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DocRob

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  1. DocRob
    After the rust oil weathering had dried, I started the next layer, salt residues made with a white naval wash from AK. I applied it on the sides of the hull and only a little in the bow area, which then was blended with white spirit. Next were the shafts and propellers, which were rubbed with AK's old bronze wax, a perfect fitting tone. The shaft got Uschi van der Rosten's iron pigments rubbed in. Alignment is a little bit off, but I decided to let that be. On to the wooden decks, which are self adhering. All fitted well, except the delicate bow section, where the wood material was not cut thoroughly, which led to some free handed cutting, with a half glued deck. Despite this, fit was exceptional, with the exception, where PE parts substituted plastic, so no fault by Artwox. Most of the on deck assemblies will be added now, after the deck application, exactly for this reason. On some spare deck material, I tried a varnish first, but decided against it, as I didn't like the looks. If I weather the decks, it will be done later, with pigments, I guess. Cheers Rob
  2. DocRob
    Thank you ddp, that is some great material. I'm absolutely no specialist on the USS Arizona and I'm well aware of some of the shortcomings of the kit. I don't want to correct all mistakes, as this is my first 1/350 ship build and I'm about to learn the needed skills. I read about the bilge keels before and this is not the only strange area of the hull. For the guns, you are correct, about the non existent overhang, but when I look at pictures from the late USS Arizona, the gun port openings seem to have flat bottoms. Maybe there was some change over time and the drawing doesn't say, it's an USS Arizona turret shown. Cheers Rob
  3. DocRob
    I've been busy over the last days with the USS Arizona. I decided to weather a bit, because no ship ever looks clean and because I wanted to learn weathering on ships. But first to the decals. Luckily there are not many and that's definitely a pro for ship modeling. These here are the new incarnation of Eduard decals which have to be cut out, because the carrier film is not. After application, they looked like this with silvering and reflecting carrier film. Eduard claims, the carrier film of these newer decals can be removed, leaving an almost painted on result. Hmm, sounds good, but after peeling off the carrier film very carefully all the decals had stencil lifts .. My underlayer maybe was not perfect, but it was not too shabby either with a coat of gloss GX100 from Mr. Color. Before I try these again on a larger scale, I would test on some mules. With the carrier film on, they look worse than other decals, quo vadis Eduard? Next I prepared some of the tiny printed parts for painting, like AA-guns and searchlights, which will be added to the superstructures after the weathering stage. Like I said above, I gloss coated the model, to have a good base for weathering for which I used Tamiya panel liners, but mainly brown oil colors for the first step. My technique is to apply oils liberally and not to scarce with a larger synthetic brush. Different areas were treated with different mixing ratios of oil color and matte finish whit spirit. After a short period of drying, I spread the colors again with help of a bit of thinner and try to work in the direction of the flow, hull downwards and reduce the amount of oil color accordingly. This time, I used the oil color from one of AK's oil pens, and these oil are of a lesser quality, than my normally used from Abt 502. This is where I am now, albeit after taking the photos, I knocked back the effect a bit more, a true benefit of oil rendered weathering. Cheers Rob
  4. DocRob
    After the grey primer, it was time to put some colors onto the Arizona. I started with the stripe around the hull. The hull got a wide spray of flat black around, then I took the measurements from the side view and marked 1mm under the lower border of the strip with my waterline marker tool. I used 3mm Kabuki tape, parallel to the pencil mark for masking the strip. Afterwards the underwater ship was airbrushed with a mix of about 70% of Tamiya XF7 flat red and the rest with Tamiya XF9 hull red. There is a bit of modulation in the color to break the monotony of this large area. The underwater ship was masked then, along the top of three gun turrets, which were beforehand painted flat red on the tops for divisional markings. I read a lot about the coloring above the waterline and concluded with nothing is 100% certain about the hue. I decided to go with a very blue version of grey and looked through my stores, as I didn't want to mix the color, because, I will need it over a longer period of detail painting and corrections. My firs intention was to use Real Colors Intermediate blue, but than I found a jar of Tamiya's XF18 medium blue and liked it a lot. It was exactly the shade of blugrey, I was looking for. After this application, I went to the upper superstructure, which many claim to have been white, others say light grey. I went with Real Colors Insignia White, but masking the areas off was tedious. I used Panzer Putty, which took away a railing or two and de-tacked Kabuki tape. After peeling off the masks, The main components put together looked like this. Now it's time for the wooden decks, but before, I have to decide, If I apply a clear coat and some weathering. I have the tendency to do so, but let's see. Cheers Rob
