SS Canberra by Old Rentner - FINISHED - Airfix - 1/600 - PLASTIC

Old Rentner · January 14

Here I go again! Having finished the ‘Mayflower’ with some difficulty I needed some more occupational therapy!

In January of 1972 we found ourselves on the SS Canberra. My family and I were sailing from Southampton to Sydney. Our eldest son was eight years old at the time and to remind him of the boat we bought an Airfix model kit of the Canberra which we thought that he might build at a later date. Time went by and the Canberra kit joined the ‘Mayflower’ and went into ‘storage’ with the ‘Mayflower’ for the next 50 years. They travelled from Brisbane to Wellington to Germany with us and now, with my grown up son’s permission, I’m starting to try to build the SS Canberra!

This build log will describe my problems and solutions (if any) with the build. As others have already commented, the kit was not very well made so features in the polystyrene are not often clear and pieces do not seem to fit too well sometimes.

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This time the first step that I took was, after washing the parts, to spray everything with a white undercoat! I soon found that the major difficulties with the build were going to be with the painting of the individual parts and applying the transfers (decals). As I found with the ‘Mayflower’ my hands were not too steady and I did have some problems masking and painting some small parts. The windows were a nightmare (see later).

Old Rentner · January 14

Having sprayed the undercoat I set to work on the very (too) many windows and portholes. I tried painting them wit a fine brush but was not steady enough. I then tried with a waterproof fine pen. The results were less than pleasing!

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Edited January 14 by Old Rentner

Old Rentner · January 14

Clearly I was not doing very well even by my standards so I turned to the internet and found on other sites boat builders had used computer generated windows on transfer paper. I did not have the necessary skills to draw such small objects so my daughter very kindly made pdf files in Vectorworks and sent them to me. I measured the window and it’s spacing and by trial and error we produced a set of transfers for all but the very small windows.

Test prints - spacing incorrect.

Ready to print.

The small portholes and very small windows were done by hand.

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They were so small that I did not think that I could have attached the transfers so I settled for my painting, poor as it was - I had no alternative!

Edited January 18 by Old Rentner

Old Rentner · January 14

Having printed the transfers and varnished the i proceeded to cut the up and to try to apply them. They did not stick well! The internet experts told me to apply gloss varnish, then transfer glue, then the transfer, another coat of a material that shrunk the transfer to the contour and finally some Matt varnish to get it back to its original state. I neither had the solutions nor the patience to do that for the millions of windows on the boat so I resorted to using dilute pva glue and a coat of Matt varnish which, so far, seems to have worked! Subsequently I used Decalfix (Vallejo) which seemed to work pretty well too!

I did encounter another problem however, the pen painted windows all ran when sprayed so they turned out to be a disaster and had to be redone with white paint and then ink and then a simple brush applied varnish. I guess the propellant in the spray dissolved the ink?

It was not as good as the first time but it will have to do!

Edited January 18 by Old Rentner

Old Rentner · January 14

I painted the decks, swimming pools etc and then attacked the hull. It was difficult to get the red lead painting straight and the masking tape did not stick too well!

Old Rentner · January 15

The next problem was how to make the ‘grab ropes’ for the lifeboats. They did not look very nice omitted and my hand was not steady enough or my pen fine enough to draw them freehand. I tried using nails to create an undulating base onto which I could mold pva soaked thread to create the ropes but the scale was all wrong and the undulations did not hold.

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I tried to draw the ropes but the lines were too thick too.

Finally I resorted to creating a pdf in Photoshop with two pixel lines! I printed a transfer sheet and cut out and then applied the transfers to the boats. I used sections of the right hand column in the end.

Old Rentner · January 17

I was afraid that all the handling of the hull, boats etc. might damage the boat grab line transfers so that I decided to fix the fore and rear decks before applying any more transfers.

i did not possess any small clamps so I ended up with what I had and my hands. I had to hold the bow for over 15 min. till it stayed in place!

The rear decks were less problematical and I only needed one clamp!

I tried to protect the paintwork with folded old handkerchiefs - they were soft and gentle!

Edited January 17 by Old Rentner

Old Rentner · January 18

I was quite pleased with my deck clamping and gluing although I did find a couple of cracks to try to fill!

Next the top decks - they did not fit too well so I used three clamps to secure the lower one.

Ferrus Manus · January 18

Oh, what a nice paint job! At this scale, it's a wonder anyone can get anything painted right. You are doing a marvelous job on this kit.

Ferrus Manus · January 18

To fill cracks, try using plastic model putty. This can be found at most hobby stores.

Canute · January 19

Vallejo makes an acrylic putty that fills nicely and cleans up with water. Plus, no odor.

Old Rentner · January 19

Thank you both - the Vallejo putty is on its way according to Amazon!

Edited January 19 by Old Rentner

Old Rentner · January 19

Disaster! When I came to remove the heavy clamps I found that one side of the ‘arena deck’ was glued below its supports so that the ships sides were pushed out and the next deck would not fit properly. After a big struggle I was able to undo all the gluing on the port side and re glue it in the right place. Luckily nothing broke during the process of seperation.

