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

[ccoyle]

6 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Chris, do you think a vac pen would be helpful in card modeling?

 

I didn't even know there was such a thing. Might be a bit of overkill. Sometimes I use my knife tip to pick up a part -- just stick the part and lift. It doesn't leave a visible mark.

[ccoyle]

5, 6: Superstructure (cont'd)

 

They may be hard to see in some cases, but all of the starboard elements have been added except for the depth charge cradles. The parts tally for this task came to 67. Adding the 22 cradles will finish off this side, but I think I will do the port-side elements first and then do all of the port and starboard cradles in one go. That will leave me one end of the superstructure that I can safely grasp without knocking stuff loose.

 

[ccoyle]

I should have done this ages ago.

 

 

 

Once again, crappy cell phone camera doesn't begin to show the difference. Top pic shows old lighting setup, bottom pic shows work area under new 4000 lumen LED light. The difference is HUGE in real life!

[ccoyle]

5, 6: Superstructure (cont'd)

 

All of the port-side elements except the depth charge cradles are now in place. This brings the total number of parts added to the superstructure to 153. The depth charge cradles will push that total to 229. 😬

 

[ccoyle]

5, 6: Superstructure (cont'd)

 

Whew! All the depth charge cradles are done -- at least the ones on the superstructure! I made a couple of modifications. Originally, each cradle is designed to consist of a tray and a rolled tube. Thinking I would go nuts if I had to roll 38 tubes, I decided instead to make these from 1 mm styrene rod. I made a jig out of scrap wood to get each tube exactly 3 mm long. The other change concerned the color. The prototype model on the cover shows the cradles as either white or light gray -- hard to tell which exactly. The kit provides the tubes in dark blue-gray, and the laser-cut trays are light gray. So which is correct? I decided to scope out some pictures online and, unsurprisingly, the few color photos I found showed the cradles painted the same color as their parent ship. That makes total sense. Since the whole point of painting the ship dark blue-gray is concealment, it seems to me that it would defeat the purpose to paint the cradles a highly contrasting lighter color. So, for this build they all ended up being painted dark blue-gray.

 

Here are the 22 on the starboard side. There are 14 more on the port side.

 

And that finishes off the construction for diagrams 5 and 6. Onward!

[Captain Slog]

Nice work. Your colour matching is exceptional! Would never guess that is painted styrene rod

[BrianK]

Chris can I ask how you painted the 3mm rod? Did you attach them to the cradle first? Spray or brush?

They look great. Adding such small parts always makes me stop and figure out the sequencing for gluing, attaching, and painting.....

 

BrianK

[ccoyle]

16 minutes ago, BrianK said:

Chris can I ask how you painted the 3mm rod? Did you attach them to the cradle first? Spray or brush?

 

Assembled first, then painted with a brush.

[amateur]

Quote

Since the whole point of painting the ship dark blue-gray is concealment, it seems to me that it would defeat the purpose to paint the cradles a highly contrasting lighter color.

But there are still those two orange coloured hockey-sticks shouting for attention

 

Nice progress. Will be another show-piece!

 

Jan 

 

 

[ccoyle]

3 hours ago, amateur said:

But there are still those two orange coloured hockey-sticks shouting for attention

 

I know, right? But I guess that finding damage control equipment easily in an emergency was considered a higher priority.

[Egilman]

On 2/5/2022 at 6:10 PM, ccoyle said:

The difference is HUGE in real life!

I'll vouch for that, I installed two of them to eliminate cross shadows, and they last 5 times longer than the regular bulbs...

 

Much cheaper in the long run as well...

[Egilman]

On 2/6/2022 at 7:27 PM, ccoyle said:

Whew! All the depth charge cradles are done

They are known as Mandrels... and yes they were painted the same as the sides of the bulkheads they were next to initially, and then plain #5 Ocean Grey (actually a blue color) The camo on the ship and the colors used would be according to Ships 2 rev 3 1944, for an example here is Ships 2 Rev 2 from Feb. '43... But I understand the need to match the colors the kit used... Not advocating for a repaint... {chuckle}

[Egilman]

On 2/7/2022 at 5:29 AM, amateur said:

But there are still those two orange coloured hockey-sticks shouting for attention

 

Nice progress. Will be another show-piece!

 

Jan 

 

 

 

On 2/7/2022 at 9:28 AM, ccoyle said:

 

I know, right? But I guess that finding damage control equipment easily in an emergency was considered a higher priority.

 

I was going to ask about those as well, they sure wouldn't be red during WWII... neither would the firehoses underneath them...

 

Actually no, everything was painted, no brightwork was allowed to show and anything on a bulkhead was painted the color of the bulkhead.... (as per Ships 2, including canvas as well) they were very serious about it... Captains had a lot of leeway in when and how their ships were painted, but the details were according to Ships 2 without exception...

Edited February 8, 2022 by Egilman

[ccoyle]

30 minutes ago, Egilman said:

Actually no, everything was painted, no brightwork was allowed to show and anything on a bulkhead was painted the color of the bulkhead.... (as per Ships 2, including canvas as well) they were very serious about it... Captains had a lot of leeway in when and how their ships were painted, but the details were according to Ships 2 without exception...

 

See? Now you've just made me go and question the coloring of every card model I've ever done or will yet do. 😆 Oh, well. That's one of the limitations of the medium -- we are to a degree beholden to the research and creative skills of our kits' designers.* Sure, we can fix a few bits, but making too many changes sorta defeats the purpose of doing card models.

 

*I guess this is true for all kits, isn't it? 🤔

[amateur]

And reality seems to be somewhere in between: those hoses seem to be painted in the same colour as the bulkhead, those two things below are definitely in a more bright colour.

