Jeff59

That’s turret painted now, no major disasters, leaves me with Ensign flag to work on, little people and what l think l want for water up the Starboard side, never done any of these before so shall be searching for guidance, trying to complete for end of April for model show with club, going to be a steep learning curve. 🤞

Photo of guy standing in turret, whoever he is he got his spot on my model, don’t worry,not doing the rest of guys in the photo. 😂

Back to paint shop now. 😂 👍

Working on this just now, just fitted my last piece of etch l think. 🤪 Stand corrected, you can still glue the guns from underneath if you wish 👍 Shall show photo of turret complete, just waiting final paint.

7 hours ago, RGL said:

Doing a magnificent job! 

Thanks very much Greg, hope it helps others with their builds and encourages others to buy and build her. 🤛

2 hours ago, Herby63 said:

Hi Jeff, those are drytransfers. How they are applied, you can see in my Mikasa build log. The advantage is that there is no risk of silver bleed around the decal.

 

I made a first attempt to attach the torpedonets before painting the hull, as the bracings attach to it. I gave up for now, so the problems you encountered are very recognisable to me and I admire the tricks you applied to solve these problems. I shall certainly revisit this part when my build is nearing completion. 😀

 

I allready have some ideas for the showcase and will reveal them shortly, as installing linghting requires provisions to be made in the base.

 

Kind regards,

Herby

Thanks Herby, the ones l purchased you can peel of backing and position them, the Pontos draught marks, can’t see any backing to peel off. Brave man trying to put torpedo nets on hull before painting the hull, would spend forever knocking them off😂 will be interesting seeing how you light it up. Thanks for the feedback. 🤛

That’s me for now, cheers 🤛

Hopefully he doesn’t look like something from Michale Jackson’s Thriller 😂 still working on these.

Doing the aft turret just now, decided to pose one hatch open as in this photo and altered one off figures to fit in place, surgery required 😂

Next part is to finish fitting the remaining 182 parts and ladders to side of turret.  As you will realise there’s a lot of fine detail on the assembly now, this is why l didn’t want the problem of it being too tight to fit in the casing on deck and not turning freely. 👍 just painting to complete this. I did get the barrels bored out deeper, probably about 5 or 6mm, painted black with steel paint at the open end.

Next part for me was glueing this assembly together, as lm not wanting the guns free to elevate, think they would just work loose and eventually sag so applied a good amount of super glue to pivoting assembly to give me time to build this and still adjust barrel angles before they set so no time to dilly dally when doing this, set barrel’s slightly high to allow room to slip turret casing on without knocking of parts 182, once casing in place applied liquid cement to both sides then place turret onto model and set  barrels at desired angle, all before the super glue on barrel pivots sets to hard 😵‍💫

Managed a little progress on Mikasa, slowly getting near completion guys 👍  due to my earlier misshapes with air brushing l wasn’t to keen on spraying around completed turret, thought getting around under the barrels and those tiny parts 182 on instructions would end up with paint runs, you could always leave the barrels free to elevate but lm sure eventually they shall become slack so lm going to glue them at my own desired angle. Fixed enough parts 182 around the front to get away from painting issues for me, then painted this area and front of turret. Shall put a few photos up and you’ll see were l am with this.

Still got to drill the main gun barrels deeper before progressing here, shall continue cutting the small figures from spruce and look at making a start to these, that’s me for a bit. 🤛

Hi guys, managed another couple of fixes, now have both turrets with no location tabs and scraped till free turning, think if you were trying to turn them with the etched ladders on the side and other fine parts a sure way to destruction, also finished the torpedo net, also fixed the chrysanthemum on bow that was sitting wrongly, every time l look at it it caught my eye for wrong reasons, clad l fixed it, looks better now 👍 also touched up painting on torpedo net assembly, won’t see it completely right till l remove the building cradle but you can sort of judge if it’s for you or not. 🤛 try put some more photos up now. 

That’s me for now, shall keep pushing forward 🤛

On the 12 inch gun turrets, fairly straight forward, eventually came to conclusion that the round turret points in the roof supplied in kit best option 👍 l also  cut away the locating tabs so l could drop the turret into position at any angle, you can’t drop them in position across the aft deck for the ships boats with tabs here anyway, gun barrels don’t allow it, plus it’s better to make the base part of turret revolve freely, they are a bit tight so you might end up with damage to them if you have to force things, so l advise sorting this early in build when it’s not so busy. 🤛 also going to bore the gun barrels a little deeper 👍 1.5mm for this.

Short update on progress guys, the torpedo netting is certainly a challenge, set up booms 12 14 and 16, measuring centres from these points on actual etch net, thought l had them very close but when l hung the net on it caused the fine stay wires to bend slightly, so getting them spot on is the only solution, after a bit tinkering around l managed to recover it a bit, then decided the best way forward was to fit the booms two or three at a time to net and hull fixing points supported on my jig, then glue these before attaching guy rope wires, so you have to try each set of guy wires in position to see what length you need to achieve, slow process, but once made and painted just fit and glue in position, no stress in wires doing it this way, have l put you of doing this yet 😂 just on the last two now. Can’t make my mind up if it’s worth the effort or not but can’t see me ever doing another kit like this so it’s a one off for me. When you see it on that will help you decide what you prefer for yourselves when the time comes. 🤛 shall put some photos up now 👍 

If you look at the end of straight tweezers and zoom in you’ll see the part happily sitting on end 😂 didn’t think l would find this in carpet, right again.

Next boom ready to cut same way, with gun shutter removed. Also started cleaning plastic parts for 12 Inch guns.

Here’s my method for trying to solve the problem with rigging wire, fiddle but the least destructive to part in long run.  Cut the etch shackle through middle, then added 1.5mm of 5 amp fuse wire, nice and easy to cut, fiddle part is gluing it together, the small part is that light it sticks to open tweezers 😂 just don’t do a pinger or drop it like l did, carpet monster lives up to its name yet again 🤪 had to cut another bit. 🙄 put some images up to highlight 🤛

4 hours ago, yvesvidal said:

This is going to look fantastic, once deployed.

 

Yves

Thanks Yves, thinking no one seems to pick this option because it’s not quite right, so see if this might work and change some people’s opinion in tackling this. Down side is the model becomes even more susceptible to damage, will definitely need a display case for sure, that shall be my first task when completed, now there’s a word l never thought l would utter 😂

Well got one made fitted and painted, lying down slightly but l can live with that. That was the least destructive way l could alter this, now just have to do another seven, think will remove the gun shutter next for boom number 712, also start on the 12 inch turrets to stop me going around the twist with booms.

33 minutes ago, madtatt said:

Hello Jeff.
Your construction report and your model are absolutely top class. I think I can learn some tips from them for my Mikasa.
Do you want to display the torpedo net open on both sides? Or should the network be displayed on one side?
I had already thought about how to display the net rolled up well.
I will use tulle for this.

Thanks very much 🤛  only displaying it on port-side starboard side they are already fixed in to hull side, be interested to see how you do rolled up net as might want to do this on starboard side. 👍 starboard side l still have a notion to do a little sea at waterline from bow back to just before boarding steps.