey green. I have some Tamiya IJN grey green and that seems to match the paint chips and the colour plate of Spirea in the Flower Corvette book. In the absence of any conflicting information I decided to go with that. The hull and basic superstructure was masked and sprayed with the MS4 and MS4A colours and then masked for the dark blue Pb10. That was when I learnt a useful but annoying lesson about air brushing. So far I have mostly used Tamiya, Vallejo and Mig acrylics and got on quite well with them gradually moving over to Mig for the wider colour range. I've diluted them all with Tamiya acrylic thinner which has uniformly worked well. The Pb10 is part of a set from AK interactive that I acquired somewhere and never used. My first attempt to spray it ended up with spluttering and then nothing. The airbrush cup was full of sludge. I cleaned it out and tried again after shaking the paint some more and wondering if it was too old even though it was unopened. This was no better and attempting a last try I realised that the problem came from adding the thinner. As soon as the thinner went in the paint curdled. The rest of the day was spent cleaning the airbrush and I thought the nozzle was ruined because it was solidly blocked with the sludge and seemed to have set. As a last resort I left it in a cup of alcohol and then poked it with an acupuncture needle and it cleaned up nicely. I rebuilt the airbrush and went back to the Pb10 now diluted with water (thats what it says on the box) and it sprayed on rather wetly but evenly. So now I have learnt about water based and alcohol based acrylics and need to be more careful about how I thin them. The internet seems divided about whether you can use Tamiya thinner with AK acrylics. So somewhere under this mess is a Flower corvette hull After letting it all dry off came the tape. I ws initially unhappy with how this came out but its been sat for a few days and I am beginning to think its worth continuing. I think the issue with the AK paint annoyed me (my fault) and overshadowed what was going on. I'm also conscious that I am feeling a need to rush because of the limited time in the morning and that is spoiling the satisfaction too. I will clean up some of the details in the paint scheme and at least see how the chipping works out before making a decision on whether to strip and try again. I also want to do some basic weathering before adding the mostly PE sections to the hull Next week is supposed to be a quieter week so I hope to get back at this again then. Apologies for the delay. Thanks for looking in and the likes. Alan

Second planking looks very nice Alan

Great job on the pitot Dan alan

An intriguing addition to your diorama alan

That is a great book. Sharkey upset a few of the brass with some of his insights as I recall. i just finished Hazard Spectrum by Nate Grey , one of the F-35 test pilots. He devotes quite a lot of his book to flying Harriers with the Fleet Air Arm. Very readable book and quite a guy The Harrier was a great program to work on. The difficulties and limitations but it’s great capabilities made everyone work together in a really positive way Thats a lovely model OC. I have 1/72 Sea Harrier, X-32B and F-35B kits and a plan for a small diorama at some point. If only I could speed up the process a bit Alan

Great idea for a diorama. Its going to look very good Alan

Great to se you back OC. This is one of my favourite builds Alan

The F104 is looking very nice Dan. Congratulations on retirement. You will be amazed how people will fill up your time for you Alan

The spoked wheel is spectacular Alan

You are a master of seascapes Mike alan

I realised I omitted the link to the wave diorama yesterday. Bing Videos Its an impressive result and some interesting techniques which might be applicable. Not a lot of progress today; mostly spent pondering options. I gave the upper hull a coat of medium grey thinking I might want to chip the hull as part of the weathering. Working at 1/350 might give me a bit more scope for showing a weather beaten and convoy weary escort ship I also seem to have hit my first problem area. The kit provides the paint scheme for Spirea which agrees well with the Flower Class Corvette book I have. I am probably going with the earlier scheme of MS-4, MS-4A and Pb-10. I already have the Pb-10 but I haven't found anyone selling MS-4 or MS-4A. I may have to make up some mixtures which will be a first for me. I need to be careful because I don't think I can paint everything of the same colour at the same time. The MS-4A looks like a light grey with a touch of blue. The MS-4 seems to be a light buff. Some interesting masking ahead Thanks for looking in, comments and likes Alan

Thank you OC. It feels like learning all over again. The airbrush is sulking after being ignored for a year. Alan

