yvesvidal

I have never made sails for models before, so the old dog will try to learn another new trick, mentored by David Antscherl and his Appendix to his Sphinx series of books. Thanks you very much in advance David!
Silkspan is proving very hard to come by, so I can't say enough good things about people in the modelling fraternity who open themselves and their stashes to help those in need! Needless to say, like my sailor figure, I was saved by a fellow modeller who kindly donated enough Silkspan for my St. Roch... there may even be scraps left over for lifeboat covers!
My sails will be furled, to hide my inevitable mistakes as much as giving a clear view of the decks, therefore I reduced the height of each sail about 30%, to allow for scale thickness of the material!
The first picture shows the paper templates I made, sitting on the Silkspan. This lets me size the required sail-making frame...

I marked the foot of each sail and oriented them in the same plane, so when it is time to mark the cloths that make up each sail it should be a matter of drawing the lines in parallel across the entire sheet. I hope!
I found a suitable sized piece of plywood in my garage scrap lumber stash, and using measurements taken from the templates and allowing for the required overlap of the Silkspan onto the wood, I marked out the hole to cut, creating the frame and insert in one operation.

A clearance hole and one pass with my scroll saw was all it took, then a bit of finishing with my palm sander.  The cut is not perfectly square because the scroll saw throat is a bit smaller than the length of cut!

The insert will support the Silkspan while it is being worked on, and the frame will hold it taut.  
Here is the frame checking for size on my templates. I flipped over the foresail template which reduces the amount of Silkspan needed.

Next step is to start painting and tinting the Silkspan to look like canvas... David recommends mixing and thinning artists' tube acrylics, but this is expensive and will be almost all left over, so I am going to try my Tamiya acrylics on an offcut piece... my experience is that the paint will remain flexible after drying, so fingers crossed!
If anyone has tried this I would love to know how it turned out!
Thanks for looking in!
 
 

There are two sub-decks to fit. These add a whole load of rigidity to the hull, as well as securing the longitudinal beams in place. Again, the decks aren't glued at this stage, but instead they are held in place with a series of pegs that slot through the bulkheads, at upper deck height. 
 


 
The forward, main deck section now receives the same treatment. 

 
 
Each deck section is then fitted with an engraved lime faux deck. For these, I just added glue around the edged and centreline, and held them in place with clamps until set. Clamps will remove any threat of deck curling at the edges.

 
Even though this place will barely be seen, the deck gets the full grates treatment, and even a set of ladders leading down into that little orlop area. 


 
The bow now has a little attention. You'll see here, and from Chris's photos, that this is a little different to previous designs. 

 
 
More later.

Beautiful planking. There is a lot of care going into it and it shows.
 
Yves

Beautiful planking. There is a lot of care going into it and it shows.
 
Yves

Moving our attention to the bow. For Javelin, a few more round holes....
 

 

 
Each hole has a tiny PE part located at the bottom, and used as a holder for a portable cannon. The hand held cannons are not part of the kit, but I have seen some models with them.
 

 
I really like the intricacies of that bow, with its tilted mast. It makes for a rather interesting and unusual section of the ship.
 

 
And the overall view....
 

 
Yves

Today work :

Colored view of the back stern windows :



It's exactly the same process I used about the Saint Philippe in 2024 :

A while back I said I wanted to create a cargo handling scene involving a sailor, to give scale to the model. A friend of a friend on another modelling site knew a guy on thingiverse.com who 3D prints figures for model railroaders... he showed me a photo of the figure below that he prints in 1:160 (N scale trains), and which looked perfect for my scene!
So the friend of the friend did one up for me in 1:48, and sliced the limbs off so it would lay flat, thereby saving about $15.00 in postage!
Here it is, out of the envelope:

And after assembly with CA glue, I drilled a hole up the leg for a wire to make handling the figure easier. It just needed a small smear of filler on the leg seam, the arms fit perfectly!

I haven't painted figures in decades, staying away from them since my previous efforts all looked very cartoon-like. But now I know how to dry brush, and there is You-Tube! I used Tamiya acrylics, first priming him with semi-gloss black, then air brushing flat white from above to highlight details.

Then I dry brushed various layers and colours to get the shading I wanted. I left his shoes and belt semi gloss black, adding a flat aluminum buckle and flat black cap.
The pants and shirt are dark brown, followed by flat white then light brown on the shirt.
Here I have posed him on the plank that he will walk across the open hold on, pushing his sling load of cargo...
I dry brushed some flat yellow onto his face and arms, but he looked jaundiced, so I made a skin tone from red and yellow, which makes orange, followed by a drop of white to tone down the colour, and finally a drop of light brown...

