USS Bagley (DD-386) by catopower - 1/200 - Avangard - CARD

[Snug Harbor Johnny]

  'Love the way its coming together !   'Looks like the wood fillers in the hull voids makes for both a sturdier model - and one with less kinks or dimples in the hull.  I'm watching with great interest.  Thanks, mate !     Johnny

[ccoyle]

10 hours ago, catopower said:

Hmmm... not excited by the results, but then, I've got a lot to learn.

 

If you end up being unhappy with the final result, you can always opt to fill, sand, and paint. This is how some of our Polish friends produce their immaculate hulls. Of course, most of them seem capable of producing immaculate hulls without the extra effort, so there's that. 😋

[catopower]

Thanks Ken, and a Merry Christmas to you as well!

[catopower]

Oops! Thanks Johnny, Chris!

 

Your comments must have come in while I was sending my last post... 🤔

 

I appreciate the supportive comments. So far, things have turned out better than I thought they might. 

 

Once the deck was mounted, there was a little overhang that I ended up carefully sanding away, but that seemed to work. It means that the deck is a tad narrower, 1/32" or so. I don't think this will cause any issues. There is only one assembly which spans the full width of the hull, and that's coming up in the next step or so. It's the rear bulkhead section of the forecastle, and I should be able to compensate during construction. 

 

That assembly, by the way, was probably the most confusing part of the instructions. For the longest time, I had no idea what I was looking at or where it was supposed to go.

Now, it looks like I will be an interesting assembly to work on.

[catopower]

Merry Christmas, All!

 

Not much to report today, but I started looking at how I'm going to mount the model, since I'm going to have to drill holes in the bottom before too long. I had some standard brass pedestals for ship models, the kind with the keel slot in them. Since the steel navy ships don't have an external keel, I went ahead and used a chop saw to carefully cut them down and ground and filed them clean, so the tops are flat.

 

Then, I realized that the bottom of the hull isn't THAT flat, so I went back and ground a very slight "V" into the pedestal tops. The proposed mounting of the model will then look like this:

The base is just one I have laying around. I actually think I prefer cherry wood. Also, I think I may opt for a 24" long base, which only extends about 1-1/4" beyond each end.

 

Meanwhile, I've gathered the parts for the first assembly, which I need to go on deck, just behind the forecastle. I'll need this in place before I can add the forecastle deck and the remaining hull coverings. But, I might need to deal with the underwater details first, while I can still freely turn the whole thing upside down.

Edited 22 hours ago by catopower