DmitriyMarkov

Hi All,
 
Well finally back in Perth permanently after 3 years in Melbourne due to starting a new job last week so hopefully should see more regular progress.
 
First week back and finished a couple of items that I had started previously.
 
Firstly, the navigation lights/boards. Only 1 set had lights to install and rather than use the rolled paper part I replaced them with clear sprue.  I spun the clear plastic sprue in the proxxon rotary tool and used the edge of a craft knife to scrap the diameter down to around 1mm or so. Then whilst still spinning used polishing compound to get them clear again.  I think I may make another set as looks funny with just the empty board.
 
A 0.4m or 0.5 mm drill was used to drill the centres out and them applied clear red and green to the inside of the drilled hole. Height is around 2mm or so.
 

 
 
Next up was a portable steam winch.
 

 
 
 
Finished winch.
 

 
 
Cheers
Slog
 

Hi Danny,
 
Thanks for the info, I may use that method for the funnels.  Unfortunately the bent ladder is supposed to be curved.  For some reason the Port and Starboard ladders are different but I messed up the ‘curve’…in hindsight I should have matched the straight ladder but right now going to leave as is.
 
The 6” turrets are more or less done.
 
The parts for a rear sliding armoured hatch ready for attaching.

 
Rear observation cupola.

 
Front observation cupolas.  These could have been neater.

 
The turret rings…bizarrely I could only find 5 strips so had to make the 6th from scrap and will paint to match.

 
Turrets all skinned up.

 
Finished(ish) turrets.

 
A few shots shown in place.





 
 
I still have the ladders and top hand rails to do but will set them aside for the time being and work on some other bits and pieces.
 
Cheers
Slog

Hi all,
 
Well back in Perth for a long weekend and made a start on the boat decks.
 
Assembly 97 is the fore boat deck and all the paper parts are duplicated in 0.5mm laser cut card so will use those.
Surprisingly they supply 2 of the trussed frame which is strange as the paper part 97 folded come to roughly the same thickness as the laser cut card.  I think they made a mistake here as it would have been better to supply an aft frame instead of 2 fore frames.

 
 
The part numbers on the paper parts and the diagram match however the notation on the laser cut cradle parts (h) & (f) are back to front but easy to avoid mistakes with a bit of thought.
The support beams 97(a) appear to be the wrong length.  After I assembled the frame and trial fitted it as can be seen there is a space both sides where I assumed the brackets should touch the superstructure.  A look at the computer render shows this gap also.  I decided I would just install as is.

 
 
Fairly straight forward assembly.  I sprayed with Tamiya NATO Black

 
 
The fore boat deck in place but not glued as still need access beneath.

 
 
Then it was on to the aft boat deck and most of the parts are again replicated by the laser cut forms except strangely Part 98.  This is disappointing as will be a pain to cut out.  This part instead of two 97s as mentioned earlier would have been better.

 
 
The kit provides 2 catwalk options; either a ‘wood’ or a ‘steel’ grate.  The photo etch provides both as well and I went with the ‘wood’ for no other reason than a change of colour from the usual black so far.

 
 
The laser cut supports assembled but the spacing doesn’t seem equal.

 
 
Placing it on the Paper ‘deck’, supports 98( c) are too short.  Both the laser cut and paper part as shown are the same but this is an easy fix.

 
 
Assembled parts all painted. The structure was again painted with Tamiya NATO Black.  I masked up and sprayed the Photo-etch grating’s but I didn’t have a darker more browny brown which is a pity as it’s a bit light. There is a longer centre catwalk which I again masked up and painted the photo-etch part.  Nothing is glued.

 
 
Shown temporary in place.  There is centre catwalk which circles the funnel and will probably tackle this next.  Nothing glued yet until I fix the relationship with centre catwalk.

 
 
An overall shot of the boat decks.  I can look forward to making eleven (I think) ship’s boats, eight of which sit in the shown cradles.

 
 
I hope to get back to Perth again at the end of October for more progress.
 
Cheers
Slog

Hi all,
 
A bit more progress, the rear deck fitted last time now has its hand rails and stairs fitted.


 
Then is was on to the upper deck fitting the cabins, stair, bracing and columns ready for installing.


