HMS Hood by RogerF - Flyhawk - 1/700 - PLASTIC - deluxe kit

[RogerF]

Yesterday I decided to start my Flyhawk HMS Hood. I'm a slow builder so it will be a very long time before it's finished. I wanted to begin with the foremast starfish platform to see how easy/difficult it would be working with PE at 1/700 scale.

WARNING!!

The brass PE sheets with this kit are extremely thin. The sheets from Griffon for my 1/144 German U-Boat were 0,2mm thick and at times a challenge, especially the really small parts. The brass sheets from Flyhawk for the Hood are a mere 0,13mm thick. Gulp! But the first challenge is to remove the adhesive film which is applied to both sides of each sheet – bear in mind the thickness - the sheets are extremely fragile and almost bend just by looking at them. Secondly the surface of the brass attracts fluff, hair and dust like a magnet and displays ugly fingerprints if you so much as touch the surface without (new!) latex gloves, you have been warned! The next challenge is to remove each piece from the sheet. The space between each part and the rest of the sheet is very small so it is not possible to use a nipper, the parts have to be removed using a sharp craft knife/scalpel. This is not easy, not only did I manage to break two scalpel blades on just this one part, but the brass is so thin that, railings for example can be easily bent during this operation no matter how careful you are. The first photo below shows the platform with the side railings bent up and round at the sides. One detached completely and can be seen next to the platform. The second photo shows the detached railing on a USB connector which gives a better idea of how tiny the parts are. I will attempt to glue the AWOL railing with either superglue or crocodile (trimethoxysily… you know the stuff) but this experience has put the dampers on my enthusiasm for the moment and I am even contemplating building the model without any PE at all. Mmmmmffff. Not a good start but I wanted to warn others who have not worked with Flyhawk PE before of my first experience at this scale.

 

[Old Collingwood]

I'm in,   good start.

 

OC.

[popeye the sailor]

I'm still relatively new with PE as well........please don't give up.  the larger stuff can be added.......and to me.....if one can't see it,  then I won't add it.  some is better than none,  and if it enhances the model,  the happier you will be.  so far,  I have dealt with a couple brands of PE,  and yes.......there is a difference in tinsel and thickness.  I wish you well with the project and look forward in seeing more  

[mikegr]

 The reason PE parts bents during cutting is because the surface underneath is soft. These tiny parts should be put over a hard bottom. I use an old CD. The blades for this purpose should be of high quality. An extra budget for quality blades should be considered. Their shape should be like this in the picture and the cutting movement should be back and forth with constant pressure

 

[RogerF]

35 minutes ago, mikegr said:

 The reason PE parts bents during cutting is because the surface underneath is soft. These tiny parts should be put over a hard bottom. I use an old CD. The blades for this purpose should be of high quality. An extra budget for quality blades should be considered. Their shape should be like this in the picture and the cutting movement should be back and forth with constant pressure

 

 

Thanks for the tips Mike, much appreciated. Fortunately I have some spare PE I can practice on to develop technique. I use good quality surgical scalpel blades from both Swan Morton and a German medical supplies company but I tended to rock the blade over the cut-line to separate the part from the sheet. I've tried the 10 blade (curved) and the 10A blade which is straight but I have broken both types, I suspect because surgical scalpels are never intended to be used in the way I use them or to cut metal rather than soft human tissue! I never thought of trying a back and forth movement as you describe, sort of like sawing?! But I will try that tomorrow. I always cut parts with the sheet laid flat on either a hard, acrylic tile from "The Small Shop" 'Etch Part Cut-Out Kit' or a glass plate for the bigger PE sheets. In both cases I also use their clear pressing tool to hold the part to be cut along the line of cut. I think the super thin brass sheet used for the Flyhawk up-grades is just close to the limit of what even an experienced builder can reasonably be expected to work without unwanted bending or damage. Or then again I might just be ham-fisted!

Thanks again for the comments and tips chaps, so a good night's sleep and let's see what the morrow brings. 🙂

[CDW]

Very glad to see you have started your Hood, Roger.

