HMS Victory by dafi - Heller - PLASTIC - To Victory and beyond ...

[William Blackmore]

Hello All,

This is only my second post. I have a question not only for Dafi, but also for all of you who have built this model before. Have any of you had problems with the styrene plastic in this kit simply disolving and breaking apart when you hit it with some glue? If so, how did you solve the problem?

 

My own problem here is that I was installing the Head Rails to my model. They were already painted because I had only a little bit of the Humbrol paint I needed left over ( I have been unable to find any more of it.) Everything looked good and as I installed the head rails I applied the glue (Tenax) and the plastic parts simply began to break apart in my hand. Keep in mind that I was very careful not to get the glue anywhere except the places I wanted to glue. I have had the same problems occur in the past with other Heller kits. I am not sure if it is because of the age of the model kit, or because of the type of styrene the kit is made from. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers!

William

[popeye the sailor]

tenax is a very volitile cement.......hope you read the label.   I would say that it depends on how old the kit is that your working on.  I have had some problems.....pretty sparse though.........the plastic being stringy when cut,  and the hardness of the plastic.    it makes me think that this points to a batch issue.

[realworkingsailor]

If Tenax is giving you issues, try Ambroid ProWeld. Slightly different solvent, not quite as volatile as Tenax. To be honest it sounds like you have other problems than your glue. If you'd used too much, the pieces would have turned into a gooey mess... Not fallen apart. I agree with Popeye, you may have an issue with the styrene itself breaking down (rare... But it can happen)

 

Andy

[William Blackmore]

Thanks Guys. I think it may be an issue with age. This kit has been in my stash since the early 1990's. I have also had the same issue with one of the Heller "Conqusitador" kits that I found on the evil bay site. This was one of the very early versions of this kit. Being one who believes that kits were made to be built, I set to work on it only to find the same issue. In fairness to Tenax I have used it for years with few problems, but it does occassianlly do the same thing to some pieces of Evergreen stock. I also agree with Andy, and I do use the Ambroid as well. Good stuff but stinks to high Heaven.   I guess in some cases it may be useful to go with some basic Testor's glue. Thanks for the input. Cheers!
William

[popeye the sailor]

I use the testor's red tube.......it can also be purchased in the black decanters {which is more liquid}.   I haven't used the Ambroid glues for quite a while now..........it is a good glue.  it's one of the few glues out there that can be used for wood,  as well as plastic.  I used to work in injection molding....worked with neoprene and the harder plastics.  in the early days, model kits were created with white,  or a creme colored plastic.  through suggestions from modelers that found it hard in painting their models,  companies began to add color to the plastics,  to aide in the problems brought to their attention.   this sometimes created problems with the plastic formulas......soft plastic,  and plastic composition problems being the biggest ones.  it can also cause the cements to react differently as well.  I've run into things like the cement not welding properly....poor bonding,  to having to wait till the next day,  due to distortion problems if a continued on with what I was doing.   I used to revel when this happened though.........I could mix pieces of sprues in with some cement and make my own putty...LOL!

[Patrick Haw]

Hi Daniel,

 

Just catching up on your log again.  Fantastic detailed work on the gunport lids...really impressive!

 

Patrick

[Kevin]

Dafi - i Just love what you put into this - some lovely ideas

[dafi]

Thank you for your intrest and your great support!

 

...hihihihihihi...

 

...hohohohohoho...

 

... looks like dafi entered the coffee roasting business too ...

 

 

...hihihihihi...

 

XXXDAn

[realworkingsailor]

Um.... Sure hope those are coffee beans... Not something Kevin's wabbits left all over the table....

 

Andy

[dafi]

Do not worry Andy, I did not steal Kevins properties ;-)

 

This is how it looks if Fimo/Milliput is baked with 230° Celsius instead of 110° as blind dafi got confused by the english temperature beside the german writing and vica versa ...

 

 

... nicely black and blown up ...

 

 

.... so got the Fimo out again ...

 

 

... first the ball, then the thick sausage, then a medium sausage of 4 mm with the use of a small sheet with 4 mm spacers, and then the thin sausage of 3 mm with the flipside ot the tool with 3 mm spacers. Afterwards I used a "comb" with small wires in 2 mm distance to roll in the 7 lashings representing the 7 seas ...

 

 

... then bent the parts, distributed it on the oven plate and baked on the right tempersture.

 

 

Funny to see the bloated black been beside. And I got a nice stack of rolled hammocks :-)

 

 

Then filed the touching surfaces ...

 

 

... glued the parts together while paying tribute to gravity in the middle of the nettings.

 

 

 

 

This is still the rough version, paint will be easy, but the netting will still need some fiddling around to be figured out properly ...

 

All the best, Daniel

[AntiSpiral]

i've been looking at your build for a while now, and i think its time to say that your work detail is stunning and the things you come up with are ingenious, true craftsmanship, love it.

[Blue Ensign]

You're in good company Daniel with our King Alfred, he had trouble with ovens

 

A realistic result and a great solution, best I've seen.

 

Cheers,

 

M.

[DCooper]

Marvellous!  

 

The best kind of post; inventive, informative and artistic.

