Midland1965

After growing up seeing the Hermes, Buklwark and then the Invincibles there, it is certainly a step up. I'm quite envious of you doing the tour in style, I've only been past there on the usual tour boats and the ferry.

I like to use acrylics, mostly Vallejo. For Mid Brunswick Green BS 381 / 226, Vallejo 888 Olive Grey looks pretty close but I use 90% German Uniform 920 +10% Flat Green - I think I decided the Olive Grey looked a bit too flat on my small 1/1250 models.

That's a really nice build and the weathering looks very convincing to me. I think the comment above by Kingsman about it being an Austrian vehicle is correct - somebody else seems to have been inspired by the same picture and identified it as Panzer battalion 4 in Graz, (2.Company, 1.Platoon, tank # 4) as used in their build here: http://www.rlm.at/cont/gal20_e.htm

You can buy a 3D printed 1/600 waterline model of HMS Broadsword off Shapeways Marketplace. Not cheap though, especially if you want it printed in the best material. https://www.shapeways.com/product/2KRER4KWT/1-600-type-22-batch-1-hms-broadsword?optionId=61517353&li=marketplace I don't think a scratch build would be too bad, especially if you were happy with a waterline model. I did a largely scratch built B3 in 1/1250 - The basic shapes are fairly simple. I bet you could get 3D prints of the Sea Wolf launchers and directors and the Exocet launch canisters, which would otherwise be the most difficult parts. Maybe re-purpose the photo-etch from the WEM Type 42 set?

This is incredibly timely news for me and answers (or at least teases the answer to) the question I was asking about what colour I should use for an early 1960s HMS Tiger. I'd read that Light Admiralty Grey, BS381C No 697, was the colour for this period and just couldn't reconcile that with the photos I'd seen of HMS Tiger (and several other ships) in that period. I just wish I'd seen this before painting my model of a Type 81 frigate in 697 and you've got me a bit worried about my HMS Queen Elizabeth too! Two questions remain though: 1. When and how do you plan the big reveal of what actual colour is 4941C? 2. Who's going to break the news to Chatham Dockyard that they have to repaint HMS Cavalier?

I'm working on a model of HMS Tiger in her original early 60s guise and need some help on what colour to use for the hull and superstructure. As I understand it, the RN swapped from 507C to BS381C-697 Light Admiralty Grey from 1955 and stayed with that through to 1968 so it should be Light Admiralty Grey. However, the few colour photos I've found look more like 507C. I realise that colour photos are a pretty poor source for exact colours - especially old ones - but I'm reluctant to ignore what little evidence I have. Does anyone know for sure?

Thank you very much Jamie.

That's looking really good. Despite your comments at the start about there not being so much scope for scratching extra details in this scale you seem to have found quite a lot of opportunities! I'll follow your progress now with great interest. One of the difficulties I found when I was doing my 1/1250 model of HMS Manchester is that the T42s went through so many minor modifications, adding, removing and moving equipment and changing platforms as required that it is hard to find enough images of the same ship at the same time to really nail things down. All part of the fun, I suppose.

What an excellent model of a handsome ship.

Great progress there. I'm in awe at the ambition of building a model ship of such scale and detail. The Seahawk looks great - something I now associate with fond memories of holidays on the Lizard driving past Culdrose - but you really need to save that for your follow-on builds of Eagle, Albion or Bulwark off Suez. Looking forward to your Sea Vixens/Sea Venoms, Whirlwinds and Gannets. Actually, have you decided on a precise date and air group?

Very nicely done. The seascape looks excellent, I'd never have guessed it was your first go - the foam around the hull is especially convincing.

Very impressive, as always. The detail and blemish-free finish on the island with the PE attached is just incredible. I was considering having a go at a 1/1250 Ark Royal myself but now I'm wondering about just selling a spare kidney or child to be ready to buy one of your eventual production cast versions!

Great to see the latest progress.

Here are the finished* photos of my 1/1250 HMS Queen Elizabeth, from the earlier WIP thread. The basis of the ship model is a Mountford resin kit but most of the visible surface and all the details are scratch built. The F35s and helicopters are from SNAFU on Shapeways. The finished model is just under 230mm long and dwarfs almost everything else in my 1/1250 collection. * The aircraft and deck vehicles aren't fixed in position yet - I want to get some more information on likely operating arrangements before I do this. I also need to make the four DS30M Mk.2 30 mm guns for which I need to find some better reference pictures and dimensions so any help or advice on these would be very welcome. My main reference for the deck markings and patches of darker grey and blue-grey was this photo from an article on savetheroyalnavy.org.

I wanted to represent the crane, aircraft tow trucks and loader that can be seen in photos of HMS Queen Elizabeth on Westlant 18 and 20 but, whilst they are very visible in pictures of the ships, I needed better references for the vehicles. Happily davecov on Britmodeller kindly told me exactly what the vehicles were, based on information he'd gathered for his build of HMS Price of Wales 4 x Schopf F59 Tow Tractors 2 x JCB 541-70 Telescopic Handler 1 x Terex AC35 Crane From this I found plenty of reference photos and even plans for the crane and tractors that I could simplify and scale down. The JCBs look rather complicated, with their curved cabs, and I left those out but the others were blocky and quite simple, if rather fiddly. The other detail parts I needed were the Phalanx CIWS. Again I found some reference photos and basic dimensions and used these to make some simplified plans. At some point I'll do some better versions of these simplified plans and post them on my blog for any other 1/1250 scratch builders. The Phalanx are painted a slightly different grey to the ship - to represent USN Haze Gray rather than RN Light Weatherwork Grey. The last missing weapons are the DS30M Mk.2 30 mm guns. I'm struggling to find good enough references for these and, as they are not yet fitted and I've used deck markings from 2019, I've left them off, at least for now. I might add them later, if I can find some good references. With those done, it was a matter of painting the islands, attaching the video screens and ship's badges. The transfers I made for the ship's badge looked too blurry under magnification so I painted over them, almost up to the edges of each main colour, with a very fine brush and the aid of a stereoscopic microscope. By contrast, the monitor screens came out very well and all I did there, after applying the transfers to a sheet of plasticard, was cut them out, paint the edges and glue them in place. I gave all the screens and the large windows of the flying control a coat of gloss varnish - whilst this doesn't really show in the photos, it is noticeable on the model. Thinking about it now, I guess the screens would actually be non-reflective - ah well, it looks nice and breaks things up! I'll post a set of photos of the finished model up on RFI. Thanks for looking. Nathan