Welcome Andrew. Its strange to be abusing plastic again Alan

Well, its been a slow start after completing the Loarre castle. Cleaning a years worth of sanding dust off the work bench and pretty much everything else in the garage took some time. Then its been difficult deciding where to start again. I had lots of ideas and several boxes were opened and put away again. I wanted to build a ship but also wanted something relatively short but interesting with some PE to rehabilitate myself. The final choice was the Mirage Flower Class corvettes The initial choice was HMS Zinnia and I got as far as assembling the hull before realising this was a relatively early Flower and didn't have the later style bridge so down came HMS Spirea and I started again. Mirage make four Flower kits and it looks like they all share the same hull but have different decks, superstructure and details. Zinnia was an early Flower but I can't determine whether she should have had a short forecastle or not. I think its just about possible she could have been built to the long forecastle standard. She was commissioned in April 1941 and sunk in August 1941 so she certainly was never refitted The kits look quite good although there are some annoying placements of the sprue gates on the hull halves requiring some clean up before the deck can be fitted. Curiously Zinnias hull was horrible to fit together and adding the aft deck was even worse. Spirea was much better and only a tiny mount of putty was needed to smooth it out. Otherwise there are some lovely delicate details like the galley stove pipe and some clunky parts too. I am planning to use the White Ensign PE set as appropriate and some PE or resin substitutes for the armament. I've been pondering the build order, trying to decide what to assemble before the basic painting (its been a while). I think the replacement PE bridge, radar and gun tub / bandstand will be too delicate to stand a lot of handling so I decided to add the basic plastic superstructure to the deck and paint the hull first and then the deck and then follow with the superstructure and details. I may paint myself into a corner! So, the two hulls ready for primer. Spirea in front. This is my first attempt at 1/350 scale so some new techniques for me. I drilled out the portholes and the engine room ports and opened out the anchor fairleads Then some Mig One Shot black primer From here on I plan to concentrate on Spirea and work Zinnia if there is a pause. Its going to be too hard to get the wrong stuff on the wrong hull otherwise I masked the hull and added the red bilge and then sprayed the decks Next up some serious masking of the deck, paint the wooden deck sections and dip into the PE My ambition for one of the models is a diorama (I can't seem to break the habit - but it will only be a small one - honest) Here is the tease This video has motivated me and I have had the photo in mind since building the 1/48 scale Campanula Thanks for looking in. Alan

Thanks very much Mike I invested in the circle cutter via Amazon but tracking down the center locator is a bit harder. It looks like a handy couple of tools I hope I’m not derailing your log but I thought this was interesting https://www.aerosociety.com/news/seaplane-renaissance/?utm_campaign=2694788_9 February - Insight Blog Roundup&utm_medium=email&utm_source=2694788_9 February - Insight Blog Roundup&dm_i=4OGU,1LRB8,33UWYK,7IVSU,1 I’m not convinced that there is a huge amount of engineering behind some of these concepts. Some smack of a group of enthusiasts with fancy graphics packages alan

Hi Jack Thank you very much for the detailed help you have provided and all the time it must have taken you to work on it. The Pentax was bought primarily for outdoor use and it generally works well out there and the waterproofing is a great help in canoes, kayaks and rainy days in the hills. I have made up a couple of foil covered boards to reflect light into the dead spots and I'll try softening the light sources. I did find a white reflector from my old SLR / 35 mm days that I had forgotten all about. I will give that a try too. The D range function (never explored that) looks like you can set highlights and shadows to an auto function, switch it off or fixed to on. I will given that a try too. The camera has a raft of options that I need to take time to play with. I thought it had an Av option but I'm wrong; I thought you could do it through the "green button" but that only allows you to retain a series of options like EV compensation instead of setting it each time The castle is sat on the dining table but hopefully a new end table will show up in the next few days and it will be relocated. That will be a great oportunity to shoot the photos again and try some options and maybe get some improvements. Once again thanks for the research and all the great tips. Alan

Mike The circle cutter looks like a handy tool to have. Do you have a few more details or a picture? Thanks alan

This is a magnificent work. Congratulations alan

A lovely delicate work. Congratulations alan

Great work with the printer alan

Thank you very much Ken. I think it works as modern illumination of an old castle Next up something with a bit more historical credibility alan

Beautiful delicate work and an interesting subject alan

The mud looks great. I think wet mud is hard to make convincing- sometimes it just looks like gloss brown but you’ve got it this time. i do wonder about some of the “water” products and how they compare to gloss medium etc. I was browsing for my next project and found someone is selling Atlantic water, pacific water and many other varieties. I think I’ll be sticking with the gloss medium this time alan

Hi Jack yes that’s the one. I remember the Pentax 110 and the K. I went the Olympus route with an OM-1 (still got it) and a couple of AX-1. I sort of miss 35mm film. Thanks for the help alan .

I think this is going to be superb work and very unusual . I’m looking forward to seeing it develop alan