yvesvidal

Very interesting and so unusual model. It reminds me of the little brother of the Chebec. Yves

Interesting choice. The Russian Navy had a lot of very unusual vessels and I am so glad that these models are coming to the Western world, finally. Yves

Kevin, I have been following your Enterprise kit and was seduced by what CAF is offering. The Bellona is a little simpler since it is Plank on Bulkheads and it has a reduced and simplified interior. It compensates in size, though..... If I ever manage to do something decent with Bellona, I'd like to do the Chebec from CAF one day. I have always been in love with those sleek and fast ships. Yves

Craig, another master piece in the making.... WOW, you sure are aligning those 1/700 scale ships at great speed. I wish Trumpeter would produce a 1/200 version of that same monster, to replace the old and so incorrect Nichimo kit. Yves

Very interest project of a great ship. Yves

You should not paint the tire of the wheels. If I may offer an opinion, the wheels were not painted black: they are naturally rusting, so a brown rust is more appropriate. Secondly, the tire is always shinny since the car running on these section of the wheels, rust cannot adhere. I would use some paint thinner and clean the outside of your wheels. If you ever run them on a small piece of track, they will look awful, once the paint starts peeling. Yves

What an heresy. You will have so much pleasure rolling it back and forth on the short track that is provided. And who knows, that may be the beginning of a huge layout in your basement or garden..... Yves

They truly put a lot of brass in that kit..... Very colorful !! Yves

I will think about the display later on 🙂 For the time being I enjoy the building process. I wish there was some kind of small Museum (open to the public) in the area, where people can display what they build. That model and others would definitely be perfect in such a place..... I have the same dilemma with my large Flower Class Corvette..... Yves

So, without waiting and to verify the parts of Session #2, I could not help myself and started gluing the central shell piece: The fitting is beautiful and the cuts are perfect. The shell pieces are cut in a 1.5 mm thick plywood, which do marry tenderly the curves of the futtocks. Once completed, this should give us a very nice and solid hull, for planking. Yves

- SESSION #2 - Before finishing Session #1 completely, I had to have parts from Session #2 and ideally from Session #3. We will get into the details later. Session #2 package was ordered directly from CAF model in Shanghai, apparently. The parcel took close to two weeks to arrive and was severely damaged by water. As you may not know, a lot of China is under the water due to weather manipulations and enormous rains, and people are suffering a lot. My parcel was probably flooded in Shanghai and kept its humidity long enough to develop some mildew.... Session #2 is about $250 plus shipping. Fortunately, the content of the kit Session #2 itself, was not damaged by the water since it was protected by a film. On the other hand, all the strips of wood for planking hull and deck soaked all the moisture they could. I have been trying to dry all of them in the best possible way, but a lot will have to be replaced by CAF. I have to say that their packaging was not up to their reputation and that all this disaster could have been avoided if the strips had been stored in a sealed bag. The cherry wood was prone to develop some mildew as you can see below: Tom, from CAF model, indicated that a new set of wood strips will be shipped to me (free of charge) when I purchase Session #3. I have to command his support and responsiveness. His willingness to help is a far departure from the total lack of responses from certain large European kits manufacturers for example. Anyway, despite these "aleas" of the shipping process, Tom included for me two main guns which are no longer sold with Session #2. In the past Session #2 would provide 24 main guns that will be mounted on the Gun Deck. CAF changed their approach and all the guns are now made available in Session #5 (70 guns). Let's take a look at Session #2 and what it offers. The main deck, cut on a beautiful 2 mm plywood. Again as in Session #1, we deal with beautiful material, fresh and clean wood, perfectly cut and presented. When I compare the quality of CAF parts with for instance Constructo, I am glad that I am building a kit from CAF. Documentation is again IKEA style, with not enough information.....really not enough. If we could merge the Chuck Passaro Construction guides with the quality of the CAF models, I do not know a single human being who would not be constructing these kits. And two 30 pounders main guns, finely cast in brass: Yves

So, I have been sanding a lot recently, inhaling the fine powder of cherry wood..... As indicated, this is a massive model and quite heavy at that. The reason why the stern is not built yet, is because I am using the last bulkhead #18 for support while sanding the hull vertically. For the time being I am only sanding the futtocks, in preparation for the shells that will be glued with Session #2. The good thing with the charring is that it gives you a nice appreciation of when you have sanded enough.... The stem remains to be done and there is a lot of work there with possibly the removal of Futtocks #4 and their re-gluing. The lower portion of the hull (below the water line) is left untouched for now. I will start the sanding and smoothing of it once all the shells pieces have been glued, providing a nice protection for the delicate futtocks. Yves

