BLACK VIKING

Grand Fleet

 

Forgot to add my initial side profile I did before I started designs..
 
The production model will be shown with coppered bottom, and fully painted sides in black and yellow ochre
 
(The figurehead is from Vanguard, and used as a placeholder until I get her own made)
 

OK, little update.
 
Designs for Indefatigable are now about 85% complete. The pictures shown are of the pre-prototype, so looks very rough as usual, as many parts have been glued, ripped off and new parts added in place - and is built for part checking only (just like Sphinx). There are still a few mistakes on this prototype model, so does not entirely reflect the final designs.
 
I have also included a drawing I did of the basic outline of what I think Indy would have looked like during most of her career. The only concession I have made is keeping the forecastle timberheads, rather than berthing up this area, with the decision based purely on aesthetics (plus the plans show this anyway.
 
What I did change is the quarter bulwarks. I know she had 7 gun ports per side and three (with spare chase port) at the bow, so the 7th port had to be worked in, and this meant altering the bulwarks to the same height. I have placed the additional 12 pounder long chase guns right at the front, as I could not see Pellew being chased, more the chaser...
 
I have tried to keep the poop profile as low as I can. Pellew didn't even want the poop at all, and would have been happy to have his cabin on the main gun deck and Indy fitted with sloop like quarter badges (would have looked odd..). With this in mind, I have kept the poop profile to a minimum, as I am sure Pellew would not have requested anything that would have increased windage. I will add 'iron stanchions' to this area, and that's it.
 
I have the bow area to design, which will be the last of the main areas, and then I need to do all the photo etched parts. (Oh, and of course, a figurehead and stern decoration - which will be minimal). For the first time, I decided to go with laser cut and engraved columns for in between all lights/windows, and I am very happy with how they turned out. Channels are made by laminating three patterns together, a wider and thicker centre and not so wide and thinner top and bottom.
 
You will be able to build this without the open slots in the decks if you so wish, they are not mandatory. The stand is 4mm acetate and a 2mm duel colour engraved nameplate.
 
ETA - Forgot to mention, I have moved the poop skylight back by 3 beams, as I realised it was too close the edge of the poop, so it is now over the great cabin, and not in the position shown.

Okay, here is the bulkhead after surgery.
 

 
I wicked some thin CA into the cut edge, then sanded and painted the exposed surfaces, and glued the instrument panel in place.
 

 
One thing to note --  I'm aware that I've got two mismatched shades of green, but most of this will not be visible on the finished model. The second shot, with the aft bulkhead only dry-fitted, approximates the lowest viewing angle that will permit viewing into the finished cockpit. Even the bit of bulkhead behind the panel will probably not be visible, but I painted it anyway -- just in case.

Evening all,  I  kick myself  into doing some more work  on this to day,   first  I made up a couple of joining strips to cover the gaps on the main wall,  just Two srips of wood  painted and weathered  than glued in place.
 
I then decided to make up a hay cart,  and  proceeded to  destroy it then  weather it,  this is one of the defences the KGL  put out  on the road way  to try to slow up the French.
 
OC.

Thank you so much Kevin  - that means  a lot mate.
 
OC.
 

Evening all,   had another  play with my dio  -  first thing I did  was to mess up the hedge  with my knife  then add some  dark sprinckles  over it  (still thinking about  growing a tree  out of it)    next  I  played around with the two  grass mats I have  - firstly a problem   neither was big enouth to fill the orchard  floor  and both are different textures,   so I decided to  do a smoother centre  with  rough edges  (heck the  farm owner  probably  mowed  in between the trees  but kept the edges  rough with rocks).
So that's what I'm going with  -  I have left the edge  off till I  give the other hedge some treatment.
 
OC.

Next up were the gunports and entrance ports.
Since I didn't want to drill a lot of small holes again, I used a different technique:
- I put a small hole in each corner of the single gate.
- in the center of the gate a fifth hole, which I widened so much that the saw blade of my model saw fit through.
- Then in each case a small saw cut from the center to the holes in the corners
- With the scalpel, a horizontal cut from one hole to the other.
- This way, the upper and lower triangle can be easily broken out (see picture).
- and then with the model saw two vertical cuts (s. picture)
- final I carved down to the markings with a fresh blade.
 
 

Evening all,  right  hedge making  experiment  on going   -  it comes in a roll out like wire wool  mixture  roughly cut into a box shape,   first I had to straighten it out  and  pull out a few dips,  then I layed a layer of PVA  down  and pushed the hedge pices's  down onto it,   then  (in the bag comes  green leaf fillings  and  some woody soil,   the idea is that I use a PVA  type spray and  all over the  hedge  then sprinkle between  finger tips  first the soil then followed up with the leaf  sprinkles.
First  I had to loosen up the  leaf sprinkles  as they had  stuck together  - I used a  bowl.
 
Looking at my pics - I will probably spray  a bit of Brown  on the side of the hedges.
 
Its a messy job  and my first attempt at it  - don't think it went too bad.
 
OC.

Almost done!

The Airfix Lancaster has come a long way since I built mine when I was a kid . . .
 
Steven

The kit has some nice interior detail that, unfortunately, won’t be visible once the fuselage is together.

Painted test of old gun's color :
 

Part of the Grand Fleet heading out to the North Sea for a practice shoot
w/c 16" X5"

Quick, get a Shovel
I hear it's good for. my Tomatoes!
The Royal Navy in Ceylon in WW2. Maintaining Avengers based on photos at RNAS Puttalam and RNAS Katukurunda
w/c 16" X 11"

Well, not perfect, but not too bad, either. Here are the crowsfeet for the mizzen topmast stays, connected to the main backstays.
 