 
The finished rear decks and structures with previously made compass platform and a couple of ready ammo boxes.


 
A few shots of all progress to date



 
Heading back to Melbourne tonight for who knows how long  but looking forward I think I will head concentrate on the ships boat decks amidships which go over and cover all the previously installed skylights etc.
 
Cheers
Slog

Hi All,
 
Continuing on with the rear decks I attached the perimeter strip, the cabin, mast section and hose reels to the underside of the deck.
 
There were a couple of braces at the front to finish and attach and a deck extension piece to fit against the perimeter strip. Then another support panel which I think a catwalk joins against.
 
The 0.5mm support columns were chemically blackened and glued into position.
 

 

 
The deck fitted into position.  I attached the handrail before gluing the deck assembly into place and the whole deck dropped into place with no issues.
 

 
My little 10 year old point and shoot has finally given up the ghost but since I couldn’t be bothered getting out the DSLR I tried using the iphone camera and on the whole the photos are pretty good.
 
Cheers
Slog

Thanks to everyone for the likes, these are greatly appreciated.
 
Hi Craig, thanks for the comment.  I know what you mean about eyesight; my close up vision has deteriorated rapidly the past few years.  I often wonder if the rate is normal for getting old or if it’s accelerated due to our chosen hobby!
 
Hi Danny thanks for the comment and links. I would have jumped at the chance to use generic rail if they had double the amount of stanchions or the ship required less.  I reckon the original designer of the prototype had shares in a ship rail company LOL Saying that I do like the effect of lots of stanchions.  I have come across Tom’s Modelworks stuff in the past but I always found their stuff to be more expensive than comparable offerings by others.  The 3d railings look good but that price!
 
 
Okay the Con deck railings attached to the deck.  I started painting before remembering to take a photo.

 
 
Finished finally; the below railing is the result of a total of 21hrs work! I don’t know if its just me but these are taking an age to do. 
 


 
 
Thoughts? Well they turned out not to bad for my first attempt at doing railings but as usual lots of room for improvement.  Two stand out items; firstly the join for the railing ends on the rear run is pretty rubbish but due to its position can live with it.
 
Secondly and most annoying is the front curved section, which was pretty much spot on when originally done and was very happy with it but…doing the last run on the port side straight section required a fair bit of pushing and pulling to get in to shape.  Only after final gluing did I notice the port side of the curve section leans inwards a bit…enough to keep drawing my eye to it. Oh well.
 
Next up to glue in the previous made components to the Con deck so the bridge deck can be installed and railed up.
 
Cheers
Slog   

Thanks to all for the likes
 
Hi Grant, you’re right; looking at the photos she does appear well fed…I would say tubby but curvaceous may be more flattering!
 
Hi Danny, despite some of the issues and problems I am pretty pleased how it is turning out.  You are right though, there is still a long way to go and these ships are generally quite cluttered so individual areas will get lost in the overall busyness or hidden etc.  I keep reminding myself when something isn’t quite right and get annoyed to step back and look at the whole from normal viewing distance and feel much better about it.
 
Thanks for the link, I am a member of that site but haven’t seen that particular build so will check it out.  I have a couple of other kits winging their way to me, point being I will need all the help I can get as the patterns printed on their underwater hulls will leave no room for error so that should help greatly.
 
Hi Clare, thanks for dropping by.  I know what you mean, I had planned on doing a plastic kit next but just ordered a couple of other cards ships LOL
 
 
Okay with the hull finished as previously shown above I can now fit the upper conning deck level; but before I can do that I need to finish off a few things first whilst I still have access.
 
Firstly I forgot about some under deck bracing/supports which are shown below.  These are similar to the previously shown braces where the printed part can be replaced with or supplemented with thin laser cut forms.  Again I am going to go with the laser cut forms only and paint them with black water colour.  The posts (C1) are from 0.5mm brass wire.
 

 
 
The finished braces are not glued yet. Once the deck is right side up and in place, these braces will be virtually invisible.
 

