HMS HOOD by Salty Dog - Trumpeter - 1/200 - PLASTIC - w/Pontos PE

[amateur]

Sometimes I think it is not in the vision, nor the hand-eye, or something like that that does make you fit for the job. (although it may be helpful to have some basic levels at those too). I am completely blown away by the level of patience and determination you guys have with this PE-stuff. That is why I have so much admiration. I would rather quickly come to the point: what the heck, from a distance of around 1.5 meter everything looks OK.

 

Jan

[Javlin]

I mainly build aircraft and have used a bit of PE over the years but ships is a whole other story it really adds another level of detail and it's "Visible" .I kinda botched one part of my build by taking a step backwards to install a section of PE poor planning on my part. I still love that Black and Gold effect.

Kevin

 

[cog]

Great work on the pom pom, that is some serious hard work, I build a four barreled one at 1/350 to use on a destroyer, but it was to big (can you imagine?) I still find they don't look as nice as the other guns ... 

[amateur]

Hi Carl,

 

Sure you aren't giving compliments to the Pontos beta-builders?

Salty promises us the pompoms for tomorrow

 

Jan

[cog]

I like to give compliments where due, Jan.

I just hope they aren't overly salty  

[Salty Dog]

Pompom time! I finally dug in and completed one.  Fortunately there are only 3. Although they have LOTS of parts, it was pretty straight forward....NO thanks to Pontos. You have to really take a good look and dry fit everything to get it right. But when you're done, these things are almost operational! I was just waiting for it to misfire by accident! Very nice little things.  Notice that I put it on top of a quarter in one of the pictures for reference.

Edited July 13, 2019 by Salty Dog

[cog]

Top notch

[Salty Dog]

14 minutes ago, cog said:

Top notch

Thank you sir! Much appreciated.

[amateur]

Yeah, I did notice. Quarter was a bit larger than I expected

 

Jan

[Salty Dog]

Hi guys,

Tonight I finished the 2nd out of 3 pompoms.  Before I start the 3rd and last, I figured I'd take a picture of all the parts involved in the assembly.  Notice how there are only 2 parts from the original plastic kit. All the rest is brass!  Tomorrow I finish them all.

[CDW]

7 minutes ago, Salty Dog said:

Hi guys,

Tonight I finished the 2nd out of 3 pompoms.  Before I start the 3rd and last, I figured I'd take a picture of all the parts involved in the assembly.  Notice how there are only 2 parts from the original plastic kit. All the rest is brass!  Tomorrow I finish them all.

If I remember correctly, the 1:350 Pontos pom poms came with a resin breach, otherwise, they are almost identical to your 1:200 gun parts just scaled down. Interesting and impressive looking guns when finished. I've read the guns had a rather short range but I'll bet with all the tracers flying they were impressive to see in actual combat. 

[CDW]

I found my picture...the 1:350 guns come with a resin platform and a resin breach

[mtaylor]

Honestly, I don't know how you do stuff that small.  Very impressive and looks very lifelike.  

[Salty Dog]

15 hours ago, CDW said:

I found my picture...the 1:350 guns come with a resin platform and a resin breach

 

As I mentioned before, I really dislike resin. I'm glad they had you use the plastic after cleaning it up, rather than resin parts in the 1/200 kit. I just don't get what the big deal is with resin. Otherwise, the parts are very similar. Obviously, at a larger scale, you can add even more parts! Fun!

Edited July 14, 2019 by Salty Dog

[cog]

11 minutes ago, Salty Dog said:

I just don't get what the big deal is with resin.

Increase the price of the Detailup set ...

[CDW]

18 minutes ago, Salty Dog said:

As I mentioned before, I really dislike resin. I'm glad they had you use the plastic after cleaning it up, rather than resin parts in the 1/200 kit. I just don't get what the big deal is with resin. Otherwise, the parts are very similar. Obviously, at a larger scale, you can add even more parts! Fun!

With some kits like your 1:200 Trumpeter Hood, the plastic parts are done well enough to allow their use, but the old 1:350 Tamiya King George V had such poor plastic gun parts, they replaced the parts with resin. The reason resin is used instead of injection molded plastic is due to the cost of creating the molds. It costs WAY more to create a mold for injection plastic versus a mold for resin. It's a budget constraint. Mold making is THE major cost of manufacturing any model kit. It takes a lot of sales of a kit to recover the cost of just creating the molds. These Pontos sets are what the industry calls "limited run" items. Once a certain small number of copies are made, the molds are shot and must be discarded and new ones made to make additional production runs.

[Old Collingwood]

17 hours ago, CDW said:

I found my picture...the 1:350 guns come with a resin platform and a resin breach

I remember building those   - 

 

OC.

