rvchima

The weathering side was the part I was quite looking forward to as I’ve not tried it on a ship before. Slowly making progress with it. Went through and darkened the panel lines and next will do some grey washes to blend it all in. Have yet to add the last layer of vertical panel lines. I know the panel lines are not accurate but I was trying to get them from photos of the real ship, which is hard work and then my plans turned up and I saw I was a whole level of panels out... but there are a whole lot worst mistakes I could have made so in the big picture it’s not so bad.
And also been doing more PE. Got the fore mast put together today but took  a good chunk of time. Was too cold to prime so will do that tomorrow.

my competency with putting PE together has improved a lot since I made the main mast!

Bob,
1. Put a coat of primer on everything. Sand and touch up as necessary.
2. Paint the white stripe at the waterline. When it's good and dry, mask it off with high quality modelers masking tape. I like the Tamiya brand. Rub the edges thoroughly with a toothpick, then paint both edges of the tape with white to seal it.
3. Mask off above the waterline and paint the green below. If you're very confident of your airbrush skills you could skip the masking part, but I wouldn't.
4. Mask off the green, remove the tape above the water line, and paint the black.
5. Say a little prayer and remove the tape.
Rod
 

The mast is oak and I tapered it using power drill and sandpaper method.  This is a very simple mast and took no time at all, I did make a huge mess.
 
The shields will be next.  The kit version is (as usual) laser cut plywood.  
 

 
I felt the need to improve on that. The choices are to build the shields out of planks or cut the disks and score to look like planks.  Chuck Passaro demonstrated a technique on his HMS Winchelsea Quarter Gallery columns that I thought was really interesting so I decided to try it on the shields.  There are 30 of them and I have a pile of mahogany given to me by a friend that is close to the correct thickness and can be quickly dimensioned by the thickness sander.  I would have taken me a week on the old Preac but the new Byrnes will handle it in no time.
 
I used a .016 kerf blade raised 1/64 above the table.  I spaced the cuts 5mm apart and they lined up nicely.
 

 
I cobbled together a mini mill using a Vanda-Lay drill press with a "Z" axis fine adjustment attachment, a Proxxon X-Y table and a toy rotary table that I got years ago with a Unimat 1.
 

 
I set it up on the rotary table and cut out the shield, using a 3mm end mill.  The mahogany is soft enough to use a smaller mill but that was the smallest I had on hand.  
 

 
I did not dimension the strips for the test because I wanted to prove to myself that it would work before I spent the time.  Now all I have to do is score and cut 30 more.  I will score in long strips before I cut shield size pieces.  
 
Thirty identical things taxes me enough but the thought of over 100 gun ports and canon carriages for a ship of the line seems beyond my concentration level.  I guess the maximum ship for me is a frigate.

The first thing that I have to say is that Santa showed up at my house (he got his dates confused) and left a new saw.  The Byrne's saw is not a saw.  It is a Work of Art.  I was in the construction business for more than 40 years and around cutting devices for longer than that.  Nothing in my experience prepared me for this saw.  Things that I have struggled with (long rips for starters) are now routine.  My previous saw was an old Micro Mark/Proxxon and there is no comparison.  In case I was not clear I love this saw.
 
I cut the the caps for the bulkheads, bent them and glued them into place.  The curves are difficult to hold and needed some creative clamping.  The wine corks came in handy and the wine was handy too.
 

 
I ripped about half the planks and cut them to length in record time they laid in nicely.  Since it is not a good idea to use power tools when you are tired I will leave the rest of the deck planking for another day.   
 

The plywood edges are just ugly.  I have intended all along to cover them.  I actually worked out pretty well.  Here are the before pictures:
 

 
I used 1/64 red oak veneer which was fairly flexible but would not come close to making the tight curve on the inside of the scrollwork without cracking.  I steamed it for about 15 minutes and wrapped it around a ¼ inch dowel and clamped it until it dried.  It held the bend well and it fit right into place.
 

 
The second piece was a little more difficult because it was a tight squeeze with two strips in the same spot.  It also required a little sanding to get clearance between the two at the inner most part.
 

 
All I got done today (all day) was the stern, the bow should go faster since I have it figured out now.  I still need to tie in the keel and touch up the sanding.  The pictures show all the flaws but it looks really nice in real life.

I stripped off the back layer of the inside piece of scrollwork with a scalpel blade so that it would lay flat with the rest of the scrollwork.
 
  
 
There is a spacer at the top of the scrollwork where it pinches together.  It is sanded down and glued to the top of the structure.  There is also a small spacer needed where the scrollwork meets.
 

