rvchima

Mast I thought the mast was done a long time ago, but it turns out that each little platform has several railings to keep the sailors alive. I sure wish I had known about the railings when the mast was sitting safely in a fixture in my vise and not atop a bunch of other delicate parts. Refueling Hoses These refueling hoses were surprisingly hard to build. There are four of them. The valves and hoses are cast metal, but the hoses come straight. I couldn't even tell what they were until I'd used up everything else and was left with them for the hoses. They had to be drilled in the end to accept the valves, drilled in the nozzle to accept a .02 " mounting wire, and bent to fit the particular location on the model. Not easy. Boats The ship's two boats are made of poorly-cast resin. I even got a set of replacements from Blue Jacket, and they were no better. I filled, sanded, and filed, but there are still a lot of rough spots on the boats. CIWS (Close-In Weapons System) Gun Speaking of Close-In, I really hate these close-in photos. It's like when someone takes a close-in photo of your face and you can see every pore and nose-hair. Anyway, here's want the front of the ship looks like close-in. The ship's bell is cast metal. The paint set came with a full bottle of gold paint for the bell and the propellers (that I ended up buying elsewhere.) I'll say it again, At this price I think that Blue Jacket should include brass propellers AND A BRASS BELL with the kit. Stairs Way back on 10 October I complained that several little platforms kept breaking off, and that I had finally reinforced them all with a 1/32" brace underneath. I sure wish that I had realized then that the platform between the stacks should be at mid deck and not at the top. After I got it relocated I built these awesome stairs out of photo-etched brass pieces. It took about 7 hours, but wouldn't you like to climb that staircase? Missile Control Radar Every edge of this model is surrounded by photo-etched brass railings. I swear that they are so delicate that they bend when I walk into the room. Most railings are made up of lots of little pieces, like these railings around the missile control radar. They are mounted with tiny square tabs below each upright. The railings never seem to fit in the required space. It seems like the railings are sized exactly for each location, but that the square tabs are not accounted for. I end up cutting off parts of each mounting tab. It would be MUCH easier if the railings were made as a single piece that was bent to the contour of the base, rather than many individual pieces.

Anchors Aweigh Way back on 10 September I complained about having to make my own hawse pipe out of epoxy putty. I sure wish that I had realized then that the piece had to be thin enough to fit inside the narrow anchor flukes! Thank goodness for my Proxxon pen sander. I was able to remove about 1.5 mm from each side while it was still attached to the bow. The anchor chains seemed to be made of copper. The instructions said to paint them black, but I think that the links in the chain are smaller than paint molecules, so I used a black patina made for stained glass. That worked well. The chains disappear into cast-metal chain pipe covers. I sure wish I had realized that they should have holes in them for the chain before I installed them! Instead I butt-glued the chain to the ends.

Haze Gray but not Underway Yet - 76 days, 194 hours Since my last post I've almost completed the Arleigh Burke except for hundreds of little railings. Here's what she looks like now. Decal Envy The kit came with a paper flag and a set of decals for the ship's numbering, but surprisingly it did not include an ARLEIGH BURKE decal for the stern. Instead it had a laser-cut self-adhesive mask for painting the lettering, and several sets of photo-etched brass letters. I tried the mask first, but it was impossible to remove the body of the "A" while leaving the little triangle in the center. I tried the brass letters second, but it was impossible to glue them in line without getting glue on the letters or scratching the paint off of them. Finally I printed my own decals on Papilio Inkjet Clear Waterslide decal paper. Yeah, you can see the border but that's the least of my imperfections.

But I Digress I had to put the Arleigh Burke aside for a few days to repair three antique leaded glass windows for a friend. On each window I replaced several shattered panes, re-glazed all the glass, restored the patina, and oiled the wooden frames. Two down, one to go, then back to the Arleigh Burke.

Final Assembly This paragraph says to find these parts and all of these parts, file them all down, paint them, figure out where they go, and glue them in place. Yikes.

