Paul E

That's an interesting question. If it were an ordinary ship I would agree with Kev. But this is a Light Ship and I would expect the anchor cable to be substantial so I think the right hand chain is probably more accurate.

Thank you for the comments they are very much appreciated. I am now at the end of the build of my Type 143 Fast Attack Craft. I have attached the hull to its base and fitted the superstructure and the masts and the weapons. I have elected to apply the decals for S61 Albatross the lead ship of the class. So down to adding those few final touches; the eagle eyed amongst you might have noticed that there is a gap in the railings on the main deck just aft of the superstructure. The reason for this is that there are scrambling nets fitted as can be seen in this photo: Unfortunately the kit does not provide for these so I have delved back into my box of bits and pieces and scratch built my own: The frame is made from Evergreen or Plastruct rod and I have used PE for the netting and hand wheels which came from generic sets by Scale Link I had lying around from previous builds. And that’s it, finished! Although I am toying with scratch building a portable gangway which is stored on the maindeck on the starboard side under the bridge. Anyway here are a few pictures of the finished model with and without its display case. I will post more pictures in the Ready For Inspection part of the forum in due course. Finally if anybody wants the Photo-Etch stanchions at 1:144 scale to accompany this kit please let me know by PM. Thank you for following this build and your kind comments of support. I will be back soon with another build. Paul.

That looks really good Beefy, I share your pain with elderly decals, I have recently faced that issue with my Type 143 build.

Jamie, For me the issue between acrylic and enamel is the ease by which I can clean my airbrush and the drying time. I use both enamel and acrylic for my models and acrylic is the easiest to use. That is not saying acrylic paint is perfect because it is not. I find it chips too easily when handling the model where enamel is far more hard wearing. One of the joys of the Vallejo acrylics is that they manufacture airbrush ready paints which do not need thinning. This is something I personally find difficult to get right and I end getting frustrated when my airbrush gets clogged. The other thing that works in the favour of Vallejo acrylic paints is the method by which it is dispensed from its container which allows a degree of precision and cleanliness which is not so easily achieved when extracting paint from a tin. This is not a criticism of your paint range, far from it. It is an observation of the factors that I, as a general consumer consider when purchasing paints for my models. Best regards Paul.

Now I have completed the railings it is onto the glazing starting with part 30 and the windscreen on the flying bridge which I had previously modified. This was fiddly job but the results I think are worth it. I also had a look at the windscreen wipers on the front windows of the bridge. These are the circular type and the kit provides decals to represent these. However I felt that the model deserved something more. So I dug out some thin walled brass tubing and cut off some thin rings and I used some of the 28 SWG wire that were off cuts from the railings: I then painted them and glued the windscreen wipers into the bridge window openings. Once fixed in place I applied Humbrol Clear to fill in the gaps and make the glazing with the following result: Now the glazing is done I can fit the superstructure to the hull. I am now on the home straight woohoo! Thank you for looking.

Like many things much depends on the light conditions but you can see variations in the colour of the wake. It is a technique I have used before, the advantage of using cling film is that it protects the hull when forming the sea scape, but instead of cutting it all off afterwards I unfold it from the model and use it to form the bow wave, fixing the cling film in place with PVA glue.

Thank you Rob, This model kit already has a nice amount of detail, what it really lacked was a decent set of railings and I happy to say that looking at the end result the investment in designing and having the railings manufactured has really paid dividends. Thank you Martian,

Thank you Steve, the effect in the wake is down to the transparent nature of the cling film which hadn't been plastered in paint or texture paste. It's occurrence is purely accidental and not by design.

I would say they completely transform the model. I can't believe how well they have turned out.

Ohh that is starting to look very nice. I am looking forward to seeing this one completed.

Thank you for the vote of confidence on the canopy. It is far better than my previous attempt and I am very happy with the outcome. I am back to the fitting of the photo-etch railings again. It is a long and slow process but it does pay dividends in the end. I think the pictures are relatively self-explanatory although they are repetition on the same theme. The forward guard rails are collapsible and to achieve a more representative effect I decided to use thinner 32 AWG pencil wire with a black varnish finish. That’s it for now. Next up is glazing the superstructure before gluing it to the hull. Thank you for looking.

Thank you for the kind comments My heat gun has arrived and so I decided to have another go at making the glazed canopy of the sight and control position. So following the advice given I used some plastic from a cake carton. The contents by the way were yummy. I cut out a piece and placed it in my home made jig before submitting it to the heat gun. I set the heat gun at the lower temperature and I was really surprised at how effective it was at making the plastic malleable. Once heated I applied the mould and the result is as follows: This is a definite improvement on my previous attempt. I did have several other goes including using my previous mould to see if I could better results. Anyway after a bit of playing around I found what I wanted and here is how the aft sight looks with the new canopy fitted with some of my previous attempts: I am quite pleased with myself and I will be having a go at more heat moulding on future projects. Thank you all for the advice with this it was most helpful.

Hi Mike, I have found that Humbrol 127 Satin US Ghost Grey to be a close match for RN Topsides grey and it is obtainable as an acrylic. I have just started using Vallejo acrylics and I like them a lot. I see that Vallejo do a Light Ghost Grey as an undercoat and a Dark Ghost Grey in their ModelAir colour range. I have not used either of these so I do not how close they match. I hope this helps Paul

Orange Hobby do gun barrels for the 4.5 Mk8 gun in 1:700 scale.