 
 
In a past post I showed the lower mast section tube which turned out to have too large a diameter when edge glued.  To overcome this I sliced the glue joint apart and overlapped the 2 ends until the correct diameter was obtained and then I glued the lap together.  This is acceptable to me in this case as I will turn the joint to the rear and its position makes it impossible to see anyway.
 
Much better fit now.
 

 
 
The deck structure (part 15) was slid into position and permanently fixed followed by the centre stair wells to the interior.  These were made previously and I just needed to enlarge the holes in the deck for them to drop in to position.
 
Also shown is the services trunking and mast fixed in position.
 

 
 
 
 
Now that the above elements are done and fixed to the deck the upper deck can now be permanently fixed in position.  First off was to glue the rear section of the deck and the tops of the services trunking.  The front section was left unglued at this stage.  I used some card to protect the printed surface then a piece of MDF to spread the load followed by some weight and left to dry.
 

 
 
Once that was dry I lifted the front section and carefully applied glue to the underside and then pressed home on to the deck.  I spent literally hours trimming and tweeking before the final glue up and there is a few bits and pieces not perfect but again happy how it is turning out.
 
The con was only placed for the photo and is not fixed yet.  I will probably need to do the front railing first as would be tricky after fixing the con in place now.
 

 
 
Got lots of little bits and pieces to do now such as finishing off the stair wells with handrails, stairs and coaming.  Then probably the perimeter handrail followed by the next load of deck structures. Fun times ahead LOL.
 
That’s it for this swing,
Cheers
Slog

Hi Danny, never a truer word spoken!  Skinning the hull is definitely my least favourite part of the build.  Doing the ‘fun bits’ such as topside structures, details etc is, for me, the most enjoyable.
 
 
Okay whilst I was at it I decided to do some of the rear bulkheads doors and hatches.  There are 8 little hatches (14c) for the upper bulkhead and because these can be shown in the open position they have inner faces to be folded together.  Since I decided early on to position them closed I removed the white inner part.  I did the usual porthole treatment but with 1.6mm ones.
14b is the doors to the same area and again have white inner surface for the doors to be fixed in the open position.  I decided to do this early on and had already opened the bulkhead as per a previous post.  Door 11c is to the Captains Walk and is a simple single thickness component.
 

 
 
Almost there; the front belts were done next using the same method as the rear ones. Then the 2 belts per side for the midships were placed between the front and rear ones and the 3 drain tubes placed to cover the joins.
 
Photo below shows ‘starved cow’ effect on the port bow just below the anchor shelf.  This is after some remedial repairs so you can imagine how bad it was beforehand.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Hull Summary: As mentioned previously, probably multiple times, the hull is my least favourite construction activity.  The laser cut forms and skins were all spot on with regards to size, shape and fitment and the multiple issues encountered were down to my lack of experience.  Obviously there are so many things that could have been done better and given the lessons learned I would do a lot of it differently. Despite the many mess ups and fixes I am pretty happy with how it turned out. 
 
There are still literally hundreds of small and tiny details to be added but these, for obvious reasons will be done near the end of the build to protect them from damage.
The next step is to start attaching all the previously made parts and looking forward, I can now attach new elements as they are made.
 
Cheers
Slog

I decided to fit the ships nameplate at this stage and paint this assembly separately, so far so good, then decided to scrape the paint from the Japanese lettering with my new found skill of scraping paint off 😂 worked a treat 👍 lol, the nameplate was upside down 🙄 must have been the amount of times it fell off when I was trying to position it on the rail to glue it never noticed , too excited at getting it in position, the wee man that looks like he’s skiing should be on the left. Deary me said Jeff, that’s a lie by the way😂. Have found a great talent at fixing things these days, managed to ease the nameplate off with blade and re-glue. Lucky white heather.

RGL, you set the bar really high with your works - I never stop to admire them 🙂
 
Some historical things:  armor was low in water 'cause ships were overloaded with coal - they had to travel from Camran' to Vladivostok without a chance to replenish the stores - Port-Arthur was lost and Tsindao was a trap and Germans weren't quite happy to let our fleet in.  It wasn't a coastal monitor  - without coal overload  those ships were quite a sea-going vessels. Service of Tsesarevich ( Grazhdanin) and Slava was  definitely adequate. 
 
