HMS Galatea by king derelict - FINISHED - Flyhawk- 1/700 - PLASTIC

[king derelict]

This will be the next major project. 

After the Amodel kit and its shortcomings a Flyhawk model seemed like the best antidote. This is a limited edition kit. I'm not sure what that brings to the kit but we will see. I have added a wooden deck set. I'm not sure if I will need anything else.

Time to get my eyes recalibrated to 1/700 again

Thanks for looking in

Alan

 

[Old Collingwood]

Ive got my chair Alan  -  looking forward  to this   - love these Flyhawk kits.

 

OC.

[king derelict]

1 hour ago, Old Collingwood said:

Ive got my chair Alan  -  looking forward  to this   - love these Flyhawk kits.

 

OC.

Welcome OC, they are spectacularly good kits. I’m looking forward to it after the recent struggles. It will be.a waterline model and no diorama- I’m running out of space 

alan

[king derelict]

Slow progress as I relearn the 1/700 methods and Flyhawks way of doing things. Partly its deciding on the order of build and paint. I had thought of building up all the basic structures and painting them, assembling the modules and then add the details but this has to be modified because of the wooden decks which have to be installed before additional decks are added above. So I think I am going to have to add the wooden decks and then mask them. The Flyhawk wooden deck set suggests that there are masks in the kit but I don't see them so I'll used tape as necessary.

The instructions need careful study being the usual information dense sheets. Thankfully this kit incorporates the PE into the basic instructions so you don't have to juggle a parallel set of instructions and work out what has to be removed and replaced.

The kit contains PE and resin parts. The kit parts are just as good but I think the resin bits cover the changes from the basic Arethusa kit. As usual the box is stuffed with parts and there is no way its all going back in once its been disturbed.

After the Amodel kit the Flyhawk parts are lovely. Very crisp detail, no mold lines or flash and the parts fit so well. These parts just click together

The eight inch guns were so nice that I would have considered not using the brass barrels but unfortunately the plastic parts had been deformed (posibly the full box thing) so the brass barrels were added

The PE is nice to work with although tiny.. I've built up as far as I think I can go so these bits will now get black primer, the dark grey deck paint and the light grey hull colour.

Thanks for looking in and the likes and comments

 

Alan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AJohnson]

I’ll be following along, not seen a Flyhawk kit before. 

Edited November 28 by AJohnson

[Canute]

Alan, think I'll tag along to see this build. I've seen their aftermarket goodies, but never a full build.

[Old Collingwood]

Excellent start  Alan,  "boy  love these  Flyhawk kits"    what are your thoughts  regarding  the  application of the  wood deck  -  place it straight down on the  plastic deck  or  sand the deck  slightly first,  cant remember  what I did  on my Hood  kit.

 

Looking forward  to  more  mate.

 

OC.

[king derelict]

On 11/26/2024 at 5:04 PM, AJohnson said:

I’ll be following along, not sen a Flyhawk kit before. 

Welcome Andrew 

The Flyhawk models are well thought out and the parts are very precise. The plastic parts are often better than PE except for railings and girders etc. a lot of detail and sometimes a bit taxing because of the tiny parts. I like them a lot.

i just started reading your Sparkler log. It looks a great kit and almost tempts me to try a wooden ship although rigging sounds daunting.

alan

 

[king derelict]

1 hour ago, Old Collingwood said:

Excellent start  Alan,  "boy  love these  Flyhawk kits"    what are your thoughts  regarding  the  application of the  wood deck  -  place it straight down on the  plastic deck  or  sand the deck  slightly first,  cant remember  what I did  on my Hood  kit.

 

Looking forward  to  more  mate.

 

OC.

Welcome OC, I do like the Flyhawk kits. Everything fits together perfectly. For better or worse I have primered all the decks with MiG One Shot, painted the appropriate light and dark grey bits and just added the wooden decks. So far they seem to be sitting down nicely.

