Dan Vadas

Thanks to everyone for the likes, these are greatly appreciated.
 
Hi Craig, thanks for the comment.  I know what you mean about eyesight; my close up vision has deteriorated rapidly the past few years.  I often wonder if the rate is normal for getting old or if it’s accelerated due to our chosen hobby!
 
Hi Danny thanks for the comment and links. I would have jumped at the chance to use generic rail if they had double the amount of stanchions or the ship required less.  I reckon the original designer of the prototype had shares in a ship rail company LOL Saying that I do like the effect of lots of stanchions.  I have come across Tom’s Modelworks stuff in the past but I always found their stuff to be more expensive than comparable offerings by others.  The 3d railings look good but that price!
 
 
Okay the Con deck railings attached to the deck.  I started painting before remembering to take a photo.

 
 
Finished finally; the below railing is the result of a total of 21hrs work! I don’t know if its just me but these are taking an age to do. 
 


 
 
Thoughts? Well they turned out not to bad for my first attempt at doing railings but as usual lots of room for improvement.  Two stand out items; firstly the join for the railing ends on the rear run is pretty rubbish but due to its position can live with it.
 
Secondly and most annoying is the front curved section, which was pretty much spot on when originally done and was very happy with it but…doing the last run on the port side straight section required a fair bit of pushing and pulling to get in to shape.  Only after final gluing did I notice the port side of the curve section leans inwards a bit…enough to keep drawing my eye to it. Oh well.
 
Next up to glue in the previous made components to the Con deck so the bridge deck can be installed and railed up.
 
Cheers
Slog   

The kit provided anchor is pretty much rubbish, the stock is a curved piece of plastic! There are also no stern anchors provided. 
 
I widened the hawser holes holes and used a North Star anchor set, joined to the Artwox chain, running strait through to the capstans. Hawser holes covers, chain stoppers and brake handles, as well as covers for the bit where the chain runs into the chain locker. 
 
The bit where the chain runs was recessed into the deck after the wooden deck was used, so I used the cut outs as stencils to cut plastic strip to fill the holes. 
 
Mall of the bollards from the kit were shaved off ages ago and are brass on plastic strip. 
 
Little bit of weathering, and railings to go.  

And for my way of tapering masts. However, you need to start with square stock.
 
  Danny

Thank you for dropping in again Remco, Nils and Ben .
 
Lower Masts
 
Sometime soon I'm going to need the Masts for alignment purposes to go ahead with fitting the deadeyes to the channels. Up until now I've "made do" with a couple of "dummy" masts, but now it's time to make the real things .
 
I was lucky to buy one of the last of the Masting Packages for the "Swans" from Hobbymill about a year or so ago. As usual, Jeff's timber and packaging is EXCELLENT - there are TWO pieces supplied for every part needed in case of "oopsies" (I've already made one ).
 
The masts (and just about everything else) starts out as square stock - no dowels in this lot, that would have been counter-productive . Following usual practice for making "round" masts from square stock I marked out two sides with the taper required. I've also tapered the masts below deck as per the original. The pic below shows the marking out for the section between the Partners and the Heel :
 

 
After tapering these two faces with a chisel and sandpaper I marked out the other two and tapered them as well. Then I marked out each face for the edges where the "octagonalling" would finish. I cut the tapered square section into a tapered octagon using a "V" jig and a sharp chisel :
 

 

 
Then I rounded the octagon using a sanding block, and cut the lower tenon into it :
 

 
The Mast Head remains square for now - much more work to be done here later :
 

 
Fore and Main Lower Masts fitted to the ship :
 

 
Note - I had to make two Main Masts (the oopsie mentioned earlier). I'd made the main mast a bit too thin at the partners on the 1st one and wasn't happy with the result. Just as well that Jeff had supplied plenty of timber .
 
