USS ENGLAND (DE-635) by ccoyle - FINISHED - HMV - 1/250 - CARD

[ccoyle]

Okay, back to ships! I'm really biting off a lot on this project, but it's such a nice model that I just had to take a crack at it. Hopefully I will be up to the challenge. I wrote a review of this kit, which you can read HERE, so I won't go into great detail about it here. I will, though, repeat that if you like this model and would like to get your hands on a copy, or perhaps try a different card kit, be sure to check out all the HMV kits available from Fentens Papermodels. Unlike my recent aircraft builds, I expect this project to take longer than a month. How long, I can't say. We'll see how it goes and maybe take a break or two if necessary.

 

One nice thing about this project is that I will need only a very small number of edge colors -- the ship is depicted entirely in Measure 21 dark blue-gray.

 

But . . . it has a considerable number of parts -- close to 2000 in total. Ten pages -- wowzers!

 

Happily, I have the laser-cut detail set to replace many of those parts. It consists of six frets.

 

And now I can share what Santa brought me this past Christmas.

This lovely 3D-printed hull, available from Shapeways, will replace ALL of the usual egg-crate construction. Only the external skins need to be applied. This will be the most stable card ship hull I have ever worked on.

 

So, that will serve for an introduction. The first thing I will need to do is the usual spraying of the parts sheets. Hopefully tomorrow it will be warm enough in the garage to move forward with that task.

 

Cheers!

 

 

[Captain Slog]

Nice!

 

look forward to following this build. 

[mtaylor]

I'm pulling up a chair to watch also, Chris.  Amazing how the tech keeps improving models.

[BrianK]

I'll get the popcorn Mark! Go Chris! 😃 

[BrianK]

Chris I am a Shapeways fan too. I have used them for many model railroading parts.

 

Since you will cover the 3D frame with the skin, do you even need to smooth it at all?

[Joe100]

Now this is going to be gooooood. 

[Canute]

Chris, I'm in too. Using a Shapeways hull will help a ton for the hull shape. Very nice.

[ccoyle]

9 hours ago, BrianK said:

do you even need to smooth it at all

 

Yes, but just a little.

[amateur]

This will be a show-piece!

 

(Btw: is the shapeways-piece 'reasonably priced', or does it really cost the price it looks?)

 

Jan

[ccoyle]

53 minutes ago, amateur said:

This will be a show-piece!

 

Well, that's the goal at least. Fingers crossed!

 

53 minutes ago, amateur said:

Btw: is the shapeways-piece 'reasonably priced', or does it really cost the price it looks?

 

Define 'reasonable.' 😆  It's US$64, so it's not cheap, but it saves a whole lot of work and should provide a superior result. We'll see.

[Dave_E]

Fantastic! My chair is ready. 👍😄

[EricWilliamMarshall]

I'm in. I have my popcorn and cooler with drinks and the like. And a ton of questions, having just barely survived my first encounter with a 1/250 HMV kit!

[ccoyle]

1 hour ago, EricWilliamMarshall said:

having just barely survived my first encounter with a 1/250 HMV kit!

 

Eh, you did more than just survive -- you did great! I hope you will tackle another at some point.

[ccoyle]

Baby Steps

 

Well, one small triumph and one sorta boo-boo. I started by spraying matte clear finish on the parts. Such is my usual practice, but I had another reason to do so this time around. This kit is printed on semi-gloss stock, and the sheen didn't seem right for a fighting ship in the Southwest Pacific. I did a test-spray last night on a color swatch, and everything seemed okay, so I sprayed the remaining parts. And everything does look okay -- except for where anything is black, which, happily, is not too much. The black parts ended up looking a bit splotchy. Oh well  -- shouldn't be too obvious on the finished model. We'll call it weathering.

 

Next I set about making edge colors. Shouldn't be too difficult, right? After all, there's basically only two, and they happen to be different shades of the same color. Ha! The problem is, the color is USN Measure 21 dark blue-gray, but it's printed, not painted. Four-color printing creates colors by blending different saturations of black, yellow, cyan, and magenta dots, and you can actually see these if you squint closely enough. From a distance, the printed color looks gray, but if you look closely you can see that the "gray" has a kind of lilac tone to it -- created by the combination of cyan and magenta dots. It was really hard to recreate this effect, as you can see by my many attempts below.

 

 

I got the darker shade close enough after just a few tries, but the lighter shade was a booger. The difficulty lay in that red needed to be added to the mixture to push the tone from gray toward toward the desired lilac tone. But my first attempt, not shown, wound up missing the mark and being plain ol' dark purple (or dare I say 'Deep Purple'?) -- too much red. So, after many tweaks, I got the second attempt closer to the desired color (circled). It's not a perfect match, but it looks better in real life than in this crummy cell phone picture, and the tone is right if not the exact shade. My fear is that if I add any more red, I'll push the shade too far into purple territory and have to start all over again.

 

Next up will be cutting the hull sides and deck. Using the 3D-printed hull eliminates the need to cut out and glue forty-seven hull skeleton parts!

[EricWilliamMarshall]

Tough call most certainly. I did find being a shader darker was easier on the eye than being too light for edge coloring.

[ccoyle]

Hull

 

I serendipitously discovered that rubbing the sprayed parts with a bare finger will sort of "buff out" the splotchy look and restore (mostly) the proper black color.

 

So here's the deck (two parts) glued down to the 3D-printed hull.

 

For the most part, the fit is spot-on, and of course there are no waves or buckles -- nice. There is, however, some overhang at the stern of as much as 1.5 mm.

 

 

Nothing to panic about yet. I will further assess the situation when I get the hull sides ready to apply. The fix may be as simple as adding a layer or two of card to build the hull up a bit.

