king derelict

Thanks Mark Yep; its time that Lynx got off the back deck and went home. Alan

Thanks Craig. I want to try a few more sea scapes. Alan

The sand colour was applied to the hull and running gear. After 24 hours for the paint to harden I masked up for the next part Then sprayed the green and again waited for twenty four hours before the last masks were applied. The curved scissors are great for cutting and trimming delicate bits of mask. Then the final coat of brown and the masks were removed. It came out quite well with no bleeding under the masks and although the geometry of the camouflage scheme is not exact I think it is in the general spirit of the scheme. Some of the images of the French tanks show a black delineation line between the colours. At 1/72 that might be a challenge that I would rather side step. I sprayed a light rust onto the tracks and once the paint has hardened the subassemblies can be put together and the detail painting started. A couple of PE brackets and a box to add completes the parts count. Thanks for looking in Alan

Thanks Craig, Modelling the sea is a whole new skill to learn. I would like to do more seascapes for the models but then I have to find somewhere to put them instead of just sticking them in one of the display cases. Alan

An interesting opportunity for anyone visiting London soon. Benno's Figures Forum • Waterloo Remodelled (bennosfiguresforum.com) OC; I like your LHS much better. It has more life and detail Alan

I reduced some of the light blue areas and added some white dry brushed onto the wave peaks and into the wake. I put a coat of gloss medium over it all. The ship is placed temporarily just to assess the look I need to work on the bow wave next but I think its coming together. I think the foil under the toilet paper worked well; there are nno dead flat places on the sea surface. Thanks Craig. Thanks for looking in Alan

Thank you Craig. The sea scape is an interesting exercise. Alan

beautiful. The PE on the masts is very sharp Alan

I'm resurrecting the Renault thread as I start the second of the two models included in the kit. The Montrose base paint is drying and the corvette is on hold awaiting supplies. FedEx finally coughed up the package of paints after giving it a tour of the South East and when I opened it there was no hull red; the most critical paint needed. Apparently it was out of stock. Sigh. So another order was sent to the nice people at Spruebrothers and while I wait I decided to try another Renault light tank. The basic assemblies have been completed and the primer has been sprayed on. These Flyhawk kits are really very nice light relief between the bigger efforts although the paint schemes are challenging. I had planned to use the French Tigre scheme but I'm looking at the FTs in Polish service too. This one will have the 37mm gun and the early wheels. A nice touch; Flyhawk moulded the gun barrel with a hollow in the business end. Thanks for looking Alan

I returned to the base and added several layers of toilet paper soaked in diluted white glue. I pushed the resulting pulp around to form some waves with a bit of direction and a start of a bow wave and wake. This was allowed to dry overnight, This morning I started to add the basic colours. I used craft acrylics in light blue, peacock blue, navy blue and black. I put lines of teh light blue on the high points of the base and then laid the darker colours as stripes in between. With a wet brush I merged the colours together and stippled the light blue to reduce its presence. I'll let this dry before dry brushing white onto the wave caps, the wake and adding to the bow waves. Its a bit more boisterous than I originally planned but I quite like how its developing so I'll stick with it. The trick will be in deciding when enough is enough! Thanks for looking in Alan

Another great set of figures OC . The guy on the left reaching into his pouch is extra good. Alan

The masts look terrific. Good ideas with the toothpicks. I struggle to find good ways to secure parts for painting and I hate picking blue tack residue off the parts. Thanks Alan Alan

UPS brought a package from TAP Plastics. Several pieces of cut to order acrylic sheet to make a display case for Montrose and another case for general waterline models. As always great service and fast turn round. It worked out abouyt $30 for the Montrose case and $55 for the larger one. I put together the Montrose case And it fits the base! I built up the other case which will be empty for a while. I'm not sure its the most intelligent way to display the models but I can't find a spot for a dedicated cabinet so these cases stack and hold a reasonable number as long as I don't develop pretensions to 1/350 or 1/35 armour I added the wheels and decals to the Lynx. The safety netting was finished on the ship and decals were added after some touch up painting - although I now see I need to go round again. I now need to get serious with the sea base. The corvette is not going to intrude for a while. My FedEx package with the paints needed for the hull is wandering aimlessly around North Carolina at present with the FedEx website stating "Delivery Pending" as the status. Thanks for looking in Alan