  Danny

good evening everyone 
 
phot of the replaced hanger door panel

 
 
the hanger roof got some attention today some evergreen (other makes are available) and a bit of brass rod 

spray painted grey then white 

 

then the helo got some attention
masked primed and coated in yellow 
 


 

I've spent two days adding extra pieces of 0.5mm card to the bulkheads to thicken them up a bit, and also adding longitudinal stringers from 1mm card to stiffen the bulkheads prior to Fairing (I haven't started that yet). I used the leftovers from the bulkhead sheets as a template to draw the shapes of each bulkhead to the extra card :
 



 
  Danny

Welcome to the build Grant, Slog, Chris and Popeye .
 
I've made a start to the actual build - wow, she's gonna be BIG . Gotta love those laser-cut frames, they've probably saved a week's work all up. These are only the lower frames, there are just as many or more above the waterline.
 
I bought the table it's sitting on just for this build - my workbench isn't really big enough .
 



 
And a comparison with Amatsukaze - they are both 1:200 scale :
 

 
 
  Danny

Option C will help, but you'll have some trouble gluing the skins on straight. I'd opt for Option A - you need to start straight or you'll face serious problems later on.
 
I tend to agree with your diagnosis - lousy cardboard.
 
  Danny

Don't forget to Fair the bulkheads (and any extra card you may add), the same as you would for a wooden ship. They look thin enough not to worry about it, but trust me it's absolutely VITAL.
 
  Danny

No, you're thinking it out well . To my way of thinking there are two ways to modify the hull plating.
 
The first is as you described, trim both skins by 0.3mm to get the join in the middle of the baseplate. This is double work as far as trimming goes and doesn't leave you much to glue the skins to.
 
My preferred method would be to glue strips of 0.5mm or 0.8mm card UNDERNEATH the baseplate level with the edge of it and just trim the lower skins. Not only do you have to trim only the lower skins you get the added advantage of having a bit more surface to glue the skins to. It's not that easy butting two skins over a 0.6mm thick bulkhead or baseplate.
 
I also suggest that you DON'T cut the extra 0.6mm off the lower skins at first. Spot glue each skin to the keel at the fore and aft edges, test the skin to make sure it's going to fit neatly to the upper skin (which you should always fit first) and then mark the cut positions, remove the skin again and trim the necessary amount off. Sometimes you can finish with a slight gap or overlap between the upper and lower skins if the bulkheads are a fraction out of shape.
 
One last thing - there seem to be (at least) two areas where the bulkheads are a fair way apart. I had the same with my kit, so I glued some extra pieces of card longitudinally between them to lessen the chances of accidentally crushing the skins in those areas.
 
  Danny

And for my way of tapering masts. However, you need to start with square stock.
 
  Danny

Thanks Pav, I'll let you know if I do.
 
I'm not overly fussed by the model they show on their website. It looks half-finished, no railings for starters. The black lines look very stark also.
 
  Danny

Thank you CDW. You'll find the Hole Punches to be very useful. I've got both the small ones and the large ones, and use them both a lot.
 
There are 16 Bollards to be made. The tubes are solid rolled, these took me nearly an hour to make - quite an improvement on the first few I tried . Here's a few pics of how I handled these very small parts - note the double-sided tape and the moistened Q-tip I used to pick up the tiny tops and bottoms (the Hole Punches were a great help here) :




 
There are two more Paravanes near the stern. I used a rounded dowel to help with gluing the ends :


 
The paravane Cranes were part of the PE set I bought earlier :


 
There are six Depth Charges held in housings in the stern. The ends of the housings were the smallest parts in the whole ship :



 
Finally for now I fitted the Anchor Chains. There was no indication in the instructions about the size of the chain, but by counting the links in one of the pictures I came up with 27 links per inch :

 
  Danny

Dan, My Polish friend will be going to visit her mum in Poland next month. If you want me to i can place an order...i will be ordering something for myself, so no probs if you do t want anything...

looks fantastic Danny!  congratz on another stellar build!  

