rvchima
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Everything posted by rvchima
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Digression My wife and I are in Sanibel, Florida for awhile. I couldn't very well bring the Bismarck model with me, but I did bring a model of Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple that my sons gave me for Christmas. I got to tour the building in Oak Park, Illinois several years ago. The model is 1/250 scale, laser cut, and many of the pieces have peel-off adhesive on the back. I brought a minimal tool kit in a plastic bin and have been working on the model in the evenings. The model is made by The Little Building Company in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. They make a series of early Australian houses, several FLW buildings, and an interesting model of the Sydney Opera House. The models are highly detailed but fairly easy to make. I am about 1/2 done with this one.
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Small Parts The catapults are fairly complicated PE construction but by now I'm getting pretty good at that. The cranes are mostly plastic. The instructions say to put them away for now, but about 20 pages later they are attached. The bottoms look like there should be some kind of mounting pedestal but I can't find anything. I guess I'll wait a while and glue them to the hull. Instruction no. 818 for the cranes shows a pair of tiny pulleys, parts 1337, attached to the top of the crane beam. The instructions don't say anything about them but I cut them out and attached them. On the next page instruction no. 825 has you making two operating pulleys using parts 1337. But they were all used earlier. I had to break them off the beam and reuse them for the later step. Today I made 15 hose reels with either 2 or 3 legs in 3 sizes. I thought it would be tedious but they were pretty easy. After painting they will have cord wrapped around them to simulate hoses. I will be traveling next month so I won't be posting for a while, but I will plan to keep up with other builds.
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I got to tour the Missouri in Pearl Harbor in 2011, and that's what got me thinking about building a battleship. I haven't built a plastic model since I was a teenager so that was out. Sterling models had a wood model of the MO at 1/196 scale that shows up on eBay occasionally, but you're never sure what you're getting. By now I've worked with enough plastic and PE parts that the Trumpeter kits look very appealing. I will be following your build of the Missouri with great interest. After, of course, you finish the Bismarck.
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Second Stripe Painted I put in a crazy long day today and got the second camouflage stripe painted. That's the longest and hardest one. I have some travel coming up in March and would like to get the camouflage painting done before I leave. The superstructure still breaks apart into multiple layers. That helps with painting a lot. I still wish that I had kept a couple more layers separate. Here's a side view of the first two stripes. I like the way that the one white stripe extends across the gun. My dog really needs to go out. I'd better call it a day.
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Laser Battleships? No, the Germans didn't have Star Wars, but I did find a brilliant way (literally) to mark the dazzle camouflage stripes on my superstructure - I bought a laser level. You can find them under $17 USD on Amazon, but I bought a used Bosch level (ironically a German company) on eBay. It is "self leveling," which means that the laser hangs on a pendulum to try to level itself. If the tripod is not level within +/- 4 degrees the pendulum bottoms out and the laser flashes every couple of seconds to let you know. My camouflage stripes are steeply angled so the laser flashed continuously. That was pretty annoying and I almost returned the level, but I found that I could work around it. Other lasers can be locked and used at any angle. Tracing the laser beam with a pencil was awkward, but sticking masking tape along the beam was easy and just required some burnishing when I was done. Here's my setup and a closeup. I just pointed the crossed beams at the corner of the stripes already painted on the hull and tipped the beam to hit a good point near the top. The beams are finer in person than they appear in the photos. And just slide the model 1" to get the next line. Here's where everything stands today.
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Main Mast Completed The main mast has a lot of fiddly parts to cut, shape, fold, and bend. It was one of the harder pieces to build. The longest yard is cantilevered on a piece of PE brass. I didn't trust the folded joints so I soldered them too. That seemed to help a little.
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Maybe a breath of salt air. Welcome to MSW Rob.
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Ha ha! Wait until you build the mast! Your last two turrets are perfect. The little flaps that bend imperceptibly inward at the periscopes were really hard to get right, but yours look perfect. On my turrets I sanded all of the wood structure very lightly on a small disk sander where possible, or with a small sanding block elsewhere. That probably relieved my corners like you did. I applied the bottom strips first, then used my Proxxon oscillating sander with 150 grit paper to bevel the top edges of the brass to meet the mating pieces. Every time Amati says "With a small file ...." I think "With my Proxxon sander ..."
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I looked up Rimu. It's quite beautiful for a softwood. When we were in New Zealand in 2019 we saw Pinus radiata timbers everywhere, probably heading to China to be made into pallets. We also saw a lot of NZ tree ferns, and when we got home I bought a cute little plant to keep as a houseplant. A year later it was taking over our dining room. I put it on the curb with a "Free" sign on it. I hope that it got a good home. I finished my main mast today, and I must say that it was one of the most difficult things I've ever built. So congratulations to both of us for getting over that hurdle! 🥳
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Beautiful work Yves! I love the photos of the corvette and sub together. You inspired me to buy a book on 3-D printing. Who knows where it will lead.
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Your turrets look good. Funny that you ended up with some small gaps - I usually ended up with too much brass. But I found that I could cut very thin strips with heavy scissors to make the pieces fit. Of course I cut off the rivet details. 🙄
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The hull is looking good sir! What kind of wood did you use for the base? It looks like cherry to me.
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What's Left To Do After 320 Hours and 115 Days The guns finished off my last piece of laser-cut plywood and my 5th sheet of PE brass. I must be nearly done, right? Wrong! I still have several sheets of brass to go and countless sprues of plastic parts. Looks like I'll be busy for awhile.