Here he is ready to install.
I need to make the cargo, and the sailor may not get mounted until the main mast and cargo boom are installed, which may be a while...
We'll see how it goes!
I think this is not perfect but a far cry from the cartoon finishes my previous figures sported!
Thanks everyone for looking in!
 
 
 

Moving our attention to the bow. For Javelin, a few more round holes....
 

 

 
Each hole has a tiny PE part located at the bottom, and used as a holder for a portable cannon. The hand held cannons are not part of the kit, but I have seen some models with them.
 

 
I really like the intricacies of that bow, with its tilted mast. It makes for a rather interesting and unusual section of the ship.
 

 
And the overall view....
 

 
Yves

Planking the hull is ongoing—I'm a little more than halfway through.
I'm approaching the stern planking a bit differently than shown in the instructions.

 
Instead of wrapping the planks around the stern as shown, I'm running them continuously from the keel up to the three bulwark planks I installed earlier. It seemed easier to shape the planks this way, and it feels like a cleaner fit overall—if that makes sense.



 

Moving our attention to the bow. For Javelin, a few more round holes....
 

 

 
Each hole has a tiny PE part located at the bottom, and used as a holder for a portable cannon. The hand held cannons are not part of the kit, but I have seen some models with them.
 

 
I really like the intricacies of that bow, with its tilted mast. It makes for a rather interesting and unusual section of the ship.
 

 
And the overall view....
 

 
Yves

Moving our attention to the bow. For Javelin, a few more round holes....
 

 

 
Each hole has a tiny PE part located at the bottom, and used as a holder for a portable cannon. The hand held cannons are not part of the kit, but I have seen some models with them.
 

 
I really like the intricacies of that bow, with its tilted mast. It makes for a rather interesting and unusual section of the ship.
 

 
And the overall view....
 

 
Yves

Moving our attention to the bow. For Javelin, a few more round holes....
 

 

 
Each hole has a tiny PE part located at the bottom, and used as a holder for a portable cannon. The hand held cannons are not part of the kit, but I have seen some models with them.
 

 
I really like the intricacies of that bow, with its tilted mast. It makes for a rather interesting and unusual section of the ship.
 

 
And the overall view....
 

 
Yves

Moving our attention to the bow. For Javelin, a few more round holes....
 

 

 
Each hole has a tiny PE part located at the bottom, and used as a holder for a portable cannon. The hand held cannons are not part of the kit, but I have seen some models with them.
 

 
I really like the intricacies of that bow, with its tilted mast. It makes for a rather interesting and unusual section of the ship.
 

 
And the overall view....
 

 
Yves

Time for an update.
 
Apart from making the cradle, work starts on both the bow and stern assemblies, as these will need to be installed to the keel very early in construction. The format you see here will surely be quite familiar. 

 
All parts are beveled using my Dremel (nice and cordless now, too!). Lines are included for a gauge, with the parts being finally shaped during hull fairing. 


 
 
The stern is built up in the same way and the parts are cleaned up with some regular hand sanding. The tape on the stern is there to protect the infill piece from twisting out whilst being handled and sanded.

 
The bow assembly is now slotted to the keel. There is NO glue at this stage, and for quite a few more. Early construction is all dry fitted. This makes sure that the complex shapes all slot properly and the user doesn't introduce any twist into the hull. If you have a problem, you simply roll back the sequences and re-fit the parts. 

 
Bulkhead #2 is also bevelled and slotted to the keel, as are bulkheads #3 thru #8.

 
The hull is now spun around and bulkheads #9 thru #14 are also dry fitted.

Lastly, bulkhead #15 is fitted. Make sure you fully push this one home as there's a little more resistance here, but not too much.

 
 
More later.

I just removed the masking tape after adding the second planking to my 'pre-prototype mule' (planking took a day and sanding half an hour, but I used tang). Again, I must stress that this is very rushed, so apologies...
 
 

Zipping the hull up.
 

 

 
I'm not entirely happy with the hull. These 'egg crate' style hulls are very tricky, IMO, to get just right. The best one I have done was for USS England, and that one doesn't really count, because I had a 3D-printed hull to use as a base.

Moving our attention to the bow. For Javelin, a few more round holes....
 

 

 
Each hole has a tiny PE part located at the bottom, and used as a holder for a portable cannon. The hand held cannons are not part of the kit, but I have seen some models with them.
 

 
I really like the intricacies of that bow, with its tilted mast. It makes for a rather interesting and unusual section of the ship.
 

 
And the overall view....
 

 
Yves

Moving our attention to the bow. For Javelin, a few more round holes....
 

 

 
Each hole has a tiny PE part located at the bottom, and used as a holder for a portable cannon. The hand held cannons are not part of the kit, but I have seen some models with them.
 

