BLACK VIKING

Yesterday featured a landmark occurrence: the first movement of a train on this project:

 
OK, fine, it was just a quick electrical test of the first bits of track laid. But it was still a very exciting moment! This locomotive is sound-equipped, and the huffing of exhaust along with a triumphant whistle blast brought Mrs. Cathead in to see what was going on. Here's a broader view:

I really hate doing electrical work, it's easily my least favorite thing about model railroading. But it needs to be done so I'm doing it. I already showed the turnout controls; another step was to install the panels where locomotive throttles plug in. These involve drilling out rough holes in the fascia to accomodate the circuitry behind these panels, them screwing them in place. You'll also notice that the left-hand track diagram is now painted instead of taped, as agreed on by the community.
 


I then installed throttle holsters as well. So now the front-facing part of the electrical work is done, and it's time to start doing all the fiddly under-layout wiring along with additional tracklaying. I've already found something I need to troubleshoot and hope I can figure out. Did I mention that I hate electrical work? But the good news is that it directly leads to some really fun stuff (operating trains). 
 
A few more status shots. It really is starting to look "official" with the fascia infrastructure near completion.


And one final shot down the tracks:

I am sorry guys I forgot my camera but I received 1st,2nd in 1/32 prop missed in the 1/48 prop with my Academy B-25 PBJ and struck 3rd in the 1/48 jet with the F-84 from Tamyia the F-84 was last minute.The contest had a decent showing of 246 entries this year my buddy and I had fun he garnered 2/3 place with his 1/48 Fw-190 Eduard with all the goodies and a 1/72 Me-262 bomber version.The buddy bought $20 worth of raffle tickets and won about six kit and bought four more.

After a break of a few days, it was back to work on the main gear. Here's a shot to give you an idea of just how much work that entailed:

 
Not surprisingly, the work required several sessions, but it's now done.

I removed the clamps from the transom piece and it was nicely glued to the hull, with no gaps on the edges. I finally finished painting the fake quarter galleries. For the final touch I used clear paint on the window panes. I test fit them and will glue them in place soon.
 

 
I have also been working on the rudder and its hardware. The kit came with premade pintles and gudgeons which I was going to use, but after I blackened them I thought they looked too wide. So I used some thinner brass flat stock to make new ones. It took me a few tries to get the bends right but after I made a useable one I was able to reproduce it pretty well. I soldered a pin into the pintles then pickled and blackened all six pieces. Here are the new pintles mounted to the rudder with brass nails that I also blackened. In the cup are the new gudgeons on the bottom and the kit supplied ones in the top.
 

 
Today I mounted the rudder to the hull. I did not glue the gudgeons to the hull, but used the blackened nails to nail them to the hull.
 

 
I have also been working on the cat heads. I drilled holes in the ends for the sieves and painted them black. I then glued them in place after widening out the slots in the bow for them and notching them to fit flush against the fore deck. This took a bit of fiddling to get them to fit right. I'll get a picture of them for a later post.

More progress over the weekend.  Some panel line pre-shading and the "Sky" underside coat.  That all needs to harden off before the next load of masking begins, but it will probably be the weekend again before I get to it, so no rush!
 
Thanks for looking in and the "likes" and comments, much appreciated. 😁

Another Excellent figure.
 
OC.

Back to an Art Girona model, as the title says, King Decebalus. He fought three wars against Rome losing the last one and, with his city destroyed he committed suicide. I thought I remembered him as a character in the Harry Sidebottom series of books “Warrior of Rome “. Excellent books by the way.
 painting guide can have limited historical accuracy but I like it enough to want to follow it as well as my abilities permit. There are some fine details on his tunic which will be a challenge and the plaid like pattern of his cloak is going to be a stretch.

I got carried away and got into the painting and forgot to take photos. You only missed the black primer / white zenithal paint so nothing terribly interesting.
The basic elements are done. The face was really nice to paint, excellent sculpting.


For some reason the green paint has a shine which will need a matte coat at the end.
i added some of the details on the tunic and pants, it’s tricky with all the folds but I will try for the red zigzag pattern on the pants next.
i laid on the very light blue and buff shades as the base of the plaid and I’m not totally satisfied. I hoped that the thin dark blue lines would help but my brush control was not good enough. I put a white wash over everything to reduce the contrast which helps a bit. I’m in two minds about overpainting and starting again but I think I might go a bit further first. This is really about learning and improving.

Thanks for looking in
Alan
 

Nice Kevin, glad your plan came together! *cue A-team theme music*

It came with the kit Mike I did have to add the top cover the switch/potentiometer mounts on to though.The hardest part was the mounting of the micro engine I started further in the engine assembly but friction played a great factor.I was sitting one evening and a thought hit me ......mount it in the front crankcase assembly? I thought ...NO!! ...but it fit!So I can now outfit the rest whether it be a Spit or a P-51!