I used more gentle ‘clamping’ methods for the games deck!

The gaps will be addressed and filled later when the putty arrives!

Edited January 19 by Old Rentner

Ferrus Manus · January 19

The gaps aren't that horrible for a kit from, i assume, the late 50's.

Wacom · January 19

You are doing a great job of this ship. Brings back many memories as I came out to NZ on her in 1964, those were the days😎

Old Rentner · January 20

The decks are in properly lined up.

The bridge structure is in place.

Now the problem is what to do about the missing guard rails. I don’t understand why Airfix left them out of the kit in the first place? I can’t think of any possible way for me to fabricate them out of household bits and pieces. I know there are sheets of printed liner railings available but they don’t seem to be available here. The scale of boats here seems to be mainly 1/700 also, so accessories available are the wrong size. Importing from US or UK, for me at least, seems to be difficult and not without its problems so that I only buy items from within the EU now since Brexit!

I’ll have to work on this more - any suggestions would be appreciated.

Ferrus Manus · January 20

Could you do it with bits of fine wire?

Old Rentner · January 22

The actual rails needed are about 3mm. high so I doubt that I have the skills to solder and make a rail with 4 transverse wires and hundreds of vertical supports.

Old Rentner · January 23

No further ideas with regard to the railings, but am pretty pleased with the lifeboat ‘grab ropes’.

.

Old Rentner · January 23

The ‘filler’ arrived today and I tried to fill the cracks! I did not find it easy to work with. Firstly it was very reluctant to come out of the bottle, it needed a big squeeze which was difficult to control. It was rather granular and dried so quickly that it was difficult to get a good finish! The gaps are in areas already painted and with windows sot sandpapering now will ruin other work. I guess again this is my inexperience - I should have filled the gaps first before applying the windows but it was easier to paint and apply windows to the individual parts before assembly. The instructions do say paint before glue - they don’t mention filler!!! I’ll learn in time, maybe?

These are the gaps at present.

Canute · January 23

You might try some thin slivers of white styrene in the bigger gaps. You won't need as much filler to cover the opening. And put some tape next to the gaps to protect the rest of the area. Older kits really have some glaring fitting errors, so we modelers have to get somewhat creative in turning a sow's ear into a silk purse.

king derelict · January 24

I’ve found the Vallejo putty to be not so easy to work with. I squeeze a bit out onto something like an old credit card and pick a small amount up on the point of a cocktail stick and work it into gaps. It limits the spread of the stuff

great job on an old kit

alan

Old Rentner · January 24

It is now 24hr. Since I tried to use the filler!

The filler is not hard and ‘workable’ but rather elastic! It is not easy to tidy up and does not sand well. Maybe I’m not using it correctly or possibly it was an old bottle. I’d have been better using a wood or a fine plaster filler and then varnishing it I think! C’est la vie and I’m not undoing it now.

Edited January 24 by Old Rentner

yvesvidal · January 24

It seems to me that using the Vallejo Putty, with multiple and thin applications would have filled up the cracks:

The trick is to cut the dispensing tube very small, so as to serve a tiny quantity of putty. It dries white and would have filled the multiple cracks you have in the cabin walls, very well. I have used it with success and will never go back to Tamiya of other putty brands.

Yves

Canute · January 25

You could use Q-tips/cotton buds to smooth the putty. Moisten with a little water; think damp. Rub the putty very lightly to smooth it. Do this right after applying the putty.

Old Rentner · January 25

I did, in fact, apply several layers, the problem was when trying to shape the finished fill, the filler was elastic and did not sandpaper (wet and dry) very well thus precluding the ability to smooth out the surfaces. I applied more than needed in the end in order to be able to cut it back smoothly but this did not work either!

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I did try smoothing it out with water but it ‘set’ too quickly to get a good finish.

Edited January 28 by Old Rentner

Old Rentner · January 28

I tried to sand, cut and smooth but the filling did not look too good.

I tried again and it looks a little better but I don’t think that at this stage I will get the fills any better. In retrospect I should have filled before attaching windows etc and the I could have had free access to the joins and maybe I should have made my own putty!

I give up!

Old Rentner · January 28

In order to stop myself fiddling more with the fillings I covered them all with three coats of matt varnish. This will help protect the hull from damage during fitting of mast, funnels etc.

Old Rentner · January 29

Disaster, disaster, disaster! I went to bed last night very pleased that the spraying of the hull had gone so well. There were no runs and as far as I could see the coating was pretty even. This morning when I checked on the boat, despite protecting them with a brush applied varnish before spraying (I had checked this technique on a piece of sprue with waterproof ink lines, with and without the varnish, and there was no running of the varnished ink) the hull port holes had run much like the bridge problems described earlier. Now I feel like throwing the whole thing into the waste basket - I don’t really know how to resurrect it without it looking a pretty third rate build - it was all going so well!