 

Thanks.

 

Dan 

[popeye the sailor]

I never knew of how the sleeping arrangements were,  on a tall ship,  until I came here    you give a good narration of how they look Daniel....it will be really cool to see this bit of detail fully assembled.

[mtaylor]

I'm glad that was the oven causing the problem.  I wasn't sure what you were up to with the blackened bits.   Hammocks came out super looking.  It would appear that bosun didn't have to smack anyone upside the head for not rolling their hammock properly.

[dafi]

Thank you Antispiral, B.E., Dan, Popeye and Mark :-)

 

But the starter came out fast and swift and afterwards the hammocks looked much more tidy, especially on the bottom :-)

 

 

 

XXXDAn

 

PS: The cranes are bend open for easier handling and black lines of the lashing are mere orientation for me and are not meant to stay.

[Kevin]

Dafi - good morning

 

would the netting be removed to stow the hammocks, leaving the wire to stop them falling overboard?

[dafi]

No Kevin, the netting is just omitted until now as it is the last thing to be fixed for modeling reasons. It is always there, with hammocks, without (as seen in Portsmouth) and even when the protecting covers are over the hammock cranes.

 

XXXDAn

[gjdale]

Ingenious Daniel, as we've come to expect from you! Must say though, I'm glad it wasn't Kevin's wabbits responsible for that first mess!!!

[4whelr]

Daniel,

Fantastic work!!! I applaud your attention to detail!

Oh, I probably won't ask you to bake me a cake!!!

Eddie

[dafi]

Thank you Grant and Eddie, I promise to not spoil you with my cakes ;-)

 

The good thing on such a complex model is, if you do not have too much time, there is always a small corner that fits to the time slot :-)

 

 

XXXDAn

[dafi]

Thank you Lawrence,

 

"seam to apply them so easily" it just seems so, I already was breaking my mind for some months with this topic before I started working and still things came out totally different than expected - even not to mention the affair with "Kevins wabbits beans".

 

It is always a bit of a darkride like typing some unknown numbers of a telefonbook and making the best out of the conversations that comes along ...

 

The marks are 1,5 mm in hight :-)

 

All the best, Daniel

[popeye the sailor]

gee........they don't look that thick.........I really like them!   I copied and imported some of these roman numerals into my decal maker.  now,  in the decal maker,  I can size them to whatever I want........the problem is.......is that the ink jet printers do not print white.  I could use white paper {white film}.......but the backgroung will need to be colored the same as where they are to be applied.   the problem here is the spectrum that a printer uses.......it never seem to match the exact color used.   another problem is the transparency issue I've had in the past...........the funny thing is,  I just got a thought while I was writing this.   most printers max out at 600 DPI......especially with lighter colors, they seem to get lost in the background if it's dark.   I've been using the normal print.........what if I went to bold print?  if I had some paper handy,  I could try this out.   you mentioned doing something with decals a while ago.......I'll look forward in seeing what your take is on this process.

[Kevin]

was there ever depth marking on the stern? say around the stern post

[dafi]

Hello Popeye and Kevin,

 

the height is 1,5 mm, the thickness is 0,2 mm :-)

 

Yes there were on the stern too:

 

 

                                          #296                         

 

And here the ones from Royal George', that sank in 1782:

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/63420.html

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/102769.html

 

XXXDAn

[popeye the sailor]

ahhhhh.........now that looks sweet!

[dafi]

So far so good, but the next part was a bit scary ...

 

... you remember, on the heads and in the fighting tops I already tried some netting. But it was quite ridgit and I knew not what would come out now.

 

So put the gaze into a cardboard frame  ...

 

 

... and painted nicely with beige, added some plain white and dirtied it with very diluted black ink.

 

 

Easy to see how the appearance became more homogenous.

 

Then did a test fit and realised how the holes got stuck on the hammock cranes ...

 

 

... but it looked ok so far.

 

 

Some test handling on the outside ...

 

 

... proved that the netting should curl outside instead of inside.

 

Then introduced some papers as introduction help and introducing the netting was no subject of getting stuck any more :-)

 

 

Got the front paper out, adjusted the height towards the rope ...

 

 

... and glued with CA the netting onto the rope .

 

Then used the hammocks to press down the netting ...

 

 

... pulled out the back paper and also the hammocks, used pincers to hold rope and netting together and used CA to fix.

 

 

Then cut the side length ...

 

[dafi]

... and the most tricky, cleaning up the top edge with some fine and sharp nail scissors - without cutting the top rope!

 

 

Looks intriguing enough :-)

 

 

 

And another fascinating task, painting the hammocks using my beloved casein paints with all kind of whiter shades of pale ...

 

 

... looking if the colors work if hidden behind the netting ...

 

 

... some differentiation with some more different shades of ochre ...

 

 

... put in place ...

 

 

... gently and pushed in :-)

 

 

Fascinating!

 

 

 

And as you see on the left - the Tic-Tac would not fit in :-)

 

Good night and sleep well,

 

Daniel

[mtaylor]

As always, excellent work, Daniel.  So, is this on your 'test pieces' or on the real model? 

[Blue Ensign]

Great result Daniel

 

M.