I would venture to say that the Flyhawk Hood could be built using all the plastic parts and only using the photo etch railing pieces and still produce a very good looking model. At a minimum, the model does look much better IMO with railings added.

[mikegr]

5 hours ago, RogerF said:

Thanks for the tips Mike, much appreciated. Fortunately I have some spare PE I can practice on to develop technique. I use good quality surgical scalpel blades from both Swan Morton and a German medical supplies company but I tended to rock the blade over the cut-line to separate the part from the sheet. I've tried the 10 blade (curved) and the 10A blade which is straight but I have broken both types, I suspect because surgical scalpels are never intended to be used in the way I use them or to cut metal rather than soft human tissue! I never thought of trying a back and forth movement as you describe, sort of like sawing?! But I will try that tomorrow. I always cut parts with the sheet laid flat on either a hard, acrylic tile from "The Small Shop" 'Etch Part Cut-Out Kit' or a glass plate for the bigger PE sheets. In both cases I also use their clear pressing tool to hold the part to be cut along the line of cut. I think the super thin brass sheet used for the Flyhawk up-grades is just close to the limit of what even an experienced builder can reasonably be expected to work without unwanted bending or damage. Or then again I might just be ham-fisted!

Thanks again for the comments and tips chaps, so a good night's sleep and let's see what the morrow brings. 🙂

I have never used surgical blades although I have some in storage. I switched from ordinary to those sold at model stores and was quite happy with the result. 

I have worked with several chinese PE parts, all high in detail but also very soft.

Those hasegawa and fujimi I used recently were bit thick and crispy. Very easy to cut, I could even hear the sound while breaking. Very easy to work with.

[Canute]

very nice, another take on the Hood. Model on, Roger.

[RogerF]

18 hours ago, CDW said:

Very glad to see you have started your Hood, Roger.

I would venture to say that the Flyhawk Hood could be built using all the plastic parts and only using the photo etch railing pieces and still produce a very good looking model. At a minimum, the model does look much better IMO with railings added.

The attention to detail on the Flyhawk kit is nothing short of sensational it's true. That said, some areas of the I Love Kit with upgrades are better than Flyhawk in my opinion. Examples:

In the ILkit, the main mast is all brass and in 2 pieces, Flyhawk has only the top half in brass. The ILkit has two PE sheets, one in steel and one in brass. At least one layer of the starfish mast platforms are made of steel sheet which is stronger and less likely to get unintentionally damaged than Flyhawk's ultra-thin brass versions. The legs of the main mast are given PE ladders while Flyhawk relies on crisp moulding of the plastic legs etc. etc.

Both are fine models and I do want to add as much PE as is I can reasonably be expected to handle but will definitely leave out anything which is obviously unnecessarily OTT. And yes, railings are a must, in this scale they just set the model apart from other offerings in this scale.

 

Oh and I had an hour or two practising gluing old spare PE parts together today and then tackled the AWL railing on the mast platform. After much wasted effort and unintentionally 'rolling' the railing in my fingers, I managed to affix it to the platform. Pheeew! I'm not very happy with it, looks a bit tatty but at least it's on, much better than if I'd just left it off. I used an acupuncture needle to apply the super glue and it worked a treat, a cheap and cheerful superglue applicator with a very fine point - recommended!

 

 

[CDW]

Great tip about the acupuncture needle. Never thought of that before. And I do agree, the ILK model does have excellent masts. It will be interesting to compare the two models side by side once both are finished. ILK Hood is an excellent value and even though the kit plastic is not quite as good as Flyhawk, the photo etch is a little easier to work with I think.

[Old Collingwood]

I am keeping a lot of interest in this build  (as I have the same kit - with the wood deck  in my stash)    I won't be starting mine for a good while yet  - probably not till next year.

 

OC.

[RogerF]

13 hours ago, CDW said:

Great tip about the acupuncture needle. Never thought of that before. And I do agree, the ILK model does have excellent masts. It will be interesting to compare the two models side by side once both are finished. ILK Hood is an excellent value and even though the kit plastic is not quite as good as Flyhawk, the photo etch is a little easier to work with I think.