  5. DocRob
    Thank you Edward, the priming indeed changed the appearance a lot. No more fancy shining, only man o' war serious grey. The color scheme will be a little bit more interesting with blue grey, the contrasting red underwatership and divisional markings on the turrets and last but not least, the wooden deck. I use airbrushes since decades, so drips are none of my problems. One of the biggest factors for successful airbrushing is to have the perfect thinning ratio for the purpose along the correspondent fitting air pressure. In this case, I thinned the primer down to a very thin mix and raised the air pressure a bit to have the paint particles distributed better into the nooks and crannies. You can't work with a high throughput of primer and to get the primer everywhere, I move the part permanently in random patterns, which allows the primed areas to dry rapidly. It's always berst to apply at least two coats, checking the coverage in between. Mr. Surfacer primer is very forgiving, the way it settles and cures and is a perfect match with levelling thinner. Cheers Rob
  6. DocRob
    Prim (er) Time - I used Mr. Surfacer 1200 for the job and used a bit more pressure than usual for the superstructures, to get the primer in the tiniest hidden spots. Next will be painting the hull, but before, I mark the waterline with my waterline tool, easy, because the bottom of the hull is completely flat. Cheers Rob
  7. DocRob
    Thank you S-boat, this build was only a substitution for a S-boat build on another forum (LSM), where there is a maritime group build taking place. I lost all the PE and brass parts from my S-38 kit, so the USS Arizona had to jump in and as it is my first small scale ship build, it is demanding, to say the least. I hope, I can continue with priming and painting soon, as I need a break from fiddly PE assemblies. Cheers Rob
  8. DocRob
    Today in the morning, I fired up my trusted old compressor with the intent to prime all that glaring PE along the few plastic remains with some Mr. Surfacer. Inspecting the manual showed me that there are several parts better to add now, than later, as I initially intended, like railings on the superstructure and some ladders here and there and parts, where I believed, they had to be glued to the deck, instead they are to glue to the superstructure. Railings are especially painful and the rounded shaped are the worst. I think the superstructures are finished now, except tiny antennas, AA-guns, searchlights and water pumps, which will be added after painting. Last for today, were eight of these guns sitting on top of the deck. They are 3D printed and have brass barrels and are superbly detailed. The manual suggests to cut away the railings and substitute them with PE, but I think they look good as they are and handle safer. Cheers Rob
  9. DocRob
    Thanks Kevin and the painting stage is close now and I'm looking forward to relax my stressed eyeballs a bit during priming and painting. Cheers Rob
  10. DocRob
    Simulating woodgrain with oil colors is a great and not too hard to learn technique. I use a workflow similar to the second video in plastic modelling, for WWI airplane interiors and exteriors and other stuff. Like Allan mentioned, I wouldn't use it with a wooden kit, as the grain or wood texture looks a bit overscale at let's say 1/64 or similar. My only application with wood modeling was painting a resin anchor winch in the same hue, than the surrounding wood. Cheers Rob
  11. DocRob
    Thanks for showing Yves, I have this one on my radar, since I saw the first pictures. I will build it along with the gun crew figure set. I would have preferred the loading setting, but the other make for an open sea dio with acrylic water, forming a wave to integrate the whole deck part into the water, not possible wit the loading figure set. Cheers Rob
  12. DocRob
    You are to friendly, thanks Paul, but the little misalignments, deformations, misplacements, etc. sum up little by little and that's not my style in modelling. I'm not a rivet counter, but I like my builds to be build clean and tidy, only to weather some heavily later . I like precision and detest shortcuts, but this build is starting to wear me down. I considered soldering, but only for a moment. There are too many parts, which needed to be glued with CA, like many of the railings, only glued on by tiny dots of CA and too fine to solder. There is even some plastic left, near the parts, which were best soldered. I did solder PE and self fabricated brass parts on other builds and now the technique well, but with this build, it would have been a wrong approach to my eye. Cheers Rob
