king derelict

I think it might look a bit like a duck from below and if you are an alligator, you can generally afford to bite it and see what you got Alan

Thank you very much. I'm enjoying the weathering but a bit scared of overdoing it Alan

Really nice and sharp work on the fuselage stripe. Excellent Alan

Thats quit a dogfight of planes. They look great. If I need more grip I put a piece of duct tape adhesive side up onto the double sided tape. It seems the tape then has enough area to hold the duct tape securely and the extra stickiness of the duct tape holds the small parts. Alan

The anchor chain arrived this weekend and i think it looks the part. The proportions are good and it does have stud links I gave it a base paint of flat brown and then dry brushed a dark blue over it. A rust wash finishes the chain I used some thin styrene rod to create the antenna loops (I assume these are the DF loops - I'm not knowledgeable in this area) and also made up some speaking tubes for the bridge. I'm trying to make it look a little less empty. I still need to fiddle with teh pelorus The big moment arrived this afternoon. Weathering. I started with some thin lines of dark rust at the panel lines and then added light rust and washed that out. I'm going to be working this up a little at a time. Its a bit beyond the tiny dabs that finish a 1/700 destroyer build and I'm keen not to mess it up too much. I'm working with the few colour images I can find. Thank you all for looking in and for the likes Alan

Thank you for the kind words Lou. Much appreciated. You are right I should have made it an RC model but I have never tried anything RC and the printer seemed like enough of a challenge. The beauty of the virtual kit is that I still have the files, the printer and the license to make as many kits as I want. So its probable there will be a sister Flower some day in the next year or so on the lake behind my house depth charging the alligators. Especially as the printing shouldn't be the exercise in patience that it was first time round. You are right about the small arms configurations. Oerlikons were in short supply and some corvettes never got beyond Lewis guns; I think captains grabbed anything they could get their hands on. Those little ships must have felt very vulnerable under air attack. Alan

That looks like a very handy thing tohave around. It might have made painting the corvette a bit less of a chore. Your result is really nice Alan

The painstaking work is really paying off. Looks really good alan

The details come out so beautifully. Congratulations alan

The Eduard Lewis guns arrived and are very nice although my PE skills have been atrophying and it took longer than it should to put them together. They now have a primer coat and hoping not to break them before installing them The question of the Lewis gun configuration is a bit vexed. It seems that single and twin Lewis gns were mounted, either with or without shields. The picture below is the one I am using as my guide for my interpretation. The image shows the Lewis gun firing and looks like a single with a shield Later photos show twin Lewis with shields I suspect the twin gun installation was the most frequent but I am going to use the singles that I have. I'm not sure about the shield yet; I'll see how some styrene sheet looks. The reprinted boats were air brushed for the man ropes and bottom boards. Still not perfect' the texture of the print is too rough in places. Its better than my hand painting so we will move forward and weather the bottom boards The boats need oars and tiller adding and then rigged with the davits. The hull weathering is next and I need to work out what rigging I am going to add. Thank you for looking in and responding. Its been a long journey from unpacking the Ender printer and switching it on for the first time. Alan

Very kind OC Its stretching my abilities - and sometimes my patience. Alan

Thank you very much Per Its felt like a bit of an epic at times Alan

A stunningly beautiful model. Wonderfully built. Alan

I'm slowly working away at the details> added handrails to the ladders and Aldis lamps to the bridge wings. I'm starting to dabble with weathering. I am not using my usual black washes; The lines left by the filament on some parts take up the wash and it looks ugly. I bought this Life Color set of washes a while ago and didn't like them for the usual 1/700 stuff. It goes on as a dark grey but dries very light. The remover can be used to tone down the effect or blend it back. I think it might work to break up some of the areas that look like big white slabs. I have read that the Atlantic storms took areas of the paint off the hull so it may get used there too. I painted the smaller smoke floats and added them to the depth charge rails I decided that my shaky free hand painting was going to spoil the reprinted rafts so I am masking them for air brushing. Its a bit tedious especially as the tape does not adhere well to the printed surface. It will need a coat of clear to seal it before using the air brush. So - this is where I am now. Coming together. I'm trying to work up the courage to start slapping the rust on the hull and parts of the superstructure tomorrow Thanks for looking in Alan

You re rolling out some beautiful figures OC Alan

The wings look great. The detail is very impressive and so is the finish. The magnifiers are a huge help to me. I think I would have had to give up without them. I found a pair that have 5X magnification but the focal length is so short that I am hitting the parts with my nose so I stick with the 3.5 X Great Job Alan

That's a great colour scheme and you did a beautiful job Alan

That looks excellent, Egilman Forgive a stupid question. Did you mask on the Future coated rub n buff? Alan

Beautiful busy foredeck Alan

Thank you Kevin They are really nice little prints and the holes come out very well. I much prefer them to opening out pilot holes. I printed them at 20mm high and the row of holes is quite intricate but still came out nicely. Many Thanks Alan

Great painting. The figures look really good Alan

Beautiful finish; well worth all the experimentation and research. Its going to be a stunning model Alan

Thank you Per. I looked at steel nozzles a while back and they all seemed to get rotten reviews citing dimensional problems. I checked again and things seem much better now so I ordered a set. Thanks for the help Alan

A beautiful model. A wonderful job and thoroughly excellent photos Alan

Not a lot to show today. I primered the new rafts, the bridge signalling lights and the winches and hose reels.So everything looks like it did earlier except its now grey. A short aside into the printing world. I checked the nozzle gap and it is within the usual limits so I decided that the extruder skipping and kicking back might be due to over extrusion. I dialled the step count down by 4 and tried a few test prints. I was very happy to get a successful Benchy test piece. As you can see from the debris in the background the print was failing consistently at the same place; the last part of the overhang on the bridge windows. I think the over extrusion was causing the filament to build up too much and the overhangs were warping slightly upwards causing the nozzle to knock it off the build plate. My hypothesis for the need to change the step count is that it is caused by the new nozzle. I am assuming the old nozzle had worn and was laying down a larger diameter of filament. PLA is supposed to be quite abrasive and the nozzle is brass. Changing to the new nozzle would then backpressure the nozzle causing the extruder to skip and extruded an unnecessary amount of filament. I may, of course, be talking through my hat. I painted the smoke floats in matt black and dry bruhed some silver to add a little detail followed by a black wash to dull it down a bit. The smoke floats were shamelessly taken from the files provided by @Kevin-the-lubber in the log for the Snowberry by @yvesvidal. They are a lovely little print and I hope I have done no wrong in using the files. I may have printed them a little too large but I'm struggling to find out how tall they really were. Many Thanks for looking in and I hope everyone has a great weekend Alan