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Small Parts The six small guns are made up just like the four large ones - complicated honeycomb framework made of thin plywood skinned with brass. Those are the plastic periscopes on the sides of two of the guns. The barrels are aluminum tube painted black but weren't installed yet for the photos. The watchtower is made up of dozens of tiny brass parts. Attaching brass to existing structures is relatively easy, but building structures completely out of brass is a pain. Started on the main mast today. Still lots to do on it.
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Railing Repair February 3 I described a PE brass lifeboat rack that was tricky to build. I must have struggled with it a little too much, because yesterday after painting it the railing fell off in my hands. I tried to glue it three times but every time I bumped it it fell off again. So I scraped off some paint and soldered it. That took less time than one glue attempt and is far stronger than the original bent brass reinforced with a drop of glue. Wish I'd done that in the first place. Plastic Parts Back in January I hinted that the plastic parts in this kit leave something to be desired. These periscopes for the small guns should be solid but 4 out of 6 have a large void in the center. It's not a big deal to fill the holes but you do have to stop and wait for two coats of filler to harden. Not too many parts were like this - just enough to be a nuisance.
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Harry, You must be getting close with the hull. I'll hop over and have a look in a minute. Yes, I painted the stern camouflage wave. I only used Amati's templates to make a new template out of wide masking tape. I applied the tape with a gap around the rails and paper outside the tape. I put another strip of tape over the rails knowing it would leak. After spraying it wasn't too bad and just needed a little touch up with a fine brush.
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We're happy to see you back Ted. There's nothing like moving to waste a lot of time. I hope that the new place has a better spray booth. Your turrets look great. I sure wish that you'd posted your advice before I built mine. Mine have a few seams filled with Vallejo acrylic putty. It comes in a tube with a very fine nozzle and works well to fill gaps like on your first attempt. I'll bet you could touch it up with some brass paint or even a marker and no one would be the wiser.
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Harry, I just discovered the gallery for your magnificent Cutty Sark build. Wow, what a beautiful model! Cutty Sark Gallery by HOF00 Your profile says that you are also a cabinet maker. Did you make the cabinet that the Cutty Sark is in?
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Tricky Lifeboat Rack I struggled with these photo-etched lifeboat rack for several hours today. (There are actually two symmetrical racks.) The instructions show them built up out of five pieces. Easy, right? The triangular supports are different sizes. First I built them with their bases flat on my bench, but the platforms ended up twisted. After some deconstruction I rebuilt them by first attaching the center support to both platforms, and then attaching the end supports while keeping the platforms parallel. This ends up with flat, horizontal platforms when attached. Then you have to attach the racks to the rear superstructure next to some existing ladders and vents that get in the way. I had to move two ladders. The instructions tell where the triangular supports should attach to the superstructure vents and rails. When I followed those directions the platforms ended up sloped a lot. Instead I attached the racks so that the platforms were horizontal. Here's the final result. Incidentally, I thought that the construction of the ringed conduit at top right was pretty clever. It's made from 1mm brass rod bent according to plan. The rings are 1mm eyelets glued in place with a drop of CA, then the shanks are cut off. Nice effect.
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Dazzling Camouflage A few days ago I painted one set of dazzle camouflage stripes. It wasn't easy. I used some thin tape to temporarily mark the edges, then used a thin rule and penciled them in. I masked what I could and brushed the white first with thin acrylic. That took several coats. Then I outlined the black with a thin black marker, masked the black, and brushed that on. The black covered in one coat. Then I used my finest brush to touch up the gray. Note to other builders: If you plan to paint the dazzle camouflage, paint the stripes before you install the crane bridge. Here's the front superstructure with the stripes on the funnel. Regarding previous questions about what color gray I used, all gray parts in this image were painted with the same paint, but there is a huge variation in shade across the image. The one LED light I used is daylight white. I did adjust the white point in the levels for the photo to brighten the image.
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Hi Harry, Take a pair of small flat jaw pliers and give some of the rungs a twist so that they are all parallel. You might be able to bend them up/down a bit to adjust spacing. Hit them with a tiny drop of thin CA with a glue looper when you're done. They'll be fine.
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I agree that the photo seems very blue. I special ordered a can of RAL 7000 for the hull. When it came time to paint the superstructure I realized that it called for RAL 7001. I made up this comparison: On my monitor the RAL colors look almost identical, so I used my existing can of RAL 7000 for everything. In my shop the ship looks dark gray and not blue at all. I used an LED shop light for the photos. It seems to be bright white but may be adding a blue cast to the photos, even after white balancing with Photoshop. I'll experiment with lighting for the next batch of photos, but regardless it's too late to repaint.
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Here's the instructions from the manual. The centerline of the stripe is at 50 mm, and the stripe is 10 mm wide.
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In my humble opinion you should complete the hull. While you are waiting for paint to dry you can spray some gray on the superstructure and hand paint the dark gray decks. It looks like the hull is nearly done, so in a week's work you will have a half-completed model rather than a stack of half-completed parts. Just look at how good your mast looks after a coat of paint - it's a mast-erpiece.
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I Should Be Painting Camouflage, But ... Joe100, yes I plan to paint the Baltic Stripes. I know that they didn't last long but they look so cool. And I know what a pain they will be to paint so I decided to build the big guns instead. As usual, the Amati construction uses an over-complicated wooden framework skinned with PE brass and decorated with PE details. Each turret has two ladders about 15 mm long. There were 8 ladders on one sheet of PE that must have been left in the acid too long - the rungs were about the thickness of a spider's leg. There were 2 "spares" on another sheet that were OK so I put them on the first turret Anton. I managed to use the other ladders, but it wasn't easy. So far this is the only problem that I've had with the PE. I'll complain about the plastic parts in another post. Here are the finished turrets with guns and incomplete bases.
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