  13. DocRob
    I started with the boats, hoping to find some relaxation, but was soon proved wrong. The flimsy racks didn't help and the last four of the twelve (I hope, I counted right) fought back wherever they could. fragile railings went on along with portholes and covers, which all went airborne on the first attempt and then stuck with the CA in unwanted places. I start to loose my patience with these ever more fiddly sub assemblies. The racks aren't looking too good, but they will have to do. For my own sanity, only to show how far I've come with the build, most of the assemblies where loosely grouped on the decks for some brass shots. Cheers Rob
  14. DocRob
    Thank you Kevin, I was a bit lucky, the back of the pic wasn't perfectly focused and I had a little blur to hide the imperfections. I hope under some color, all will look ok in the end. The PE racks would have benefitted from a bit stronger material. The thin PE was warping and bending on eyesight. Cheers Rob
  15. DocRob
    I continued with some more on deck subassemblies. The second catapult and the stern crane were easy to build up and I thought about having some relaxing fun with the boats and their cradles, but PE-madness stroke back. The plastic hulls needed a lot of cleanup but the extremely fragile racks where very difficult to glue into place unbent and more or less on level. They do look a bit rough and I hope to hide the crudeness behind primer and paint, as I have no intention to rework them. Cheers Rob
  16. DocRob
    Thank you Paul, I will look your gallery pictures up and hope to see your re-log soon. I thought about pre painting the railing too, but decided against for these mast sections. I think, I will hand paint them with insignia white. The railings, which will enclose the main decks, I will pre paint, as the wooden deck will be in place, when I glue these on. I will not go below 1/350 scale wise and have only a few ships models in my huge stash. I started my first wooden ship build, the Duchess of Kingston, about a year ago and found it more relaxing, than the USS Arizona build. Despite being all new to me, working with wood and PVA, I found it easier to get into a building flow, where the Arizona build is more of a fight. The quality of te kit is a huge factor here. Vanguard's DoK is well designed, where the Hobby Boss Arizona is a plastic nightmare, only buildable into a decent result, using all the PE and printed parts. After this build, I will continue with the rigging of the DoK, a part of the build I ever dreaded, but not so much anymore, after my Arizona experiences. Cheers Rob
  17. DocRob
    Thank you Paul, sometimes, specially in the nighttime, the demarcation line haunted me a bit . I decided to think about it, when I'm at this stage, maybe do a combination of brush painting and masking and airbrushing. Your mast section looks absolutely fantastic, so clean and well detailed. Is there a build thread somewhere around? Cheers rob
  18. DocRob
    Thank you Edward, I do like the look of the whole brass as well. I will hesitate for a second, when it comes to priming. On the other hand, gallons of CA and annealing doesn't make the brass prettier. Cheers Rob
  19. DocRob
    The aft mast section took me three days to get there. First the basic construction, than the traverses and finally the railings, which were very complicated to form, following the shape of the masts decks. Without annealing, I couldn't have done it. Half a liter of CA later, the tower construction misses only some antennas, the searchlights and AA-guns and some other minor details, which I will add later. The entire midship section starts to look busy now. There is not that much plastic left and there is more PE to come, along with the boats, davits,... Cheers Rob
  20. DocRob
    More PE-madness was on todays schedule. I wanted to finish the basic construction of the back masts and flying bridge. First was creating the masts, using 2 mm brass tube cut to length like mentioned in the manual. Luckily the manual contains a precise drawing of this subassembly with measurements added. The single aft mast was used to mark the height of the different decks with a pencil and then glue on the first deck, using a steel angle for orientation. Then I added the two decks above with just a drop of CA and put the assembly in it's designated place on the deck and added the other two masts. I tried to do this step as quick as possible, to have some wiggling time, before the CA cured. Later, all was secured with more CA . After all was aligned and the CA had hardened, I added all the traverses to the decks undersides, leaving a very delicate construction. The flying bridge was bent and the circular or rounded parts got bent using a rubber mat and some steel rod, after annealing the brass. Not all looks totally clean after the CA mess, but keep in mind, these pics are heavily macroed and everything will hopefully look proper under primer and paint. Cheers Rob
