Oryol 1902 by GrandpaPhil - Orel - 1/200 - CARD - Russian Battleship

[GrandpaPhil]

On 1/1/2025 at 6:37 PM, SaltyScot said:

And that is the way it should be Phil. I find that enjoying it, as we so often do, makes the trickier tasks go easier. Very nice work sir. 

Thank you very much!

 

I have the conning tower built up and ready to paint.

Working on my old nemesis, ladders:

Slow but steady definitely wins the race here!

 

Edited Saturday at 11:24 PM by GrandpaPhil

[GrandpaPhil]

The conning tower is on:

She’s taking shape!

[SaltyScot]

She certainly is, Phil. Because I am not familiar with card models I have a question; how stable are these kits once they are put together and, do you have to treat them in any way so that they are not affected by, shall we say, humidity?

[GrandpaPhil]

I seal the models as I go with an acrylic clear coat to protect them.

 

As far as stability goes, once the hull is covered, they are quite strong.

 

The scratch built ones are every bit as strong and durable as a wood build.

 

The Orel kits are a little different than the scratch builds.  
 

The material is thinner and the pieces are much smaller due to the smaller scale of the models.

However, once built, I haven’t had any problems, although the Solferino, which is the only other Orel kit that I built at 1/200 scale, is only a couple of years old and is kept in a case.

Edited yesterday at 02:17 AM by GrandpaPhil

[Old Collingwood]

Coming on nicely  Phil.

 

OC.

[GrandpaPhil]

11 hours ago, Old Collingwood said:

Coming on nicely  Phil.

 

OC.

OC,

  Thank you very much!

 

I finished the ladder and installed it after three attempts to make the handles failed.

 

I also sealed everything that hadn’t been sealed yet.

 

Then I remembered an article from Digital Navy that I read a while back about essentially using paper as photoetch.

 

So, I broke out my light table and did some tracing:

And then cut out the pieces that I needed for the lower ladder:

It should be noted that I coated both sides of the paper that I cut the ladder from with clear coat prior to cutting, which made it into a type of composite material which won’t fuzz or fray out.
 

I’m not particularly shy about making my own pieces, it’s part of why I like card kits.

 

One of the recent NRJ’s had an article, an editorial, discussing card modelers and whether card modeling is a form of scratch building because a card kit is in essence a set of templates that a model is cut out from, very precisely, and built.

 

For me, it’s not too different than what I did with my sailing Sampan, built from Amati kit plans or my model of the Revenge that is being built from Amati’s Victory Models line of kits.

 

In fact, my experience with the Revenge’s plans led me to buy up many more sets of Amati plans.

 

The only difference between those builds and a card kit is the thickness of material.

 

In the other models, I essentially built up the card to the thickness of a wood part and built like a conventional wood model.

 

However, the basic concept is pretty much identical.

Edited 22 hours ago by GrandpaPhil

[Coyote_6]

This makes complete sense.  There are times I wish I was working with "thinner wood", so there we go!

 

She looks great Phil!

Steve

[GrandpaPhil]

6 hours ago, Coyote_6 said:

This makes complete sense.  There are times I wish I was working with "thinner wood", so there we go!

 

She looks great Phil!

Steve

Steve,

  Thank you very much!

 

The superstructure continues to grow:

I have been using @Captain Slog’s Borodino build log as a reference to figure out the forward bridges.

 

I need to make the forward part of the next deck up about 1mm thicker to fix a slight dip in the forward deck.

 

Using paper as photoetch railings worked beautifully once I figured it out. 
 

Preshape the part as a block.
 

Seal both sides before cutting out the railings and then when you paint, don’t lay them on something that the paint will stick to.

 

Wait until the paint dries completely before handling and installing the part.

 

 

[SaltyScot]

Looking good Phil and, we all learn by our mistakes, don't we? You have quite the snowy view out of that window there sir