Glad you like the acupuncture needle tip, they cost me just €7 for a pack of 100 via Amazon. They're actually much shaper pointed than can be seen in the photo because the tip is blackened from using a cigarette lighter to burn off residual glue and are flexible which makes it easier to apply glue carefully so avoiding unintentional distortion/movement of the parts. I previously used hypodermic needles but these are much easier to use, at least with the superglue gel I was using.

And yes, the ILK kit is excellent value and even comes with PE breakwaters, unlike Flyhawk's plastic.

[RogerF]

11 hours ago, Old Collingwood said:

I am keeping a lot of interest in this build  (as I have the same kit - with the wood deck  in my stash)    I won't be starting mine for a good while yet  - probably not till next year.

 

OC.

Mmmmm, not till next year you say. At my rate of build you'll overtake me before I even get the hull painted! I too have the FH wooden deck which is another challenge yet to be faced which I'm looking forward to (dreading!).

[RogerF]

Progress is painfully slow. My experiences with the PE in this kit have been sobering to say the least. The next piece to be removed from the brass sheet is the base of the mainmast platform which despite the greatest care I am able to muster, broke and bent in 2 places before it was even fully removed from the sheet. I can't work like this.

 

 

I have to accept that I am not capable of working with brass sheet this thin with parts having areas that bend or break every time I look at them. If you look closely you can see 2 of the spots that need filing where the the knife has cut through the brass to remove the part, eg. bottom extreme right and left. I am simply not able to handle a piece like this to file it where needed without bending or otherwise damaging it elsewhere. I could file where it needs to be filed but the part would suffer as a whole and that's my dilemma.

 

I've started to re-think and I'm tending towards a different approach. I will ignore 80 to 90% of the upgrade PE and concentrate on the superbly detailed plastic. I'll add wooden deck, brass artillery barrels, turned brass main mast all the railings (a must!) and the 3d-printed parts and leave it at that. I don't see what else I can do!

[mtaylor]

What are you cutting the brass on?  Wood? A mat?   Try using a piece of glass.  You'll go through blades quick but it works well.

[CDW]

There are these micro tweezers made by a company called Ustar in Taiwan. I bought mine from an Australian vendor on EBay named Amodeler.

I hold the photo etch part with the tweezers in one hand while I carefully file with a Tamiya diamond file for photo etch. Correctly positioned, the tweezers secure the part so it’s not bent while filing. Tedious but it works. Hope this helps. 
 

 

the tweezers are also very useful for tiny photo etch that needs bending.

 

PS: that vendor has been excellent. Very reliable and fast.

[RogerF]

What you see in my pic is a PE part which I cut out from its brass sheet - on a hard, acrylic base 'tile. Guys, I’m not new to model building and I’m not new to the tools of the trade BUT, I AM new to working with PE this thin. I can bend PE of any thickness as long as it is straight/flat , but I first have to get that piece of PE out from its sheet!

No tweezers/shears/scissors on earth can get between these parts to cut, a KNIFE is the only solution, and I am not capable of doing this. End of!!!!!!!

I love you guys but I know when I have to throw in the towel, ok?!

[king derelict]

There are some parts in the PE fret that I look at and think - its not going to happen. The Flyhawk plastic provides so much detail anyway so apart from masts, railings, gun barrels the majority of the PE can be ignored. I chose to use the plastic hose reels on Geisenau because although the reel end pieces of the PE are nice the detailed hose in the plastic is a better look to me. Mashed up and bent PE looks much worse than a decent plastic part too.  

[Old Collingwood]

Also  as Alan said  - you can also work the plastic parts  to thin them down (if they need it)  as the plastic will be less prone to brake.

 

OC.