[Salty Dog]

4 hours ago, CDW said:

With some kits like your 1:200 Trumpeter Hood, the plastic parts are done well enough to allow their use, but the old 1:350 Tamiya King George V had such poor plastic gun parts, they replaced the parts with resin. The reason resin is used instead of injection molded plastic is due to the cost of creating the molds. It costs WAY more to create a mold for injection plastic versus a mold for resin. It's a budget constraint. Mold making is THE major cost of manufacturing any model kit. It takes a lot of sales of a kit to recover the cost of just creating the molds. These Pontos sets are what the industry calls "limited run" items. Once a certain small number of copies are made, the molds are shot and must be discarded and new ones made to make additional production runs.

I can see if resin parts are included to either add detail or enhance, but when they want to replace plastic that's as nice or better, then it's a waste of time.  As Carl said above, I believe they often use it to increase the price of the kits. Pontos will sell one upgrade kit, then offer another, and offer tons of resin stuff not included in the first kit. If I bought one of those "deluxe" kits, it would be for the extra PE, NOT the resin. Maybe there was a time when injection just didn't cut it, but nowadays, they have amazing detail.

[pontiachedmark]

Gidday Salty Dog.

Fantastic work.

Mark.

[Javlin]

Very Nice Work Sir!! Kevin

[Salty Dog]

2 hours ago, pontiachedmark said:

Gidday Salty Dog.

Fantastic work.

Mark.

Thanks Mark! What kind of Pontiac do you drive?

[Salty Dog]

2 hours ago, Javlin said:

Very Nice Work Sir!! Kevin

Thanks Kevin!

[Salty Dog]

Well, I finished the Pompoms, and as fidgety as they were, the were NOTHING in comparison to the current ones.  The famous Quadruple guns. This is by far, the most obscure and difficult assembly yet. Pontos supplied tons of tiny parts, and because they rely on their pictures to show how they are assembled, good luck interpreting them! The parts are really small. You glue one, and when you go to glue another, you knock off the one you just glued. There is barely any surface contact between parts. Some are very thin and require multiple folds, which leave the finished part looking very wonky and shaky.  There's a limit to how small you can go, and have a stable assembly and I think this is it. I got so far and have about 4 parts left and have no idea where and how they go. I'm not crazy with how they look and am tempted to just go with the kit parts. What do you guys think?

These are the instructions:

This is where I'm at:

Just as an example, why can't Pontos supply illustrations such as the ones that Eduard supplies? Much clearer and informative than just simple pictures. No mistaking where parts go and how they are bent.  Here's what they offer for the 1/200 Hood:

 

Edited July 15, 2019 by Salty Dog

[jock2000]

I know the feeling, just spent the afternoon assembling the signal lamps on the 1/200 Rodney, the two pieces on the front are so small I can't pick them up with tweezers.  

[pontiachedmark]

Gidday Salty Dog.

I am liking this PE.

The build looks like it is progressing well.

By the way a 1968 Parisienne, very much like the U.S. Bonneville.

Wishing you all the best in your endeavours.

Mark.

Edited July 16, 2019 by pontiachedmark
Remove a word.

[CDW]

What you've done with the quads so far looks nice, but I don't know how those compare to the kit quads. Maybe some kind of combination of kit and Pontos parts would look good as well. 

[Salty Dog]

10 hours ago, pontiachedmark said:

Gidday Salty Dog.

I am liking this PE.

The build looks like it is progressing well.

By the way a 1968 Parisienne, very much like as the U.S. Bonneville.

Wishing you all the best in your endeavours.

Mark.

Very nice cars.  I have owned 3 Grand Prix's. 2 69's and one 79. Loved them all.

[Salty Dog]

7 hours ago, CDW said:

What you've done with the quads so far looks nice, but I don't know how those compare to the kit quads. Maybe some kind of combination of kit and Pontos parts would look good as well. 

Thanks. Going to try to attach the remaining parts and obviously the base and see what they look like. In the scheme of things, with the entire ship finished and so much to look at, I doubt anyone but gun nuts would really zero in on those guns.  By the way, it's been a month and Pontos never sent me the missing parts for those paravanes.

[CDW]

1 minute ago, Salty Dog said:

Very nice cars.  I have owned 3 Grand Prix's. 2 69's and one 79. Loved them all.

I once had a '62 Bonneville convertible, and a '54 Chieftan with a straight 8. It had the Indian head that lit up when the headlights were on. Super cool old car.

[Salty Dog]

Hello people,

I finished the quads and this is as good as it's going to get. Just way too delicate and badly documented. I did some work with the launchers today and then come the paravanes. Before I start buttoning stuff up, I have to spray everything with some clear to get rid of that CA frosting. Sometime back, I was watching a "police" show and they actually use cyanoacrylate to lift prints! No for the stickiness, but for the outgassing and frosting. They will allow the CA to emit its stuff and the prints become visible due to the "frosting" effect. The very same thing that happens when building models! I hate that!

Anyway, here's the quads.