 
Another small piece cut to fit at the bottom of the scroll.  Also, a full hull length spacer at the top of the hull planking to give the last two vertical planks a place to land.  Obechi was specified but it would not take the bend without cracking so I used basswood.   I soaked it and bent it with a curling iron.
 

 
Added the last two vertical planks.
 

Just stained the outside of the ship.  Keeping with the traditions i am a man with few words...
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More experimentation, adding these pictures mostly for myself for now. Need to be able to access these from the internet.

This is the sail. Yes it will be out of scale.
But i am too much of a noob to even think of trying "pulling the thread" techniques etc.
 
I visited the swedish National Historical Museum and took a lot of pictures on the large Oseberg model the have. I have constructed the sail after their theory of how it was made.

More work on the sale, i have now sewn together the different pieces.

Bob,
1. Put a coat of primer on everything. Sand and touch up as necessary.
2. Paint the white stripe at the waterline. When it's good and dry, mask it off with high quality modelers masking tape. I like the Tamiya brand. Rub the edges thoroughly with a toothpick, then paint both edges of the tape with white to seal it.
3. Mask off above the waterline and paint the green below. If you're very confident of your airbrush skills you could skip the masking part, but I wouldn't.
4. Mask off the green, remove the tape above the water line, and paint the black.
5. Say a little prayer and remove the tape.
Rod
 

Toy Boats
The Prinz Eugen carried 8 small boats on board, and the Aeronaut kit had ready-made plastic models of each. In fact my kit had 9 boats, but I think that one was a mistake.

 

You should always wash plastic parts before painting to clean off any residual mold release.
I think I'll just play with the boats like this for a while.
 
So far I have completely ignored the ships boats. When I looked at the plans I found that 6 of them were on racks on deck 2, right where my railings were. So time to construct some racks and deconstruct some railings.
 

This rack holds 2 boats.
 

This rack holds 1 boat. The boats look pretty dirty close up. That was another good reason to wash them.
 
Those racks are duplicated on each side, accounting for 6/8 boats. The remaining 2 boats hang from davits. As usual, there is nothing in the kit for the davits so I soldered a pair up out of brass. Spent a few hours today painting toy boats.

Railings
The Aeronaut kit came with 14 pieces of prefab railings, each 250 mm long. I knew that would not be enough but I wasn't sure how much I would need, so I avoided using it for miscellaneous railings. The 14 pieces circled the 1st deck completely and finished the second deck with inches to spare. One deck to go. A couple of stores in England sell the prefab railings but I was in a hurry, so I made my own using the brass stanchions and music wire included in the kit. I decided to use a shorter double railing on the 3rd deck, so I cut the 3-hole stanchions down a notch and sanded them smooth. I made this jig to solder the railings together.

I am truly amazed - I had no idea that kits like this existed. Your meticulous work is just perfect, and it's only taken 14 months so far.  I'll follow along to see the finished model.

I am truly amazed - I had no idea that kits like this existed. Your meticulous work is just perfect, and it's only taken 14 months so far.  I'll follow along to see the finished model.

I am truly amazed - I had no idea that kits like this existed. Your meticulous work is just perfect, and it's only taken 14 months so far.  I'll follow along to see the finished model.

I realized I had not posted any updates, recently. Reasons were multiple: 
- Waiting for parts and materials to finish the submersible.
- Started the construction of two motorcycles Honda CB750 at the same time (what was I thinking...?)
- Started restoring another pinball machine.... Bally Playboy 1978
 
Anyway, a major milestone was achieved recently with the gluing of the conning tower on the deck: 




It is starting to look like a Type-VIIc now: 


Next will be the rigging, that I have been preparing, while waiting for some elastic thread.
 
Yves

Thank you so much for all the encouragements, the "Thumbs Up" and the support. Today was a major milestone with the completion of the electrical circuit: 

As you can see, we do have a lot of wires, connectors and adjustable resistors. Everything works, which is refreshing: 

First, the lights circuit: 





Then some special features: 

Display in the Radio Room.... The Sonar screen died during the construction :-(

The dangerous job of checking electrolyte levels in the Batteries room.

Fuel tanks lighted under the Kontroll Room. The main ballast was supposed to have some light too, but the LED is obviously too weak to penetrate through the greenish water....

The rear batteries compartment.

And the galley.... My camera does not cope very well with these light scenes and I will ask a professional to take some pictures, when the model is completed.
 
It is a very large model.....



There is still plenty of details to address and tons of work on the deck and conning tower. We are getting there....little by little.
 
Yves
 
 
 
 
 

Haven’t had much time recently but it’s still moving along well. Once the deck is glued down there will be a big jump in visible progress.
Started working on the eight 5.25 inch guns.