In progress:
 
      
I had to push the larboard backstay out from the hull before it would meet the crowsfeet so I could glue them onto it.
 

And, complete. Euphroes would have been more elegant, but not really possible at this scale. There's a sort of "blob" made of the collected cotton threads which looks sort of like a euphroe, and that'll have to do. I'm pretty happy with the result.

And here are the larboard shrouds and "chains" with deadeyes attached.
 

 
Steven
 

After spending 9 years! building my Golden Star I have switched gears and taken on the Model Airways 1/16 Sopwith Camel and I really hope I can spend more time building so it doesnt take me nearly as long to build as the Golden Star 😉 
I have finished the engine which is a neat little model in itself. I decided to paint it to give it a bit more 'life'

 
Here it is primed:

In order to be able to paint and weather it, I had to build/paint in stages.

Here with ignition ring and wires:

And here completed with pushrods. I didnt paint the bras. Not sure if its the historically acurate colour, but I just think it looks so good!

Then came time for the propeller, which I thought would be harder than it was. Pretty happy with the result and still giving it more coats of varnish to try and give it a deep sheen.




 
Will try and keep this somewhat up to date but I dont get too build all that often. Thoughts, critique and comments are very welcome!
Cheers

Those will  fit in lovely  my friend.
 
OC.

Evening all,  Yep  I'm  back on this   -  the last of the buildings attached to the farm  is  a small kitchen garden  outhouse, quite straight forward  build and included a  bit of  trimming down to get the floor and wall  to meet up,   it goes at the end of the from wall  joining the farm house.
Paint and detailing  next.
 
OC.

After a break, I am back with my build with some small progress. 
The large air intakes were finally glued in place, with some gaps to be addressed. Anyway, the first look is quite impressive.
 

 
Then I worked on the HUD which is composed by two transparent parts. The frame that holds the transparent plates is a bit simplified, but it looks the part. The lenses of the optics are rendered with a circular imprint on the coaming which I filled with Tamiya Clear Red paint. The picture shows the first transparent part. To mute the reflections of the plastic edges, I painted the edges with Tamiya Clear Green.
 

 
Here you can see the first big booboo I made in the assembly: The air intakes are swapped, right with left, and the grilles molded on top are now on the outer sides instead of being on the sides closer to the fuselage. I hate when that happens and my first reaction was to bin the model. After cooling down, I decided to give it another chance anyway and to ignore the sore mishap. Next picture shows the completed HUD with its edges treated as above. I also sprayed a final coat of black on the coaming.
 


 
A view of the cockpit with the canopy frame in place. If I leave the canopy closed, the avionics bay will be totally invisible. I will decide about how to pose the canopy later.
 

 
Finally, a picture with the windscreen transparent tested in place:
 

 
That's all for now, thanks for watching,
Dan
 
 

Thanks everyone for looking in and hitting the like button and commenting, despite the lack of recent progress.   The pic below is a large part of the explanation for why I have not made progress for the last 2 months.  It's a long story, and I am still only claiming to be the "foster dad", but we'll see.   And I swear this is not just a cheap ploy to get more likes.

Great work Gary, we will love to see it finished.

Thanks all for the comments and likes. 
 
I did not make a lot of progress this week, though I did work on painting the various metal cowling bits.  I toned down the wood look a bit for these.  For the metal parts, I first primed with grey primer, then used the normal Tamiya X-7 red, followed by a light coat of a mix (about 70/30) of X-7 Red and XF-9 which is a dark reddish brown color, using the air brush.  I've not coated the parts yet, thinking I may add a coat of semi gloss clear of some sort.  Also the "wood" pieces have a raised edge that you can see in the pictures.  The pictures in the instructions just show those as brown/wood but thinking about maybe doing something else with the edges....red, silver, black, I don't know.  Anyway, here are the pictures.  Oops, I see now I should have been more careful and consistent with the white balance adjustment. 
 

Lining the Exterior Curved Wall
 
The exterior curved wall is now lined with the same 30X0.6 mm Mahogany veneer  that was used on the interior. this ids quite straight forward really.   started at the middle and drew a center line and another 15 mm eqch side.  It was clearly important that this first sheet was correctly aligned and centered since all the alignment of the other sheets will depend on it.  I painted PVA glue onto the sheet clamped each the sheet each end:
 

 
To make sure that the curved part was tight against the frame by rubbing it with a flat piece of waste  timber, I finally "clamped" the  sheet with a couple of large rubber bands:
 

 
I find these useful for a job like this which is difficult to clamp with conventional clamps. Each subsequent sheet was buttted tightly against the previous one and secured in the same way.  After trimming off the excess the rsult looked like this:
 

 
The next task is to construct the dome shaped double bottom which sits on the suspension straps.  The instructions would have you glue the two curved formers to the cabin bottom first and then plank over these with 5X1.5 mm strips.  I felt that it might be difficult to align these both parallel and square, so I decided to construct the initial "box" shape off the model:
 

The curved former pieces are on the right and left and the first planks above and below.  Incidentally, these former pieces have to curve on both sides side since the bottom itself is curved and a tight fit is required so that the glue will form a strong bond.
 
This frame was then fitted between two parallel guides clamped the the bottom at an equal distance from each side:
 

 
This unit is then fully planked over with 5 X 1.5 basswood planks to form a base for the veneer.
 


 
After the veneer was applied to the frame in the usual way, two small endpieces were made to cover the formers..
 

 
These were clamped while the glue dried:
 

 
 

 
And the completed unit after sanding back and one coat of finish:
 

 
So finally all the veneering is complete.  Quite time consuming task but now I can move on to lining the windows and doors.
 
John