 
I really like the intricacies of that bow, with its tilted mast. It makes for a rather interesting and unusual section of the ship.
 

 
And the overall view....
 

 
Yves

A few progress on the rear quarter deck. Rather delicate assembly due to the dry and thin wood:
 

 
The first step is to glue the decorative railing in the front of the planking. 2 x 3 mm soaked in alcohol and left bending on a jig: 
 

 
Installation of the stiffeners under the deck: 
 

 
Following the instructions.... all parts are pre-painted, of course: 
 

 

 
A little bell to attract the attention of the crew: 
 

 
The kit does not provide the end pieces of the freeze. I will have to think about something.....
 

 
Overall view: 
 

 
Yves

Bit of dry mud and dust

Its really easy...simply drill a small hole just big enough to accept whatever size fishing line you are using.  Then insert the fishing line into the hole.  It should be a press fit if you drilled the correct size hole.  No glue is needed.  Then take a sharp straight razor or even a #11 blade and slice it off.  But dont make it flush to the wood.  Slice it so it stands proud just a little bit.
 
Here are some various examples on the coamings and on the keelson. 
 



 
 I also use this method for treenailing but in that case I do slice it off flush with the planking. See below.  You can select black fishing line or even a dark brown for treenails.   The trick is just not going too large.  I believe the treenails below are 10lb or 15lb....I have to look back.  The bolts can be larger at 25lb...30lb...or even 40lb for larger keel bolts.  For example look at all the bolts in the frames.   They are I believe 30lb black fishing line.
 
 
 


 

My main goal now is to construct the stern balcony enough to get drawings to Chuck for the fretwork. But before that I have to build a stub deck at the end of the quarterdeck. But before I can do that, I had to build the stern of the upper deck with the rudder cover and benches, since they will be covered up once I install the stub deck above. And before I could build the rudder cover, I needed to mock up the rudder head to ensure it will turn freely in the rudder cover. And on it goes.....
 
So, here is the mocked up rudder head, checking clearances:

And then the rudder cover itself. Note in the first photo, I somehow built it too wide. The second photo below shows the trimmed down version. I had to selectively deconstruct the cover, then slice out the excess, and reassemble. It reminded me of chopping tops for hot rod models when I was a kid!
 
 

I discovered that if the rudder cover top surface stays below the level of the stern lights, there is not enough room under it to ship the rudder. It will have to be removed and then reinstalled after the rudder is in place.
 
So when I built the benches on either side, I made all of this a slide fit so the rudder cover can be taken out later to ship the rudder when I get around to building it.
 
The benches proved to be unexpectedly difficult to build. They had to accommodate different curves at different levels, since this is all sitting on the fore side of a convex upper counter whose curves are different from the upper deck upon which the benches sit. It was a lot of tedious trim and test, trim and test, for several days. But now it is done, ready to be covered up by the quarterdeck stub deck above. At least I could get some sense of the standard of living for the officers. Not bad, sitting on the bench, elbow on the window sill, looking out at the sea through the wall of windows....
 
Mark
 
 
 

I found time during the weekend to spray a coat of Tamiya light grey followed by the chipping fluid and then the AK 507C. Today I masked for the 507A dark grey and sprayed it on. The AK paints gave me trouble last time with horrendous bleeds under the masks. This time it all went well. I really burnished the masks down and I kept the paint coats light. I also used the AK thinner instead of water. Maybe that helped the paint dry faster, along with the 90F in the garage this afternoon.
Working with the chipping solution was a bit of a mixed bag, some areas went nicely, revealing the light grey as I wanted. In other places not so good, I seemed to get through to the primer without seeing the light grey. Part of the problem is the small size of the hull and wanting the chipping in specific areas. I’ll try a bit more tomorrow working on the aft section but I think it captures the look of the hull in the photo of the real ship.



Thanks for looking in, the likes and comments.
alan

This is the start of another Tribal destroyer build. HMS Zulu this time.

Trumpeter again so I think I know my way through some of inaccuracies and maybe correct some.
The kit is identical to Huron except for one small sprue which provides the searchlight platform aft. Less secondary weapons which seems correct. 
I haven’t found many photos of Zulu apart from a few of her in the Atlantic in 1941. She was sunk off Tobruk in 1942 later refits don’t apply.
The first problem is deciding what to use for the color scheme. Trumpeter calls for a Royal blue hull and blue decks which is unusual and in my books I only see that sort of scheme later in the war, 1944 - 1945.
The IWM photo seems to show a multi colored hull but it’s hard to see the details further aft and deciding the colors is difficult. 

So I think I’ll browse my books and try to find something similar (or interesting) that’s correct for the period.
sadly as seen in the photo I’ll be building another tripod mast and the PE lattice mast will languish.
 for looking in.
alan