Concerning low quality of these forms - IIRC  they are from 90's and their developer was  Eastern Express - Zvezda didn't develop  Borodino line - only bought those old forms.
 
It's very touching to see a foreign colleague having an interest and building something from our history ( even so painful one).  Thank You !

Slowly making more progress.  I thought once I painted the details that it would be a day or two more of work and then I could get to clear coating and weathering.  Has been a little bit more involved.  I think I'm just about at the point where a few more final details and paint touchups and I can start finalizing the build.  It's amazing how many details there are on destroyers.
 

 

 

 
 
 
I ended up buying a hot wire foam cutter (Proxxon) to be able to cleanly cut foam to make the diorama base.  I need to look into what type of foam board to buy.  I think some use standard styrofoam, while you can also use stuff like expanded foam, builder foam (might be the same as expanded foam), etc.   Not exactly sure what all those are, so need to educate myself.  The great thing about the hot wire cutter is that you end up with clean cuts and don't have bits and pieces of foam all over the place with that nasty electrostatic cling if you use a saw or knife to cut it.  Well worth the money in my opinion, as I hate trying to clean up foam particles that stick to everything but inside the garbage bin.

Hello everybody!
 
I've got an IJN mood - so I want to share some "progress" on a Yukikaze kit I've started nearly a decade ago. Base of the build is a very well known kit by Tamiya - a very high quality product I dare say. Add-on is a Lion Roar photo etch kit which also includes turned gun barrels and depth charges. Also there are couple Veteran sets - single- and triple-25mm auto cannons.
Most of sub-assemblies were built in 2011 🙂
Here we go:

Hello everyone !
 
I'm glad to be back  - have some time to post pics of present status of the project - here we go:
 
 

Thanks, Mike !
 
As far as initial plastic is concerned - well, it's Tamiya: you can drop some glue into the box, shake it   - et voila - You've got a model 🙂
 
Best regards, Dmitry

Thanks, Mike !
 
As far as initial plastic is concerned - well, it's Tamiya: you can drop some glue into the box, shake it   - et voila - You've got a model 🙂
 
Best regards, Dmitry

Thanks, Mike !
 
As far as initial plastic is concerned - well, it's Tamiya: you can drop some glue into the box, shake it   - et voila - You've got a model 🙂
 
Best regards, Dmitry

Looking great!  When I finish my Shimakaze I might tackle this kit.  Looks like it goes together pretty nicely.

Hello everyone !
 
I'm glad to be back  - have some time to post pics of present status of the project - here we go:
 
 

Hello everyone !
 
I'm glad to be back  - have some time to post pics of present status of the project - here we go:
 
 

Hello everyone !
 
I'm glad to be back  - have some time to post pics of present status of the project - here we go:
 
 

Hello everyone!
 
Well, here's aforementioned progress:
 
First, I've assembled and painted  25mm autocannons - there's circa 16 of them on the ship. Each Veteran's 25mm consists of 2 resin and 2 PE parts. 
Next, I've equipped guns and torpedo launchers with handrails (tricky little devils they are ), then paint, clear layer and wash.
Hull was painted and given a layer of clear gloss.
I try to be honest - I show things I'm proud of and also things  I'm not quite proud of 🙂
 

Hello everyone!
 
I've made masts ))  Fore mast has more details but went much easier, mizzen mast  is triky - I've tried my best, even re-made it couple times but still haven't managed to get it right.
 
Well, here we go:
 
 

Thank you very much, gentlemen! 
Meanwhile some portholes are finished ( actually those were all portholes that were left untouched until present moment):
 
 

Some more pics with other sub-assemblies including hull:
 

Thank You very much - I try to do my best, however I'm no good at removing glue buildups )
Thanks, RGL - I find inspiration in your works!
Well, my pace is quite hasteless :  good modelling projects are like wine - better when aged😉  Now I see things  my quality control  in 2011 considered as "passable" :  some seams here and there, some molding joints, etc. If I was less patient and finished this little model then - it would suffer form those imperfections. Also by 2011 I haven't read Tameichi Hara's  "Japanese Destroyer Commander" - which is motivating reading for a modeller I must admit 🙂
 
Best Regards and  happy modelling