Thanks Mike That looks really good Alan

That ship is just packed with detail. You did a beautiful job Alan

Slowly making progress in between reading up on corvettes. I built the Lynx helicopters. Two are provided in the kit and have the option of rotors folded or in flight mode. I built one with the rotors folded to go in the hanger. The models are not that impressive and I dislike the clear plastic that they are moulded in. The undercarriage and sponsons are two pieces and its almost impossible to work out how they are put together. Starting again I would look for some after market ones I think. For the second one i removed the moulded tail rotor and added the WE PE one along with the WE PE main rotor. The PE wheels will get added after the decals as its all getting a bit fragile. Primer and light grey coats were added. A dark grey wash has been added to the "show" Lynx and the timid one has been stuck in the hanger. My references suggests that the helos should really be Merlins but I'll stick with the Lynx. I found a lot of small details on the WE PE fret that could be added, antenna, approach light array for the hanger and other small items. I added the roll bars to the RIBs and put them on the side deck. I didn't like the plain black of the RIB tubes so I used a dark grey wash to add a bit of depth. I added the helo pad decals and the funnel and main gun decals because its going to be hard to reach those areas when the railings are in place. Then it was time to move onto the railings. More work today and the railings are in place. The WE PE fret provides plenty of railings and shaped ones for the foredeck. I chose to cut them into shorter runs and used Gators Grip glue which gave me a bit more time for adjustment and easier clean up. I had to add a short piece to the foredeck railings; Trumpeter and WE seem to have different ideas about hull length and width - or maybe Type 23s vary. The Dukes crown was added from the PE fret rather than the Trumpeter decal and a bit of weathering has been added to the helo pad The Lynx was poked into the hanger before adding the aft safely nets The aft safety nets are too wide for the Trumpeter hull but luckily the nets are made up of several sections of different widths so I was able to choose an appropriate piece to cut out. The remainder should hopefully fit. In the end I used more of the WE PE than I thought. The two frets are shown together at the end of teh build. The Trumpeter fret is on the left A few more decals and weathering; touch up and tidying and more time on teh sea scape. Thanks for looking in Alan

Thanks Greg Its an interesting change building a contemporary ship and being able to find lots of colour photos out there Alan

Hi Mike Yes, there are periods where the log seems to be pacing the build! My plan with the sea scape is to add toilet paper soaked in dilute white glue to modify the sea and add some ordered swells as well as bow wave. I haven't done much of this so I'm not aiming for heroic seas but rather those quiet seas in the North Atlantic between the rough stuff Alan

More great figures. Well deserved 40k views. Alan

That's an awfully full box! I'm looking forward to a spectacular build. Alan

A quick update. Work continues but progress is a bit slow. I seem to spend a lot of time reading and researching more than progressing the model. I finished the white paint on the hull after three coats (two 34 ml bottles) and spent the afternoon grappling with masking for the lower hull paint and boot topping. I had immense difficulty trying to achieve what I wanted by scaling off the HMS Begonia plans. The model is a generic corvette and doesn't scale well in some respects and working off distance below the deck edge or the panel lines produced unsatisfactory results. I tried the hi-tech waterline tool With the hull pitched up or down I couldn't produce a sensible boot topping. The photos and the plans suggest it curves up at bows and stern which may be the reason using a waterline is not effective. In the end I looked at the photos and plans some more and marked the bow and stern points and then masked between the points by eye using the photos as a guide. It looks about right relative to the port holes and is about the right distance below the deck edge. The boot topping and lower hull paint will go below the blue masking tape Although the tape is burnished down the surface is still a bit rough and the tape crosses several panel lines so I painted a line of white paint along the edge of the tape to seal it and hopefully prevent the new paint from leeching under the tape. I suspect I don't have enough Hull Red so I ordered some more from Freetime Hobbies who were having a 20% off Flyhawk sale and this fell into the shopping basket Thanks for looking in Alan

Thanks Bruce That will complete the paint scheme layout for me. I have immense respect for the men who served on those convoy escorts in terrible conditions. Alan

And just in time to avoid falling off the front page a late update. I've been spending a lot of time reading up on details for the corvette and playing about with the decks for that model so I rather lost my place with Montrose. I had a couple of good days making some progress at last and also forgot to take photos at some points. The lower hull had the red paint added and the boot topping. Its the first time I have done one (usually do waterline kits) and it took a few goes to get it acceptable.. It did reestablish my confidence in Tamiya masking tape. The first time I used it it took all teh paint off when I removed it. Since then I have used 3M blue tape and not had a problem. The boot topping really needed something finer so I went back to teh Tamiya tape and this time it worked like a charm. I must have done something wrong the first time. I added the deck and then used the completed hull to start preparing the sea surface. I really liked Craig's (CDW) seascape using foil so I took a piece of 1 inch thick insulation board and carved out a groove for the hull , added crumpled foil and then covered the surface with a sheet of foil. I then gave it a coat of white primer I plan to use white glue and toilet paper to build up some wake and bow wave shapes. I'm aiming at a lazy Atlantic sea; nothing complex while I experiment with this. I built up the Harpoon exhaust deflectors from the Trumpeter fret. The WE set doesn't provide anything for the deflectors. I think there is a resin piece in their kit. The exhaust grating is tint but goes together well The superstructure elements have been installed on the deck and the first of the PE side decks that hold the life canisters have been made up and put in place. I added the main gun and the harpoon launchers and exhausts Quite a lot of detail still to do, RIBs, Lynx, railings. This is turning into a very nice kit to work on. The Trumpeter PE is great. If they had provided the railings then the WE set would be unnecessary. Thanks for looking in Alan

Thank you kindly OC. Yes the hanger door will be open. The kit provides two Lynx helos so I may have one in the hanger and one on the pad "visiting"

Very nice indeed OC. Another great face Alan