[RogerF]

Following the disappointment with my first attempt at building the PE mast platform I decided to take a breather before getting back down to actually building this ship. I figured gluing the plastic hull halves together would be a good start and should not prove too difficult and it wasn’t. The fit of the two halves is beautiful but with the bow end lined up the lower hull half was short of the top half by about 1mm. Not a lot, but the join needed sanding and shaping to remove the step that would otherwise have been left. No big deal. More of a deal was the fact that despite extreme care on my part I managed to get traces of cement on the outside of the hull, compounded by being accompanied by a totally unnecessary fingerprint. By masking and then careful sanding with Tamiya sanding sponge (1500 and 2000) I was able to remove the worst and the areas should be hardly visible, if at all, once the hull is painted and weathered. Next step will be to add the prop-shaft ‘blimps’ and rudder prior to priming hull - the screws will not be added until the model is nearly completed to avoid being damaged during the build. I will be using Vallejo primer but not yet sure if it will be black or grey.

1st photo shows the cement marks which in the 2^nd picture have been largely removed.

Then just a couple of pics to show how the deck(s) fit and how wonderful Flyhawk’s moulded detail is.

Progress will be slow, but I am starting to enjoy the process although at this rate it will take me a year to finish!

 

[mtaylor]

Good save on the fingerprint.   As for taking a year... this isn't a race and like someone said about wine... all in it's own time;.

[Old Collingwood]

I agree with Mark  - take your own time  - it will take as long as it takes  - rushing makes mistakes.

 

OC.

[RogerF]

Thanks for the encouragement guys, it's much appreciated.

I chose 1/700 scale simply on the grounds that I don't have space for larger scale models and Flyhawk offers such a wealth of gorgeously crisp detail but the scale makes the whole build quite a challenge.

 

Also, I couldn't resist this little Flyhawk gem that cost a mere €11. It's a 1/2000 scale Bismarck which I thought would be fun. Upper hull and deck are one moulding, lower hull and superstructure seen here separate mouldings which should be interesting when I start painting. Here it is alongside Hood for size comparison. Well, why not?!

 

[RogerF]

Am needing to be super careful now with the sequence of the build. I notice that the wooden (main) deck has no cut-outs for the breakwaters meaning the deck will need to be fitted first and the breakwaters added later. There are cut-outs for all the moulded detail on the deck and for all the tiny parts that need to be added once the deck is in place. Unlike the wooden decks of some bigger scale ships, I can see that Flyhawk have already cut out all the openings needed to fit the deck. This should make the process a lot less time consuming. BUT, before the deck can be fitted I need to mask and paint the moulded deck detail (got the full FL masking set). I'm masking to avoid there being a layer (or two) of paint under the wood of the deck which may allow the deck to lift here and there over time. The prop shafts and rudder have been added and the glue left to dry overnight so the next task will be to give the hull halves and decks a good scrub with detergent and an old toothbrush to remove any traces of grease from my fingers and the mould and when dry it's airbrush time with the primer. I decided on black primer to make it easier to see that I have covered all the areas of grey plastic that need to be painted. I will prime the hull too and after several thin coats of primer have dried I intend to proceed as follows.

I'll airbrush a thin stripe of black where the bootline will be then once dry I'll mask the bootline with 3mm tape, mask off the upper hull and spry the lower hull (dark grey!). Then, leaving the 3mm tape in place, I'll mask the lower half and spray the upper hull and deck detail with Admiralty Dark Grey 507A courtesy of Lifecolor. I chose this sequence so that it will only be the length of 3mm tape that will need to be removed from the paint surface.

Height of the boot line on the original was, I believe, 8ft which, at 1/700, equates to 3,48mm. 3mm is close enough for me and looks about right to my eye at least. I suppose I could try cutting 4mm tape down to 3,5 before fitting but to keep it perfectly parallel during cutting might prove difficult.

 

If anyone has comments/suggestions/warnings on how I'm proceeding then please do comment - this model requires higher skill levels than I am used to and I'm very much leaning as I go along (not obvious is it?!!!!!!), so any advice is welcome.

Edited September 14, 2021 by RogerF
Grammar

[lmagna]

I have heard of leaving your mark on a build Roger but aren't you starting a little early? No really, nice recovery. I have found that when I have spilled the thin glue onto a visible surface area that if I do not touch it and just let it dry that the etched surface covers nicely when painted. Yours should look fine after your work on it.