I’m going away for a few weeks holiday, won’t be much happening till I’m back so here is a dry fit of the rear superstructure so far. It’s really hard to get an all in shot and get details too.

I think I’ll try doing a light coat of grey wash through my airbrush and see if that gives it abit more life and abit less yellow.
 
I forgot to add some ladders to my rear main gun and in putting them on noticed that the plans show some bits on the back and front that aren’t mentioned anywhere else so gave building them a go.





Its not much but I think it adds a bit to the guns, quite happy how they turned out and enjoy adding extra details from scratch like this.

The Rigging is all finished, it only took about 3 hours .




 
The last thing to be fitted is the one I usually try to leave to the end - the Ensign, or whatever the Japanese equivalent is . I just noticed that the railing at the stern is bent, good thing I took this pic or I may have missed it :

 
And here are a couple of pics of the finished ship. I'll be putting more into the Gallery :



 
Total time to build was exactly 3 months, about 6 months less than I was expecting it to take . Next up will be Bismarck, starting tomorrow.
 
  Danny

I was about to start the Rigging when I found that I'd missed fitting a Railing - and it HAD to be in the worst possible place, the aft end of the bridge platform . It took me about half an hour to fit, but it turned out better than some of the easy ones (still unpainted when I took the pic) :
 

 
The Rigging Thread I'm using is a fairly thin Elastic one. I wouldn't use this on a wooden model (unless it was in a small scale one) as it has no definition at all. Initial testing came up with some observations :
 
1. It's extremely strong and flexible. I stretched out a test piece to see how far it would go before breaking - it went to 4x it's relaxed length and still didn't break, so I still don't really know, but that's a lot further than I'll ever have to stretch it. The further you stretch it, the thinner it gets.
 
2. CA glue is the preferred one - I used a simple overhand knot and a tiny dab of CA. It held without a problem even under 2x tension.
 
3. Excess line can be cut easily with a PE Side-cutter or sharp scalpel.
 
4. It's paintable with Acrylic (at the least - that's all I tried) and it won't flake off.
 
5. It's reasonably easy to manipulate and manoeuvre into a knot, even with tweezers.
 
6. As it's stretchy it doesn't sag - the main reason I'm using it.
 
7. All in all I'm quite pleased with it :



 
  Danny

Toy Boats
The Prinz Eugen carried 8 small boats on board, and the Aeronaut kit had ready-made plastic models of each. In fact my kit had 9 boats, but I think that one was a mistake.

 

You should always wash plastic parts before painting to clean off any residual mold release.
I think I'll just play with the boats like this for a while.
 
So far I have completely ignored the ships boats. When I looked at the plans I found that 6 of them were on racks on deck 2, right where my railings were. So time to construct some racks and deconstruct some railings.
 

This rack holds 2 boats.
 

This rack holds 1 boat. The boats look pretty dirty close up. That was another good reason to wash them.
 
Those racks are duplicated on each side, accounting for 6/8 boats. The remaining 2 boats hang from davits. As usual, there is nothing in the kit for the davits so I soldered a pair up out of brass. Spent a few hours today painting toy boats.

Railings
The Aeronaut kit came with 14 pieces of prefab railings, each 250 mm long. I knew that would not be enough but I wasn't sure how much I would need, so I avoided using it for miscellaneous railings. The 14 pieces circled the 1st deck completely and finished the second deck with inches to spare. One deck to go. A couple of stores in England sell the prefab railings but I was in a hurry, so I made my own using the brass stanchions and music wire included in the kit. I decided to use a shorter double railing on the 3rd deck, so I cut the 3-hole stanchions down a notch and sanded them smooth. I made this jig to solder the railings together.

Dazzling

I bit the bullet and painted the dazzle camouflage. It took a full day to mask and paint each of the diagonal stripes. I stacked all the components with 3-M double-sided tape to hold them in alignment. I made a skinny pencil by gluing a bit of pencil lead in a 1mm brass tube. Then I used a thin ruler and my skinny pencil to mark the diagonal. Very difficult to keep the pencil perpendicular to the ruler as it stepped over each layer of the superstructure. Lots of Tamiya masking tape and several hours later I was ready to paint each stripe - by hand.
 
I also painted the tops of the turrets red. They were painted red briefly for recognition by German aircraft.
 
I didn't realize that this overview photo was so grainy until now. I'll try to get a better image later. Here are some other shots that look better.

Forward superstructure
 

Funnel
 

Aft superstructure and mast
 

Aft end with painted turrets
 

All the components are stacked temporarily in position. I have been adding railings to the second and third levels. More on that in the next post.