Hello shipmates~! 
 
Some updates on GH2 (Golden Hind 2) where the methodologies I applied and/or materials I used differ from GH1.
 
The whipstaff house design is more or less same as GH1, but I used slightly different methods to put them together more solidly.






 
For the staghorn kevel, I was looking for a more solid material that could be thinner/smaller and still provide strong structural strength.
 
I accidentally came across a small wooden tweezer in a discount store that satisfied my original purpose but also provided me with basic shapes that I can utilize as is for the kevel creation.


As you can see from above picture, I used most of its original shape to construct the kevel. Saving me much time!


Slightly thinner and smaller ones are the new kevels. 

Thanks for all the likes, and to those who have just dropped by.
 
The next job was to add the hatches along the centre of Harpy. The first photo is of the parts for all the hatches plus the completed ladder for the forehatch. The various parts were then painted and assembled. The actual gratings were firstly soaked for a while then bent around a suitably sized cup using masking tape to hold them in place, and left to thoroughly dry. Some of the gratings needed slight, gentle sanding to allow them to fit correctly into the coamings. No issues with that. When dry-fitting the completed hatches into their respective deck cutouts, some slight sanding was required to allow them to seat fully home (and this check should actually have been done before painting the coamings). Again no issue, but as always, dry-fitting before gluing was necessary to check the fitting. Lastly, the ladder for the forehatch was carefully glued in place. A little tricky, but yet again, a couple of dry runs before gluing, sorted out potential problems. The previously completed companionway was also added at this time.





Cheers.
 

Dear all,
this is my model of a De Havilland Mosquito Fighter Bomber Mk. VI belonging to the 143 Squadron of the RAF Coastal Command fighter and anti-submarine unit operating from October 1944 to May 1945 and based at Banff, Scotland.

The kit was the old Tamiya 1/48 which is dated 1998, but I found this kit very nice and it still builds into an impressive model. My build log can be found here.

The Extra Dark Sea Grey camouflage was often painted over the standard RAF grey/green camouflage and I applied the former so that the latter could be seen through the EDSG layer. The model is finished with Tamiya acrylic paints with the exception of the metallic parts that are finished with Vallejo Metallic paints.

All the pictures of this post are taken with a Nikon 3100 camera with an aperture priority mode with an indirect natural sun light illumination.









The dimensions of the Mosquito can be here compared with those of a Spitfire:

Two legends pictured together:
In conclusion, I enjoyed very much building this fine kit and I hope that you like my model. Now I am moving back to my ship model.
Best regards,
Dan

Started working on the struts -- fourteen pieces each so far.

I am down to now antenna,canopy mirror,pitot tube and the exhaust.The next part will be wiring up the power supply hopefully completed to my liking by Wednesday.The overall look upstairs I am content with the undersides is so-so.🤨

Build day 181: 2 hrs / Total 378 hours
 
Continuing with Sheets and Tacks as per the task list I shared above . Started and finished on Mizzen (the green check marks on the plan for reference below):

Photo 933: A photo showing some of it. Go figure

 

Thanks everyone who replied or messaged me about my question of redoing the bottom planks of the tuck.  The consensus is to keep it as-is and cover it up with the molding.  I'm maybe 80% of the way to accepting that advice.  The perfectionist in me is fighting it, but I'm working on it.   I definitely need to redo the blocking and fairing of the remainder of this area before proceeding further, but am waiting until I line-off the lower hull to do this work.
 
Managed to get the outer strakes of the wales mounted and faired this weekend.  Should be painting the wales in the next few days assuming I can get out of work on time this week.
 
View of the stern with the wales installed.  Just pretend that ugly gap in the lower planks is covered with a molding strip for now...
As mentioned above, the fairing back here needs attention before proceeding with the remainder of the planking.
 

 
 

 
A little difficult to see, the wales are tapered into the stem.  Looking at Chuck's instructions, I may increase this taper a little more.  Currently the planks are about 1/3 to 1/2 thickness at the stem.
 

 
 
Steve

A little more deck planking.

Time for a change of pace. I'm at the point, scenery-wise, where I'm comfortable starting to lay track. I've done most of the really messy work and I'm itching to make things move. The first step involved some pre-tracklaying setup, specifically installing switch machines. I'm using automatic controls for the turnouts (what railroaders call what non-railroaders call switches).
 
For the non-model-railroaders, these are basically electrical units that you install under the turnout. They have a metal rod that sticks up through the roadbed and moves the point rails back and forth. They can be controlled in various ways; I went with basic pushbuttons installed on the fascia that use color and position indicators to show which route the turnout is lined to follow. For the model railroaders, I'm using the Walthers system that is designed use plugs and sockets for all the wiring to eliminate sautering, because (a) I hate sautering and (b) I like the adjustability and reusability of the plug/socket system. 
 