 

Are you going to take a year on the Bismarck as well?

[RogerF]

A year on the Bismarck? .... at least a year!

 

I decided that I wanted to have the model mounted on the Flyhawk stand during the build to have a solid base and to lessen the chances of damage caused by unnecessary touching the delicate detail and PE. Also it will avoid me handling the hull once painted leaving fingerprints on the paint. Consequently I filled the two holes in the hull bottom that Flyhawk put there for the simple plastic stand included with the kit. The proper Flayhawk stand is made from acrylic sheet and I needed to research how that could be done without cracking or splitting the material when drilling. I bought a step drill and a set of countersink bits needed to accommodate the screw heads beneath the stand.

First I measured the positions of the two screws on both the hull bottom and stand and used the step drill to drill two, 4mm holes in the hull and stand then countersunk the stand bottom. I managed to achieve almost perfectly round holes in both hull and stand and went on to remove the protective paper which covered the surfaces of both parts of the stand and mounted the hull using the brass pedestals you can see in the pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I added a few dry-fitted parts to give an idea of how it will look - one day!

NOW I can get down to priming and painting the hull, first removing it from the pedestals. Once the hull is finished I'll mount it on the stand, supergluing the screw into the base and the nut and washer inside the hull - once the decks have been fitted I will no longer be able to remove the model from the stand, which was my intention.

Th acrylic stand attracts dust like a magnet and I shall have to deal with that problem before the decks are fitted. Also I will need to protect the stand form paint spray and scratches etc. as the build progresses....... still so much to do!

 

[RogerF]

More PE madness!

The PE sheet 'A', calls for 8 stays(?) to be fitted to each funnel. Mmmmm! As can be seen each stay has a slot in the middle through which the moulded rivet detail should be visible.....

The PE sheet gives you 10 of these stays - 2 in reserve, which is a good thing because they bend when you just look at them. 😬 I've cut out those for the forward funnel and they can be seen with the funnel and a toothpick for size comparison. I'll cut out the remaining 10 and if I get a total of 16 that are useable then I'll attempt to glue them in place when I get to that stage. Beeswax on the tip of a tooth pick works well for handling these fragile parts but gluing in place should be fun!

The second pic shows how they look on the sheet - there is no way I'll attempt to file off the burrs though! The two on the far left are bent because I showed them the craft knife blade.

 

 

[CDW]

While they are tiny and tedious, the stays will make a big improvement, and give the model a finished look. 

[Old Collingwood]

11 hours ago, RogerF said:

More PE madness!

The PE sheet 'A', calls for 8 stays(?) to be fitted to each funnel. Mmmmm! As can be seen each stay has a slot in the middle through which the moulded rivet detail should be visible.....

The PE sheet gives you 10 of these stays - 2 in reserve, which is a good thing because they bend when you just look at them. 😬 I've cut out those for the forward funnel and they can be seen with the funnel and a toothpick for size comparison. I'll cut out the remaining 10 and if I get a total of 16 that are useable then I'll attempt to glue them in place when I get to that stage. Beeswax on the tip of a tooth pick works well for handling these fragile parts but gluing in place should be fun!

The second pic shows how they look on the sheet - there is no way I'll attempt to file off the burrs though! The two on the far left are bent because I showed them the craft knife blade.

 

 

Are those  going top to bottom  or around  the funnels (I assume they are  from top to bottom)?

 

OC.

[RogerF]

6 hours ago, CDW said:

While they are tiny and tedious, the stays will make a big improvement, and give the model a finished look. 

I'm sure you're right Craig and that's why I persevered and cut out all of the first batch, mainly to see if I could remove them all cleanly from the sheet. The problems will probably arise when they are mounted on the funnel together with the (plastic) vertical vent pipes and the complex funnel top-

grating and walkways (if I decide to add those too). I will mount them on their bases before attaching the PE and vents to make handling easier but they will be extremely fragile assemblies to position when gluing in place.