Hubert Boillot

This site is full of outstanding build threads, but this one must be among the top 5 👍 ! The attention to detail and to scale realism, and the subtle weathering make the result absolutely above the rest. i will keep following your build with eagerness, Gary ! Hubert

Afonso, I am nothing like the masters here, who will certainly have better advice than me. But if you are looking for Spanish or Portuguese ships of the XVI/XVII Century, I would suggest you look at one of the Colombus triplet (Santa Maria / Nina / Pinta). I believe they exist in kits, are extensively researched with some great books on them, and still are not too complex, especially the smaller ones .... If you can find one, but they are scarce and awfully expensive, I also believe there is an Imai (plastic) kit of the Mataro, one of the most iconic ship models of Spain (it is a genuine XV or XVI Century ex-voto. Maybe not an accurate representation of a real ship, but the kit reproduces a famous model 😉 ) HTH Hubert

I just went though the whole build log so far, and am in awe of your skills, Valeryi 👍 ! Ans just as well, I appreciate your openness to share techniques. I can say I have learnt a lot reading this thread. As for the choice of subject, I just love pre-dreadnoughts, and believe the Russian fleet was the most homogenous fleet of pre-dreadnought ships, in terms of appearance and looks. Nothing like the French "Flotte d'échantillons", nor the various experiments the US and British Navies were doing at that time, which resulted in different-looking ships in the time-span. Varyag was certainly a handsome-looking ship. I will continue to follow your build with trepidation. Hubert

Yes. My bad ! Just my limited command of English (I’m French, in case you did not get the hint from my name - nobody’s perfect 🙄). Welding is one step beyond soldering. Mind you, some railroad modellers use spot-welding techniques on scratchbuilt brass locos ... just like in your ordinary car factory. Hubert

This is going to be my first post on this great site (I am rather in an aircraft building mood atm 😏 ) ... I am no chemist, but still believe that you need to understand the properties of each type of glue to make the right choice. My apologies to the real specialists who will find my comments over-simplified in some areas. Plastic to plastic (styrene or polystyrene) Stryrene glue will work by dissolving the polymer (the plastic) on mating surfaces. Applying pressure and letting it « dry » (i.e. letting the solvents evaporate) will result in the plastic parts being « welded » together. On large mating surfaces - like two hull halves - , glues like Contacta or Tamiya thick glue will work fine. Thin glues (like Tamiya Thin or Extra-Thin) are good when you want to avoid traces of glue : being mostly high-evaporation solvents, they will run between the mating surfaces by capillary action. They are also good for small mating surfaces, where the plastic surface to be melted is reduced, and the gluing is done quickly. As a side note, styrene glue will not work on some other « plastic » polymers, like PMMA (commercial name is for instance Perspex) or ABS. For these, MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) is great. MEK is also good for styrene, but beware, it’s hot on styrene, which it will melt quickly if applied too liberally ... Old styrene glues were not as efficient than nowadays. The dissolving effect was not as good as today. So putting an assembly in the freezer will pull the assembly apart, by inducing shearing forces on the joint, because of the minute contraction of the frozen plastic ... CA glue Cyanoacrylate glue is good to mate dissimilar materials, as well as similar materials. So good for metal to plastic, wood to plastic, fabric to plastic, but also metal to metal, or plastic to plastic ... or finger to finger 😁 Two basic types, then subdivising ad infinitum : fluid or gel. Fluid will run between parts, gel or thick types will stay where you put them ... As it ages, CA will become thicker, for the reason explained below. CA is a polymer. The polymerisation is triggered by humidity of the ambient air. So dry air is not very conducive to good working of CA. And blowing on the glue to accelerate its setting is not as silly as it may seem 🙂. Because of its triggering mechanism, CA will not age gracefully, as most containers, in a kind of plastic like PEHD, will let water vapor permeate through their envelope. To help CA live longer, store it in an airtight container in the fridge, or at ambient temperature but with moisture-absorbing silica-gel sachets. CA has excellent tensile strength, and very poor shearing strength. So pulling components apart is very difficult if the applied force is normal (perpendicular) to the gluing area. But do not expect gluing at right angles (like two walls of a house) to be very strong. Any knock that applies a force provoking a shearing or twisting moment on the joint is likely to break it, especially if the mating surface is very thin (like with PE - photoetched - parts). CA is also very good also for gluing knots in rope. Because of its mechanical properties, I have successfully used it to glue rigging on biplanes using elastic thread or nylon monofilament. It can be used for wood-to-wood as well. Beware that CA will liberate fumes, even long after the gluing, and these fumes love organic material. Excellent for showing fingerprints in police forensics, less so on transparent plastic, or glossy painted surfaces with finger marks. It is also suspected of interacting negatively with some types of high-lead content white metals, thus turning white metal fittings into dust over time. Not what you want on a thousand-working-hours wooden man-o-war ... CA can be dissolved with acetone. Good on metal to metal, but acetone will dissolve styrene before the CA ... Epoxy glue. Another polymer, but here the polymerisation is triggered by mixing two components. Epoxy is great in tensile and shearing forces. But it is not very runny (an understatement), so basically you have to be very careful where to apply it, as any spills will be very hard to remove. Some epoxy glues are unbelievably strong. The « queen » (IMHO) of epoxy glues, JB Weld, is renown for enabling to repair broken engine blocks ... Acetic acid (like in vinegar) will dissolve epoxy glue in the long run... Welding If you master it, welding is still better for assembling PE, compared to CA glue. HTH. Hubert. PS: I have forgotten white glue, which works wonders on wood-to-wood or rope, or paper or cardboard.