Hi All, recently got back into the hobby after a number of years and purchased the combined USS Monitor and CSS Virginia kits from BlueJacket. This build log will cover the Monitor portion.
I emailed BlueJacket with some questions on the kit and MrBlueJacket answered them quite promptly and also pointed me to this awesome website - so consequently this first entry in the build log is a bit retroactive on my progress. Will continue posting after this as I continue with progress.
Started off by sanding and forming the hull taking as much care to maintain the required sharp edges. Made a small mistake while carving out the propeller well which was easy enough to fix with some wood spackle.
Next up for the main work on the hull was scribing the deck tiles. Began by drawing the tiles with a ruler and pencil to be sure I was getting the shape I wanted and then scribing them. Recently primed the hull and will post a picture of the scribe lines post prime to see a reference without the pencil marks.
Next up was installing the propeller and rudder assembly. This didn't take too much time but required a bit of fineness on my part to make it all square. In retrospect I probably should have cut a jig or something to help me hold it in place. Any tips on this?
Next up was rolling the turret photo etched brass. Probably on account of my low skill level, but it took me a bit of time to get the turret to look truly round. This photo is before trimming the cardboard on the interior of the gun ports though. The turret seriously looks gorgeous in person though, a little sad I will have to paint it.
So far I have been having a seriously awesome time with this kit and look forward to continuing on it.
Once again I am recently back in the hobby (was never that good at it years ago) and would love any feedback or tips and tricks people have
Also, huge thanks to MrBlueJacket for pointing me to this site.