 

Cheers!

[ccoyle]

6 minutes ago, EricWilliamMarshall said:

Tough call most certainly. I did find being a shader darker was easier on the eye than being too light for edge coloring.

 

The difference is not critical on the edges and only becomes a potential issue if large touch-ups on printed surfaces become necessary. Then the touched-up areas are easier to spot unless the color match is pretty darn close.

[BrianK]

This is a waterline model right Chris? That should make it easier to solve the overhang issue with your hull thickening idea.....

[AJohnson]

Hi Chris, having never built a card model it had never occurred to me that you needed to paint cut edges!  Doh 🙄 Wow, matching printed to painted tone and colours is an art. 👏

[Veszett Roka]

Following you.

... this build - i'm always admired by card models, but the free HMVS Cerberus kicked me down. Still have the sheets somewhere.
 

[ccoyle]

4 hours ago, AJohnson said:

Wow, matching printed to painted tone and colours is an art.

 

There are several particular skills that set master card modelers apart from the rest of us, and seam work is one them. Matching colors helps make seams less apparent. Only our Polish friends seem capable of making them disappear entirely.

[AJohnson]

17 minutes ago, ccoyle said:

 

There are several particular skills that set master card modelers apart from the rest of us, and seam work is one them. Matching colors helps make seams less apparent. Only our Polish friends seem capable of making them disappear entirely.

I shall have to look out for these Polish "Card Ninja's" 🧘‍♂️  do any post on MSW?

[ccoyle]

14 minutes ago, AJohnson said:

do any post on MSW?

 

Only rarely, but if you want to OD on card model eye candy, then just browse through the gallery HERE.

[AJohnson]

Those are amazing, they look like the professional built Tamiya “Uber” kits that cost £100s 😲

[ccoyle]

Hull Siding

 

The hull siding is now complete. Took a while because the solid amidships bulwarks have inner skins, the starboard inner bulwark piece is in three parts (to leave room for boat davits later), and the bulwarks originally had printed scuppers, which I decided to cut out. I'm about 95% satisfied with the job -- I have some iffy seam work at both ends, I wound up with a mystery glue spot on one side, and I also got a tiny drip of water on one side. These have all been touched up as best I could.

 

Port-side hull:

 

And the stern, which I did build up a bit with scrap card before adding the printed part:

 

Next up is adding the frame extensions needed to toughen up the easily-bent bulwarks.

[BrianK]

Chris the overhang is gone. That looks great! Well done.  The edge painting is spot on too.

 

BTW Chris, I think I finally figured out why watching you build card models creates such a pleasant feeling for me (other than the joy of watching a skilled modeler execute his craft). When I was a boy in Connecticut and visited Mystic, my mom and dad bought me the Mystic Seaport paper (card?) model of Seaport Street. I spent many happy hours building all those buildings! I had totally forgotten that until today. So sure enough tonight I found that 1968 Monte Enterprises kit on ebay for $10...... 

 

Thanks for waking that memory!

 

Regards,

BrianK

[EricWilliamMarshall]

On 1/26/2022 at 5:26 PM, ccoyle said:

My fear is that if I add any more red, I'll push the shade too far into purple territory and have to start all over again.

 

On 1/26/2022 at 6:40 PM, ccoyle said:

only becomes a potential issue if large touch-ups on printed surfaces become necessary

Ah, now I understand.  I hate to say it, one batch of the 'right' color won't help. That is to say there are a few issues at play.

I used to work on 'art objects' and antique furniture before the turn of the century, with the same issues and 'touch ups' were a routine part of the work. Being practiced is the key, not being Polish. From the web site you shared, being practiced and Polish seems to be the best option though!  

A few thoughts, if the 'touch up' stuff is still bothering you:
1) printed paper and paint have different reflective properties (as I'm sure you have noticed!),  A painted surface will never look like printed paper.
2) how the light hits the surface changes (slightly) the color the 'touch-up' needs to be. So verticals will be slightly different than horizontal. 
3) the lights you work under have a slight color bias as compared to full sunlight, so your 'touch ups' will look different under different lights. So work under strong bright lights if possible. Sunlight is the best.
4) the person who did the 'touch up' will always see it. (Unless you wait a couple of years...)
5) keep the 'touch up' small - small and "close" is better than large and perfect.

6) sometimes adding visual 'noise' helps. Darker specks and the like come to mind here.
7) sometimes adding transparent layer(s) on top helps 'blend' the 'touch up' and the rest.

8 ) too dark is always better than too light. Too light always jumps out to the eye.

9) if possible, make sure that the original and the touch up have a coat on top that gives everything the same sheen (or flatness), so raking light doesn't reveal your work via the 'touch up' being more shiny or more flat than the paper.

10) the 'touch up' can't be too thick or it will have its own shadows and be noticable.

11) airbrushing and similar approaches will allow you to blend easier than usings a brush. (This suggestion won't work on this 1/250 model but it might elsewhere.)

Since this advice is free and unasked for, I heartly offer it with a full money-back guarantee!!

[ccoyle]

Eric, that's a good list, and yes I have discovered many of the things you listed through trial and error. The best way to minimize touch-ups for card models is to likewise minimize visible seams and boo-boos. The first comes down to a combination of kit design and skillful cutting out of parts, the latter is simply a matter of practice and paying attention during construction.

[EricWilliamMarshall]

Agreed! I have to say as a casual observer, I hadn't noticed glaring touch ups myself in your work, so either it's careful photo taking or you got it!

Edited January 28, 2022 by EricWilliamMarshall

[Kevin]

lovely to see how the experts do it