  21. DocRob
    Patience is the key to this build. While having Youtube videos on about esoteric hifi discussions - sigh-, I spent some hours with these two cranes. Again the fit of the PE is very good luckily and what's left of the plastic needed a heavy dose of cutting and sanding The roundels where annealed, an absolute must to my eye. The deck starts to look busy with all the sub assemblies joined together, at the same time it becomes more difficult to plan ahead considering the later wooden deck application. Every part has to be checked, if it fits into the pre cut deck openings. Cheers Rob
  22. DocRob
    Above the decks, you're absolutely right, Yves and there is more to come. Actually I'm working on two cranes and then it will be the back superstructure. The PE is mostly great to work with and the fit is exceptional. With worse fitting PE, it would have been a nightmare and most of the parts fold up relatively easy, given you use the right tools. The rounded parts are more difficult, where annealing helps a lot, to get the fit right. Cheers Rob
  23. DocRob
    After many distractions, back to the USS Arizona. I sanded the hull, where the seam of the meeting halves was and it does look good. I will give the final verdict on the Perfect Putty, when primed. Then it was time for the midship artillery and the casemates. I glued the provided metal barrels into 1,1 mm holes and needed to cut away some material on the stubs of the deck, which are casted there for positioning the turrets. The barrels are to long and the guns wouldn't sit flush without cutting the stubs. On reference pics, I found, the middle artillery is mainly directed to the front, which I didn't replicate, because it would have been difficult to insert the casemates PE On the picture you can also see the prepared PE casemates and the deck, where all the plastic was erased. After gluing on the upper deck, the PE-casemates where glued into place and they look so much better, than the plastic with a centerline and halved portholes. I then carefully removed the front superstructure, which stuck unwanted too the deck, due to running CA, some steps before. The wooden deck, was also glued to the plastic deck in these spots and I managed to remove the wooden deck with the help of some large sharp blades, between the decks. Now this is where I am with the Arizona and it looks, like the first priming and painting is not to far ahead. Cheers Rob
  24. DocRob
    Today, finally, I got something done with the USS Arizona build. I drilled two 6,5 mm holes into the hull, to accept screws later, if I decide to use a stand and don't display her in acrylic water. The nuts were glued into the inside with two component epoxy and after everything cured, I glued the top half of the hull onto the lower part and rubber banded and clamped all. After I glued the nuts into the hull, the upper half of the hull was glued into place. To my astonishment, the fit wasn't bad at all, leaving only a tiny gap. Next, I removed a lot of later to be substituted details from the decks, like ladders, bollards, winches and lifeboat racks, again mostly using a chisel or rounded blades. The fit of the decks was ok, the minimal gaps don't need to be attended, because of the wooden deck, I apply later. I'm not very keen about filling gaps and had mediocre results at best in the past. I decided to try different materials for filling the small gap of the halved hull. Black CA doesn't work for me, as it takes forever to dry and mostly replicates the gap on a slightly risen level. With Green Putty, I was not able to spread the stuff and thrust it equally into the gap. I haven't tried thinning it and will try it another time. Finally I used Perfect Putty, a white past, of which I applied tiny amounts onto the gap and smeared it with my rubber gloved fingers into the gap. First impression was good, but let's see what tomorrow brings, after curing. Last, I build up the middle artillery by cleaning up the housings, cutting off the barrels and insert the supplied brass barrels into 1,1 mm holes, I drilled before and glued them in with CA. Cheers Rob
  25. DocRob
    Sometimes, it's not enough, developing a cunning plan, sometimes it's physics and reality which knock you off . I had a yeah moment, when I added the mostly finished flying bridge onto the posts, after I added railings, ships clocks and other details and two hours later, that changed into a meehh moment, when I found out, that the capilar effect of the tubes led the CA to flow to the bottom, gravity was involved too, and adhered to my brass alignment rods on the deck. Very bad, because I need to remove the flying bridge alone or with the superstructure for painting, which is not possible anymore. I may have to cut the brass rods carefully and insert new ones . Some angles look a bit strange on the pics, but aren't in reality. Cheers Rob

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