realworkingsailor

Hmm… I guess you could try some appropriate diameter styrene rod perhaps? Andy

Is it even a part? Are parts 34 b c and d meant to form a hollow tube with part 34 e meant to be a capping piece? Andy

At this scale, probably the only thing that needs to be done is to pop the head off of a champagne cork and you’re good to go. 😉 Andy

Looks pretty darn good Kev! Slow and steady and you’ll be adding the last tiles before you know it! Andy

Andy

Everyone who I’ve seen building a model with invasion stripes (myself included) works diligently to make the stripes to exact width and straightness, with perfect colour separation etc. When the fact of the matter is, when the ground crews actually applied the stripes, there was no such attention to detail. I’ve read reports of the stripes being applied to aircraft on the day before D-Day with a mop! (Some weren’t even fully dry the day of). Your striping looks pretty great to me! Andy

I don’t think you’re too far off in your guess. I looked back at the photos you posted at the start of your log, and those truss masts are not there on the ship. Your recent photos look more like they were taken on a movie set. Everything looks a little too clean for a working ship, and the angles a little too perfect, (aside from the fact that it looks almost utterly impossible to launch that lifeboat). It’s probably either a lighting rig or for weather effects (rain tower). Andy

Happy to hear you’re okay after such an eventful winter, and even happier to see you’re back at the bench! Looking forward to seeing more of your brilliant handiwork! Andy

Nice job! A great result from an older kit! Andy

Thanks everyone for the likes and kind comments! I have not been idle over the past ten days, although build time has been interrupted on occasion. Picking up from where I left off, the final elements of the cockpit went together nicely. The resin control stick supplied from CMK had to be shortened by 3mm. I found when I first dry fit it in place, the pilot would have looked like he was riding on a Harley with a set of ape-hanger handlebars. A cool look for the highway, but not really practical for a heavy fighter plane. I didn't paint the PE control yoke, instead I decided to blacken it, as well as the tiny switch/lever that attaches to it. Not sure entirely what its function was on the prototype. Following the instructions, the fuselage halves where first glued together. The Yahu models control panel was then glued to the resin backing supplied by CMK for their own PE panel, and the rudder pedals painted and glued on (for all that anyone can see of them!). The interior section was now slotted into place and glued. The last little resin bit to be added is that large hose to the right of the pilot's seat. I'm assuming that was the line for the cockpit heater. The CMK instructions would have the builder add it earlier, before the interior was installed. A little trimming was needed, so it's best to leave this piece off until after the interior is in place. Hard to see much of anything, really, but I'm happy to know the bits are there! A quick view down into the observer's position: After the fuselage was buttoned up, the belly plate was added. I first drilled out the openings for the 20mm canons. I think it looks way better than having the shallow moulded dimples. Following the belly, it was time to assemble the wings. First up, there is a small fairing on the inboard section of the wing that needs to be removed: This is only needed for the version I am building. This does not need to be done for the thimble nose variant. After trimming and sanding smooth, the panel line was re-scribed and the wings assembled and attached. The stabilizers are then added. This is nicely made as a one piece assembly, so there was no need to muddle with the dihedral. This was then quickly followed by the tail fin and rudder: Starting to look like an airplane! I've also painted the front of the engine nacelles green. Although this area isn't particularly visible once assembled. Skipping ahead a little bit, I added the rocket "panniers" to the wing undersides. I reasoned that these parts, at least, would have been swabbed with the invasion stripes when they were added. Finally, I have begun work on the engines and cowlings. If there is one shortcoming of the Airfix kit, it is here. Although I didn't have any trouble figuring out which cowling piece went where, there is a small gap that must be accounted for as the cowling pieces are cumulatively just a hair too small. The best trick is to assemble them so as to have the gap line up under the area that will be covered by the exhaust pipe when it gets added later. Finally, I was not really keen on the appearance of what I'm assuming is the landing lights (or spotting lights, maybe) in the port wing. For such a large, eventually glazed opening in the wing, the inside was rather devoid of any detail I remedied that by using some bits of clear sprue nubbies. I painted the back side white and the sides silver in order to simulate some kind of actual light fixture. At least now there's some detail in there rather than some bizarre, purposeless bite out of the wing. That about brings everything up to date. Hopefully by the next update, I should be starting to get some paint happening. Thanks again to everyone who's following along, or just dropping in for a visit! Andy

Very nice! Your older model holds up pretty well when compared to the new one. Congratulations! Andy

Is it too late to paint the cowl pieces before assembly? Afterwards you’d only have to mask the whole thing, rather than trying to work around the odd bits. Andy

Nice job on the seat! Looks pretty much exactly like the prototype in those photos posted earlier, makes the kit supplied piece look positively clunky. Andy

Coincidentally, in todays Great Lakes history page on Boatnerd there’s a picture of the Fred W Green, another ship of the same family, with an interesting mast arrangement: (A brief history of the ship can be found in the link above) Andy

Thanks everyone! Time for a small update. Some paint has happened, sporadically, over the last few days. Enough that I can at least show some progress has been made. I began by painting the inside with interior green. After that dried I picked out the flight instruments and controls on the side consoles, as well as the heel plates in black. These were then dry-brushed with Floquil "Old Silver" to highlight edges and other worn surfaces. Finally the tiny control levers were picked out in red and green. I based this on cockpit photos I found online of the preserved Beaufighter in the US Airforce Museum, as well as photos of a preserved Aussie Mk 21. The pilot and observer's seats were then added, but not before adding some PE seatbelts. I scavenged the not-quite-100%-correct observer's seatbelt from some more leftovers from my Wellington build (I got lucky, Eduard accidentally slipped in an extra detail set in the package I ordered), I'm not too hung up on it, free PE is free PE. Now for some photos! First up, the fuselage interior: The observer's seat: Finally, the cockpit area and pilot's seat: All that remains is to build, paint and install the control stick and assemble the instrument panel and rudder pedals and I can begin some of the major assembly. Andy