Superstructure Attached Well I got to page 50, "Final Assembly," and I still hadn't seen anything about attaching the superstructure. Eventually I found that I should have attached the forward superstructure on page 18, but I don't think the instructions say anything at all about attaching the aft superstructure or stacks. So I went ahead and attached everything. Here's proof.

More Small Parts 5" gun mount & boat crane 2 double life raft canisters, 3 reels, 2 SATCOM antennas, 11 single life raft canisters

PROPS! Did I tell you that I ordered propellers? The kit has you building your own using Britannia metal hubs, photo-etched brass blades, and gold paint. I didn't bother. Instead I ordered a pair of 1-inch diameter Raboesch brass power props from The Model Dockyard. They cost about 38 USD including shipping, but worth every D. I honestly think Bluejacket should include these props with the kit, even if they have to increase the price. At least make them available as an option.

Miscellaneous Small Parts 3 missile directors 2 MK 32 torpedo tubes 2 SBROC launchers 2 R2-D2 droids

Dapping tool The instructions said to shape the missile director (radar) dishes with a dapping tool. I Googled "dapping tool" and discovered that my wife had the female part of one in the kitchen, and I had the male part in my bolt drawer. (Please don't tell my wife.)

Top Coat I put 3 coats of Krylon Matte finish on everything. Nothing melted or dissolved. Most of the marks on the deck disappeared. I am really glad I did this.

Great question, I've been wondering the same thing. Metal tools leave marks on the deck gray that I can't remove, so I would like to protect that with a top coat. Can anyone recommend a product that they like?

It's Not Done Yet Lest you think that I'm almost done with this model, here's a photo of the parts that still need to be attached. Sigh...

Painting 38 days, 120 hours My previous post about pin striping tape turned out to be a moot question. I was ready to paint and my tape still had not arrived. I painted the top of the hull with Testors Haze gray, masked that off, painted the bottom with Rustoleum Colonial red, masked that off, and painted the waterline with Testors flat black. I kept a couple of samples going to make sure that everything was compatible. The results were perfect. No touch up necessary. Then I masked the hull off and painted the deck with Testors Euro gray. The kit comes with self-adhesive stencils for the Helicopter landing markings. They are a little tricky to apply because when you remove the backing everything flops loose. Nevertheless, they went down OK. I airbrushed maybe 6 light coats of flat white, using a hair dryer between coats. Removing the stencils was pure terror. If I screwed up there was no recourse. But the results looked pretty good. Here's everything stacked up so far. It's starting to look like a real ship!

Harpoon Missile Racks These Harpoon missile racks couldn't have been much harder to build. I spent about 9 hours on the two of them. Each rack has 28 pieces: 6 photo-etched brass frames laminated into 3 double pieces. 4 cast metal tubes that don't fit in the frames without sanding. 2 pieces of brass wire along the bottom. 3 tiny photo-etched brass struts on the bottom. 8 brass pieces for the legs. I glued these together with CA. 1 styrene blast sheild. 4 cast metal feet. Does that add up to 28? I've lost count. They do look pretty good when they're done.

Masking tape model I've seen ship models made of card, bone, and toothpicks, so I thought it would be fun to make one out of masking tape. Ha ha, only joking. I REALLY did not want to mask off the entire forward superstructure to paint the decks, so I half-masked (half-assed) it and tried to paint it with a brush. I watched every boring video on Youtube about brush painting, and the results still weren't up to my generally low standards. So I bit the bullet and masked the hole thing off. Here's the result after a little retouching. There is very little difference between the Haze gray walls and the Euro gray decks.

Pin Striping Tape? What do you all think of using pin striping tape for the waterline? I used it on my Amati U-boat and Panart Harbour tug. It looks good now but I worry that it will come off before I die and I'll have to fix it.

Everything was fine until I put Krylon black over the Rustoleum. I'm back to that step but will try Testors black instead - on a test piece. The Rustoleum Colonial red satin actually looks great.