 

(phote dated february 1944)

 

[Egilman]

1 hour ago, amateur said:

And reality seems to be somewhere in between: those hoses seem to be painted in the same colour as the bulkhead, those two things below are definitely in a more bright colour.

 

(phote dated february 1944)

 

The things above are not hoses, some kind of fitting like a nozzle extension or something, things under them ARE fire hoses, stowed in their brackets, which during the period were canvas and would be canvas colored when new, painted when they repainted the bulkhead... Kind like a radome tan or light sand/off whitish color...  Definitely not red, red is post war composite hose probably Vietnam era or later.... Which is totally incorrect for the vessel...

[Egilman]

2 hours ago, ccoyle said:

That's one of the limitations of the medium -- we are to a degree beholden to the research and creative skills of our kits' designers.* Sure, we can fix a few bits, but making too many changes sorta defeats the purpose of doing card models.

 

*I guess this is true for all kits, isn't it?

Yes it is brother, my thoughts are that the kit designers use what is typical for the period they are designed for the details rather than doing the extensive research to get down to the color of the firehoses...

 

All of us as modelers have to deal with it.... One of the vagaries of our chosen mediums... 

 

It's looking great though... even if the detail colors are a few decades off...

[ccoyle]

So, do you ever run into a part of your build that seems like it should be easy but then just goes 🤬🤬🤬🤬? Yeah, well I ran into that with the walls around the 20 mm positions. Each is just two parts, shaped, glued together, and then ready to afix to the superstructure, but ai yi yi!! For some reason, once they were folded, they wanted to slip from my grasp constantly, after which they inevitably fell to the floor. Then they proved to be too long and needed a trim, then they wouldn't stick properly, then I managed to get glue seemingly everywhere. Ugh! I finally got them done, but they exhausted my patience, so the shipyard is closed for the evening.

 

 

There are a number of underside parts and brackets that are supposed to be glued to the superstructure deck before it is added to the superstructure. I did all of the flat parts, but I didn't add the brackets at that point -- the suggested sequence just seemed like a recipe for disaster for me. I went ahead and glued the deck on and then added the brackets. Not a big deal.

 

Here's a just-for-fun shot of the superstructure sitting on the hull. It's not glued down yet, but I may need to do that job soon, regardless of the suggested construction sequence. The superstructure has a slight twist, which means it will need to be clamped when it's glued to the hull, and I won't be able to do that once all of the various superstructure bits are added.

 

 

Cheers!

[GrandpaPhil]

Chris,

  England is looking great!

[BrianK]

Sounds like you have a good bead on things Chris. It is starting to look like a warship!! 

I will be curious to see how you "clamp" the superstructure. That sounds like a delicate but forceful operation to perform. 😃

 

BrianK

[Old Collingwood]

"Dont it just  prove to be true"   little slip ups  try to  trip us up  like an invisible  tripping up thing,   good progress  Chris.

 

OC.

[ccoyle]

1 hour ago, BrianK said:

I will be curious to see how you "clamp" the superstructure.

 

I will probably use contact cement and finger pressure. Maybe.

[Kevin]

very nice indeed

[amateur]

Clamping perhaps becomes slightly easier as the hull has a rigid core. At least the risk of pushing the structure down into the hold is smaller.

 

And as we all are very distracted by the vast amount of little details added to the ship, no one will notice that your railing is not to your own standards (it still is way above mine  )

 

Jan

Edited February 10, 2022 by amateur

[BrianK]

Chris, on the subject of glues.... do you have any experience with Roket card glue from Deluxe Materials? I am trying a bottle out now on my first card build in years and it seems to give just enough time to move things around before setting up. I think it's  quite a bit faster than Elmer's white has always seemed to set for me on other paper projects -- thus the reason I tried it on this card build. It is very liquidy though. Microbrushes are what I use to apply it.....

 

BrianK

[Egilman]

13 hours ago, ccoyle said:

Here's a just-for-fun shot of the superstructure sitting on the hull. It's not glued down yet, but I may need to do that job soon, regardless of the suggested construction sequence. The superstructure has a slight twist, which means it will need to be clamped when it's glued to the hull, and I won't be able to do that once all of the various superstructure bits are added.

That is going to be Spectacular! Looks beautiful....

[ccoyle]

4 hours ago, BrianK said:

do you have any experience with Roket card glue from Deluxe Materials?

 

First I've ever heard of it, but from the product description it sounds very similar to Evergreen's canopy glue.

[Captain Slog]

9 hours ago, BrianK said:

do you have any experience with Roket card glue from Deluxe Materials?

Hi, I have used this and mentioned it in my build log.  It is very milky and it grabbed and set very quickly which made it ideal for gluing up smaller parts but didn't really give any wiggle room. I applied it with a small brush.  It also was good in gluing other materials to paper such as brass. 

 

I stopped using it when it turned to a chocolate milk colour in the bottle over time, but apparently according to the manufacturer this doesn't affect it's performance.  However I have still not used it in some time as old dried glue turns brown and crystallised. Doesn't affect where I used it as ideally shouldn't have glue/excess glue visible anyway but something to keep in mind. The already glued parts are still going strong though.   

Edited February 10, 2022 by Captain Slog

[ccoyle]

7: Superstructure (cont'd)

 

Step 7 is all done now -- another 38 parts. The amidship 20 mm gun tub walls were much easier to do. Thanks to their being more than a half-circle, they sort of clamp themselves when glued to the main superstructure.

 

[BrianK]

Chris are the tub walls edge glued or do they have tabs that insert somewhere or fold over? They look great!

 

BrianK