rvchima

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.

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!

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...

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.
 
 

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.

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.

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.
 
 

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.
 
 

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.

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.