Oh Nooo! Over the last couple of days I airbrushed Testors Haze gray above the waterline. I masked that off and sprayed Rustoleum Colonial red below. Last night I masked that off and sprayed the 1/4" waterline Krylon flat black. When I looked at it 1/2 hour later it was completely bubbled, crazed, and orange-peeled. I wish I had taken a photo to show just how bad it was, but instead I stayed up real late sanding everything off. Today I filled a lot of gouges, primed, and basically started over with the Haze gray. I also ordered some 1/4" matte black chart tape for the waterline. I might still try to paint it, but with a different paint.

Getting Ready to Paint No need for a fancy jig to mark the waterline. So far I've sprayed the top of the hull Haze gray, masked that off, and sprayed a coat of red on bottom. Photos coming soon.

Superstructure I've added a lot of detail parts to the superstructure - extensions around the top of the stacks, ladders, antennas, etc. I painted everything Haze gray using the Testors paints that I bought with the kit, and a cheap Badger airbrush. The horizontal deck surfaces on the aft superstructure are painted Euro gray using a brush and a lot of masking tape. Speaking of antennas, the two antennas on the front of the aft superstructure are cast metal pieces that are butt-glued to a photo-etched platform. Well I've broken the platform and antennas off more times than I can remember, so the other day I deconstructed everything, drilled two holes in the platform, glued it back with a 1/32" brace underneath, and epoxied the antennas in the holes. They aren't going anywhere now. Then today when I went to take this photo I broke the single antenna off the front stack. Looks like more deconstruction ahead.

Mast Construction, 32 days, 90 hours The mast is made from 1/4" square basswood set on the diagonal and swept back 15 degrees. The yards are photo-etched brass reinforced with 1/16" square brass tubes glued with CA. The yard braces are made from 1/32" square brass stock. The instructions said to glue these pieces together, but when it was time to sand them flush they just broke off. Instead I soldered the main joint with long pieces, cut the braces slightly long with wire cutters, then sanded everything flush on a Proxxon disk sander. My other hobby is stained glass so I've done a lot of soldering. It was hard to hold the mast in my vise because it is set on the diagonal, so I chopped a square hole in a piece of poplar to make a holder. To make the platform braces I spun the brass stock against the sander to make a point that I shoved into the mast. I clipped the other end slightly long, sanded the end to match the platform, and glued both ends with CA. They are super strong. The mast has a zillion tiny photo-etched pieces. I put on my magnifying headset and started snipping, filing, and gluing. The 8 little antennas on the top mast extension are about the size of a grain of rice and were especially hard. It's good that the kit includes lots of spares because several pieces went flying, never to be seen again. The two radar antennas are cast pieces. The mast took about 20 hours to build. It was challenging but actually a lot of fun, and it looks beautiful.

Resin Parts After my problems with the resin prop shaft pieces I decided to check all the resin parts. I discovered that one radar unit was missing and several parts had serious voids. I emailed Bluejacket and received a quick response from Nic. It took a couple of weeks to get the replacement parts, but I'm not ready for them yet anyway. The new parts look good.

Hi Tim, I noticed in your post on my Arleigh-Burke build that you had built several Bluejacket kits, and I finally got around to looking at your build logs. Now I'm sorry I waited so long! I got so many great tips: Bondo glazing putty Krylon textured shimmer paint The Glue Looper PE bending tool I'll be following this liberty ship build closely to see what else I can learn. One question - have you found any spray paint that matches the Model Master haze gray sold for the Bluejacket kits, or are you using an airbrush now? Rod

US Naval Academy Museum, Annapolis MD Last weekend my wife Cinda Williams Chima and I went to the Baltimore Bookfest. She writes fantasy novels for young adults. I took a day off and visited the US Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, MD. The first floor of the museum has a history of the US Navy with plenty of ship models. The second floor houses the Rogers Ship Model Collection with 108 ship models from 1650 to 1850. Azzoun gave a great description of the museum on MSW back in 2014, so I won't repeat everything here. I'll just state that this was one of the most amazing collection of ship models that I've ever seen. It made me want to go home and try harder. This spectacular model of the USS Maury might give you an idea what I'm talking about.