After the supports for the rafts, we need to install the cabinets and lockers for the ammunition. Again, this is done from historical pictures and the readers should keep in mind that this arrangement has evolved multiple times throughout the life of the ship. We also add the rear gun turret, after improving it a little bit. The anti-flak cabin is just a big block of PLA, in the kit. It would take way too much work to hollow it (the material is so hard) and I wish the designer would have done it in parts to assemble. So, in order to give it more dimension, I added a front wall and frame around the opening. The "stuff" above the cabin is made of brass wires, welded together and provide 5 hooks for the lines between the main mast and the rear gun tub. One painted and installed, it looks pretty decent and gives the illusion that it is indeed hollow: That pretty much concludes the Module #5. The machine gun is being 3D printed in resin and I do not have it yet. A few overall pictures to satiate your impatience and curiosity: Next will be Module #6, the rear deck. Yves

The plain vanilla kit does not present two of the main features of HMCS Snowberry: the raft supports. The kit offers "Raft support" but they do not match the way Snowberry was rigged. I have had to "hand made" these, which comes as a welcome contrast after printing pretty much all the parts needed. In the picture below, you can see the first Raft support located right behind the end of the forecastle and the support protected by some shielding: The shield is the part from the kit (protecting the front gun), reduced in length, with 40% reduction. Everything else is built with styrene strips and a lot of adjustments: Once in place, it provides the ship with a nice look: The rafts are not yet ready and will be added later. Below is where we stand at that moment: Yves

MODULE #5 - THE ENGINE ROOM This is a complex module, not so much as it is described in the kit, but because of all the necessary work to make it look like the HMCS Snowberry. We start with a bare roof and its extension, which has been described in a previous post: The railing is added. I like to do the railing first, as it is delicate and as the stanchions need to be inserted in a particular order. All the straight lines are glued first, the rails are then inserted, bent and the remaining stanchions are added. It is not perfect but looks quite convincing from a couple of feet away. Next, we add the skylights after gluing a piece of clear plastic underneath: The cowl pipes are added as well as cowls and access way: So far, it is all 3D printed and straight from the kit, with the exception of the cowl supports, reduced in height by 10%. Yves

To conclude on Module #4, I owed you a picture of the finished dinghies, with their set of oars. Again, these are 3D printed, painted white and dry brushed with some acrylic raw Sienna paint. Next is Module #5, the top of the engine room. Yves

Absolutely superb and well in the Caldercraft tradition. Lovely model. Yves

WOW Kevin, this is looking glorious. You are turning that kit into a Museum model. Yves

Very good start. Yves

Jan, yes the model is from CAF and has nothing to do with ZHL. ZHL may have been reselling CAF models at one point or another and that is when the video was done. In the video (now deleted by Chuck...), ZHL insists in showing that the model is made by CAF. They point to it, at every opportunity possible. So far, I have had a couple of issues with the plan/blueprint versus the parts, not matching. However, from a part perspective, everything fits very well and I have concluded that it is the plan which is erroneous. The interesting part and rarely documented thing, is that there was some Chinese knock-offs made out of the Bellona kit (and perhaps others....) in 2017-18. The pirated kit apparently only covered Session #1, did not offer any plan or instructions (but a CD) and did not provide the nice cherry wood found in the original and genuine CAF Model kits. Yves

Very nice sails. You are an expert with a sewing machine. Yves

Very cute tools and sawhorses. Yves

I know that you have spent some time working on the track, and I would like to suggest another solution, more realistic in my opinion. Since you live in Europe, you have easy access to Marklin 1:32nd scale tracks. I recently used multiple flexible pieces to build a display for my BigBoy: The track is raised on two pieces of wood to create the crown typical of railroad tracks. The plates are then painted in Rail Brown (Rusty) and the ballast is made of chicken grits #2, glued with diluted white glue. The gluing is the most delicate task since you do not want to put any glue on the sleepers or on the rail itself. The dilution is done with water and alcohol. Chicken grits is a small granite pebbles given to the hens so they can grind their food. You should be able to find that in any farm supplies store. Gluing is done with an eye dropper and a lot of patience. The Marklin track is very European and will in my humble opinion be more realistic than whatever Amati has provided in the kit. Yves

Spectacular picture !!! Yves

Another great kit to follow. I am in. Yves