For some reason I seem to have forgotten the order I do stuff in on these kits so progress may be a bit erratic 

alan

[king derelict]

9 hours ago, Canute said:

Alan, think I'll tag along to see this build. I've seen their aftermarket goodies, but never a full build.

Welcome Ken.

I think the Flyhawk kits are level above others. The plastic parts are so crisp and delicate you hardly need PE. They do challenge me a bit with the tiny parts and delicate PE. Bright lights and magnifiers are essential.

They have some interesting subjects but I would be very happy if they did a 1970s Ark Royal with Buccs and Phantoms. 1980s HMS Hermes with Harriers?

alan
 

[Landlubber Mike]

Looks like a great kit Alan!  Will be much more of an enjoyable experience compared to the last few that you worked on it would appear.

[king derelict]

On 11/28/2024 at 8:26 PM, Landlubber Mike said:

Looks like a great kit Alan!  Will be much more of an enjoyable experience compared to the last few that you worked on it would appear.

Thanks Mike. It is a super kit to work on after the Amodel number. Parts fit, have no flash and wonderful detail. There is enough detail that I don't feel anything needs to be added apart from the wooden decks.

Probably going to be slow as I work my way back into the sequences needed to build it.

Alan

[king derelict]

Progress has been slowly made. The dark grey steel decks and the pale grey superstructures have been painted. At this point the wooden decks have been added. The fit was perfect and they seem to have stuck down nicely.

The PE is slowly being added . The usual thin PE material that has little spring and folds well but is very unforgiving if you need to bend a second time.

And todays work in tiny world - building the Sea Fox. Looking at the photos the wing bracing could be better so I may try to adjust that tomorrow. The upper wong has a dihedral and the lower wing doesn't and the PE bracing doesn't allow for that.

I realised at the weekend that I had somehow overlooked priming and painting the sprues of small parts, binnacles, searchlights, bollards etc. so this has now been done and I can start populating the various subassemblies.

Thanks for looking in and the likes and comments

Alan

 

 

 

 

[Landlubber Mike]

Coming along great Alan!  Even if the guns weren't deformed, those brass barrels are really sharp looking.  This is going to be a sweet build!

[mikegr]

Well done paintjob

[Old Collingwood]

Excellent work Alan   -  said  it before  that  at this scale the amount of detail  is  insane  -  looking  forward to more.

 

OC.

[king derelict]

21 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Coming along great Alan!  Even if the guns weren't deformed, those brass barrels are really sharp looking.  This is going to be a sweet build!

Thanks Mike. I’m glad I made the effort with the brass barrels. They do look nice even though I’m amazed at what Flyhawk can do with the plastic parts. I’m starting to get into the swing of the build now 

Alan

[king derelict]

14 hours ago, mikegr said:

Well done paintjob

Thanks Mike

I'm using Life Color acrylic paint this build. It seems to dilute well with Tamiya thinner.

Alan

[king derelict]

2 hours ago, Old Collingwood said:

Excellent work Alan   -  said  it before  that  at this scale the amount of detail  is  insane  -  looking  forward to more.

 

OC.

Thank you very much OC. I spent the afternoon adding insanely small parts to the bridge. Searchlights, binnacle, binoculars and peloruses (pelori ?). Beautifully made with no flash but so tiny. A few pinged off the tweezers but I found them all.

alan

[Canute]

Your build is progressing nicely. You're most fortunate to find those tiny details. Most usually sail off to another dimension.

[king derelict]

On 12/5/2024 at 8:19 AM, Canute said:

Your build is progressing nicely. You're most fortunate to find those tiny details. Most usually sail off to another dimension.

Thanks Ken

I seem to be spending a lot of time on hands and knees under the bench with a bright flashlight looking for tiny parts.. I've lost a couple but so far thjere have been spares.

Alan

[king derelict]

I added the forward superstructure to the hull. It all fitted well.