I’ve seen many different arrangements of masts on these types of ships. They were built in many different yards, and many had long service lives (those that survived WW2), with many different owners. As you said, the mast arrangement was altered at some point, probably due to different service needs or owners requirements. What’s sometimes hard to really gauge is how small these ships were. It’s possible they left the after mast in that position in order to accommodate a longer derrick boom (albeit one that would look perfectly normal if fitted to something like a Liberty ship). It would be more convenient to flat stow a longer boom over the entire well deck, rather than have the end of the boom(s) protruding over the stern (or into the accommodation) had the mast be positioned between the two hatches. Andy

It wouldn’t hurt to mention that Airfix’s product support is also pretty good. I had a minor issue with some of the parts on my Typhoon build and they sent free replacements. They’re not the fastest (there’s really not a large number of people working in Airfix’s front office), but a little back and forth via e-mail (mostly to clarify shipping info) and the parts were shipped within two weeks (it took another two weeks for them to arrive, but that’s a postal service issue). Andy

Thanks Mike! Most of the newer offerings from Airfix all seem to be pretty decent. In terms of overall detail, they’re fairly middle of the road. I’ve seen a lot of YouTube modellers complain of a lack of rivet details and “cavernous” panel lines, but if you’re not too hung up about those points, there’s mostly no issue (although the latter issue varies with the age of the tooling, newer toolings being slightly better). I think they strike a fairly decent balance between level of detail and price, so if you wish to go for any aftermarket parts, you shouldn’t have to break the bank. For larger subjects, I’m assuming you mean bombers and the like? I think that Airfix’s Lancaster model is highly regarded, and multiple variants are available. I think their B-17 is of similar quality, though I haven’t researched it as much. Both come with considerable interior details. The same can be said for their medium bomber offerings (Wellington, Whitley, B-25, He-111, etc). Another nice thing Airfix has done, is they have rereleased some of their older products under their “Vintage Classics” line. They can vary considerably in quality, due to age and mould usage, but they’re very upfront about those facts (showing the tooling date on the box side), so you know what you’re getting into. Unlike some other companies who just repackage old kits in new boxes and price them like modern tooled kits. *cough*Revell*cough*… sorry, seasonal allergies… 😜 To get a sense of Airfix, you could try some of their smaller offerings (anything with the product code starting with “A01”), like the Hawker Hurricane I built. The kit itself was only $17.50 Canadian, and had just enough parts to be interesting. There’s also a BF-109, P-51, P-40, A6M-2, FW-190, and Spitfire in this range of kits, and many others I may have missed. Andy

Between everything else going on, I have managed to get a start on my Beaufighter. Construction begins, as usual, with the interior and cockpit areas. The kit features a basic box frame, formed by the "wing spars" and some interior sidewalls, that sits on the cockpit/interior floor. You can see the sparse detail of the kit supplied parts. Originally the pilot's seat mounted on four pegs cast on the forward wing spar (since removed), and the two recesses were to accept the control stick and foot pedals. Otherwise, there's not much else. Comparatively, the CMK resin cockpit features a whole lot more detail: A side-by-side comparison of the side consoles: After a bit of clean up, the replacement pieces fit nicely on the kit supplied framework: I still need to add the seat and control stick, but will do so after painting. Putting the above assembly aside, I then turned to the fuselage interior. CMK supplied two sections of interior paneling that are fixed immediately behind the cockpit, as well as more cockpit console pieces. A little bit of surgery is required, nothing too complex, just the removal of some of the moulded on kit detail. Easily accomplished with a sharp chisel blade in my X-acto knife and some sanding sticks. The CMK instructions are fairly clear as to what needs to be removed, but there is one area they don't mention, the area around the alignment tab. You can see the tab in question at the top of the fuselage. I felt it was easier to cut a small notch in the resin panel than to try to file away the tab. The area won't be visible anyway, so I'm not worried about the overall appearance. A quick overview, once again, highlights the simplicity of the kit details: The starboard side fuselage details have been added as well: Finally a quick dry fit to ensure everything will still assemble correctly: And another quick view inside the cockpit: The CMK detail set is very well designed, and while the interior panels may seem small, once assembled, they are exactly the right size, as no further interior detail will be visible. I will add a little filler to smooth out the cockpit edges, but otherwise I'm happy with the fit of the parts. Next up I'll have to get some paint going on the interior, and finish off the finer cockpit details. Andy

It’s possibly an air dropped depth charge, pre-1941. Andy

That last photo looks like the Sylvan Scale Models kit: https://sylvanscalemodels.com/kits/HO-1082.htm (Might be the N scale version) I have a partially completed one sitting on the shelf. Andy

Glad things (Wings?) worked out for you! Those decals look great. I’ve heard of others restoring old yellowed decals using a UV light (followed by a coating of liquid film as you mentioned earlier). Hopefully the rest of the kit doesn’t cause you any further issues! Andy

You may have to track down a 1:8 scale Jay to go with it…. 😜 Andy

I’m sure for those who remember the “Great Crash”, it felt a little like living the “Vietnam flashback PTSD Chihuahua” meme…. Thanks to the technicians for getting things back up and running. Andy

Deer, rabbits, raccoons… I have to deal with them all. Raccoons are especially hard on corn crops. I was totally wiped out two years ago. I’ve opted for an electric fence, seems to do a good job at deterring them. Andy