And for my way of tapering masts. However, you need to start with square stock.
 
  Danny

Thank you for the kind comments Carl, Popeye, Nick and Pat. Always appreciated .
 
All the Railings are now fitted. They turned out quite well despite being very fragile, and I'm very happy with the way they turned out .
 
There was a slight problem on the Foredeck where the deck has a dip in the middle (it's supposed to be like that). Trying to fit a 2-rail railing in the dip is impossible without cutting one of the rails as it wants to bend in or out. Sort of like trying to bend a piece of planking sideways :

 
The top rail cut and CA glued back together :

 
A tip for drilling holes for railings. I CA glued a 0.3mm drill bit into a piece of 0.3mm ID tubing, and then glued that inside some 0.6mm ID (0.8mm OD) tubing. I left about 1mm of the drill bit protruding. This has two advantages. First, it strengthens the small bit enormously - I drilled about 150 holes and DIDN'T BREAK ONE . Second, you can only drill to the depth of the protruding bit, so there is no sudden downward movement of the drill if you drill right through a deck - another major cause of drill breakage, and also possible damage to surrounding parts :

 
Mounting the Motor Launches to their davits proved problematic, as they wanted to fly all over the workbench (and floor) at the slightest touch. To fix this I spent some time making a jig. This also helped a lot in getting the boats to sit at the right height and level :

 
Rather than just using a piece of wire for the "tackle" I made up some doubled "line" and "blocks" from 0.2mm wire and 0.4mm ID tubing :


 
One of the launches in the jig, almost ready to fit to the ship :

 
And both launches fitted :


 
  Danny

The Rigging is all finished, it only took about 3 hours .




 
The last thing to be fitted is the one I usually try to leave to the end - the Ensign, or whatever the Japanese equivalent is . I just noticed that the railing at the stern is bent, good thing I took this pic or I may have missed it :

 
And here are a couple of pics of the finished ship. I'll be putting more into the Gallery :



 
Total time to build was exactly 3 months, about 6 months less than I was expecting it to take . Next up will be Bismarck, starting tomorrow.
 
  Danny

I've spent two days adding extra pieces of 0.5mm card to the bulkheads to thicken them up a bit, and also adding longitudinal stringers from 1mm card to stiffen the bulkheads prior to Fairing (I haven't started that yet). I used the leftovers from the bulkhead sheets as a template to draw the shapes of each bulkhead to the extra card :
 



 
  Danny

I've spent two days adding extra pieces of 0.5mm card to the bulkheads to thicken them up a bit, and also adding longitudinal stringers from 1mm card to stiffen the bulkheads prior to Fairing (I haven't started that yet). I used the leftovers from the bulkhead sheets as a template to draw the shapes of each bulkhead to the extra card :
 



 
  Danny

And for my way of tapering masts. However, you need to start with square stock.
 
  Danny

I've spent two days adding extra pieces of 0.5mm card to the bulkheads to thicken them up a bit, and also adding longitudinal stringers from 1mm card to stiffen the bulkheads prior to Fairing (I haven't started that yet). I used the leftovers from the bulkhead sheets as a template to draw the shapes of each bulkhead to the extra card :
 



 
  Danny

Awesome ideas and love the ship.

I've spent two days adding extra pieces of 0.5mm card to the bulkheads to thicken them up a bit, and also adding longitudinal stringers from 1mm card to stiffen the bulkheads prior to Fairing (I haven't started that yet). I used the leftovers from the bulkhead sheets as a template to draw the shapes of each bulkhead to the extra card :
 



 
  Danny

I've spent two days adding extra pieces of 0.5mm card to the bulkheads to thicken them up a bit, and also adding longitudinal stringers from 1mm card to stiffen the bulkheads prior to Fairing (I haven't started that yet). I used the leftovers from the bulkhead sheets as a template to draw the shapes of each bulkhead to the extra card :
 



 
  Danny