The short version of installation is as follows:
(a) place the turnout exactly where it's intended to be and spike it down temporarily,
(b) drill some marker holes through the roadbed to translate that location to the lower surface,
(c) install a template based on those reference holes to ensure the control unit below lines up with the machine above,
(d) remove the turnout and drill a wider hole back up through that will allow the control arm to move,
(e) install the machine with screws from below,
(f) re-install the turnout above,
(g) hook up the power and fascia control,
(h) push the button over and over again, reveling in the feeling that live action is getting close!
 
Here's a few photos:
Aligning the template below; the wire at center is running through to the surface to mark the exact location:

Machines installed:


Sharp eyes will notice the offset templates on two of these. Despite several checks, I still managed to install two of three backward the first time. They work in either direction, but the control lights didn't line up with how I wanted them, so I just reversed the machines and everything lined up properly.
 
And here's how the top side looks.


You'll notice the nice lights indicating which way the turnout is set; green for whichever route is more dominant and orange for whichever is subsidiary. Pushing the red button for a given turnout flips its route.
 
You'll also notice the track schematics controlled by these lights, and that they look different. I'm trialing two looks. The narrower lines are painted on, while the thicker lines are electrical tape. I have a personal preference but won't reveal it yet as I'm curious if anyone has perspectives I haven't thought of.
 
Those with keen eyes and memories will also notice that I finally painted the entire fascia in its final shade of rich brown. This really ties the scene together and makes it look nicer. Here's an overview shot of how things stand; also another way to judge the two track schematic styles.

Now that the turnout locations are set, I can start laying the rest of the track. There's more electrical work to do below, running bus lines from which individual track wires will run and so on, but it's really getting close now. Not actually sure when more progress will be made because I have an especially busy couple weeks coming up even by my standards, but it's nice to feel close to track happening.
 
Let me know what you think!
 

Canopy is on.
 

OK that’s all she wrote. She is complete. The rope hanks gave me a little trouble but just like everything else, they started to look a little better as I went.
It’s been quite the journey. I started the build on November 28, 2024. So almost 7 months on her. I’m very happy how she turned out and now I need to build a case.
 
The next build will by Cheerful from Syren. I purchased the last one. It arrived a couple of days ago. It’s been sitting in the shipyard, unopened acclimating to 8% humidity. HAHA
Thanks for the likes and following along. I appreciate all the encouragement as it really helps to stay on task.

Now on to the photos!
 
Here is how it all began…
 

 
 
Now, this is what we have. 
 








 
I’ve really enjoyed the kit. It’s no wonder so many people point to Vanguard as a top notch kit. I also could not have done it without following along what other builders have done. So thank you to all that post their build logs. They are troublesome at times but they sure do help us new guys.

Thanks for following along and let me know what you think.
 
Chris
 
 

I added the ends of the sash and the tails of the helmet cloth. I continued painting the thin blue stripes on the sash. I was convinced that I would be unable to do this but I surprised myself. It needs a little more work but it’s not too bad for a first attempt. The new brush helps a lot too but it makes me feel that I can tackle figures that need this sort of details.
 The axe and his hand was added and some touch up will needed there. 



There are some small pieces to add to the helmet, the sword and shield to complete the figure. The base doesn’t lend itself to anything extravagant.
Thanks for looking in, the likes and comments.
Alan

good evening everyone
 
Day 10 1st planking port side complete
 
thank you for comments and likes
 
this build is quite the monster, i have just finished 1st planking the port side and she has taken 50 lengths of 1x5mm lime strip, the other side is progressing.
Although a slightly smaller scale than the 1/72 Victory she looks a far bigger hull. (i need to check that fact out), will certainly dominate the display area when completed
The planking is not pretty at all but gives me a lovely base for the next layer once the planking is complete i need to mark out the gunports over 4 deck levels

day 6 1st planking
good evening everyone
 
no regrets at all on changing the planking from single to double, i have 100m of 1x5mm lime strip on its way, might need some more, at present im using anything left from previous builds
gave her a bit of a sanding, starting to look like the instructions now, working on the gundeck before it more of less gets covered over
 

I never posted finished pictures of my stagecoach.
 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my second Doctor's buggy. The first was not a very good kit and I ended up kit bashing it. This one from Model Expo was a much better kit with easier to follow instructions. It helped that I am pretty familiar with the actual antique Doctor's buggies so the kit and build made sense. 
 
Finished:
Dr's Buggy Model Trailways 1:12 scale
Navajo Wagon - Kit bash from Model Trailways Chuckwagon 1:12 scale
In Progress:
Rucker's Ambulance Model Expo Historic Artillery
Future Project:
Model Shipways Shipwright Series?
Model Trailways Stagecoach 1:12 scale