Then it was time to add the tiny details that Flyhawk provides.  The bridge has fifteen pieces, six pelorus, six searchlights, a binnacle, radar.

And then there is the PE. This is one of the (ten) vertical struts that are assembled into the bridge venturi below the screen. And I did lose one.

The PE is thin and a folding tool really helps. I did find two faults as I progressed into the PE details.

The catapult is lovely, made up of four pieces of PE and a resin detail. However the end pieces do not fit into the centre section as shown in the instructions. The sections are rectangular rather than square so the end pieces can only fit one way and that is 90 degrees out with the centre piece which has a pin that will fit into the deck. I have really looked at the pieces and they appear to have been folded correctly. The PE is prescored for the folds so you can tell if it is folding in the correct place. Also the problem exists on both sides. So the pin has been cut off and the catapult will be installed on its side. So sue me.

The plastic sections that make up the structure of the crane appear to be injected short and I had to add a piece of thin plastic (the discarded plastic gun barrels) to the sides to allow the PE boom to be fitted. The crane hook is miniscule and luckily they give you two because the first one evaporated.

I'm getting back to understanding the Flyhawk approach. There are lots of fiddly small parts and the PE is fragile but its so enjoyable to see the details grow.

Thanks for looking in and all the likes and comments

Alan

 

 

 

[Old Collingwood]

Excellent work on this  tiny  miniscule  piece of  art work.

 

OC.

[mikegr]

Great work on a detailed model

[king derelict]

On 12/7/2024 at 11:12 PM, Old Collingwood said:

Excellent work on this  tiny  miniscule  piece of  art work.

 

OC.

Thank you very much OC. Its the tiny details that really make these Flyhawk kits so challenging and fun.

Alan

[king derelict]

On 12/8/2024 at 1:51 AM, mikegr said:

Great work on a detailed model

Thank you Mike. Its a challenge but each bit you add makes it look so much better.

 

Alan

[king derelict]

So deep in the madness of tiny bits of PE. Ladders added and (for me anyway) the pipes and details on the forward face of the funnel. Trying to hang the pipes over the walkway resulted in the whole assembly falling apart a couple of times.

A major relief to have that out of the way. 

I decided to add the rest of the structures, I don't see any advantage to leaving them off now and its easier to press them down onto the deck without the tiny details and railings in place.

This turned out to be a lucky decision because I hit a snag with the two aft pieces. THey don't fit together.

The decked piece on the right is supposed to fit behind teh piece on the left but there is insufficient space.

There is nothing addressing this in the instructions but I think I am going to have to cut the grey steel deck piece out of the aft structure even though it has some detail in it. That is a resin part so presumably is a departure from the base kit but the need to modify it was missed out of the instructions. I'm glad I found that out now.

There are still a lot of bits in the box but its feeling like progress now.

 

Thanks for looking in and for the likes and comments

Alan

 

 

[king derelict]

The last week or so has seen progress slowly as details get added and PE gets folded. The ship now looks busy; I still have a pile of sprues but according to the instructions and space on the decks I think we are almost complete.

I've done some basic shading and weathering before the railings go one and make a lot of the ship inaccessible. I used my homemade wash of black oil paint heavily diluted with thinner. Its very tolerant and seems happy over acrylic paint. I try to be restrained with weathering on 1/700 models; its easy to overdo it. The hull will get some rust streaks when the railings are finished.

I have elected to use the kit plastic boat davits, they are actually finer than the PE and are 3 dimensional. Likewise the masts will be the plastic kit parts (as long as I don't break them by clumsiness). They are very finely moulded and I think I would fail to make brass ones as delicate. 

So still to go. 

      Railings

     Anchor chains

     Paint the identification markings on the B turret.

     Hoists on the aft deck

     Try and improve the Sea Fox

 

Thanks for looking in and the likes and comments

 

Alan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AJohnson]

That is indeed very busy looking Alan! 

[Old Collingwood]

Excellent work Alan  - mazing  detail  in these kits.

 

OC.