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This my Meng Models 1/700 USS Lexington. When I bought this I hadn't realized it was a snap-together kit but to be honest it builds very quickly into a reasonable model of this distinctive carrier. The model was built straight out of the box with little modification. I used the kit as a bit of a practice piece as I hadn't completed any naval subjects for a while. I can't comment on the accuracy of the kit or indeed my interpretation but I enjoyed the build and finishing. All the paints are Lifecolor and the only changes are the aircraft decals have been taken from a GMM set (the kit supplied marking are self-adhesive, nicely printed but a bit toy-like). Thanks for looking! Cheers

Hi all, New month, new project. This has been rattling around in my head for a while and I think is sort of picking up on the stalled Gundam-wreck-in-desert thing I started a couple of years ago. I'm starting it now because I think it'll be quick, and it gives me some cutting and sticking to do as well as a break from painting and weathering. I got some board game pieces from Kickstarter last year (for Cthulhu Wars) and one of the freebies was an extra copy of most of the miniatures. One of them (the Bhole) looks rather like a sandworm, and I liked the idea of using it as one. It's moulded in some kind of horrible vinyl/resin/restic stuff which is a bit bendy, but the detail is fine. I started by hacking it off the moulded base (with a full-size hacksaw, no less!) and giving it a wash since I'm pretty sure it'll have been covered in mould release gunk at some point: (click for bigger) Modelling: It takes you to strange places. Open wide! I thought of just basing it up on its own, but I reckon a small diorama will be more interesting to photograph and should make it clearer what kind of worm it's supposed to be. So I started fiddling around with some Bandai add-on Gundam parts and some other spares to get the start of a spice harvester: The wheels are thrusters from the MS Marine set, each one needed the propeller cutting off and the four blocks paring off the "tread". I then sanded the blocks smooth and cut new grooves to join up the ends and match the existing grooves. I haven't added hubcaps yet but I suspect something from a tank will do. The left hand wheels are unmodified, the right ones are almost ready to use. I found some sprue which fitted them so I could get an idea of how it'd look: This is also made from some Gundam aqua backpack parts from the MS Marine set. It's not supposed to be a model of the David Lynch harvester, but should have some echoes of that design. The right hand side is the back and should have some storage tanks sticking out. The left is the front, I haven't decided how to do the harvest-ey bit yet, but I like the idea of the control cabin being up above like the Lynch model. The round holes are going to be hatches, with a little platform under/around them. It would be better if there was only one on each side so they might end up changing, not sure yet. Since I took these I've made up most of the chassis, with poseable leading/trailing suspension arms. But the camera battery ran out Will put it together for a mockup tomorrow. Cheers, Will

Hello all. I have just finished a build of the White Ensign Round Table Class Trawler over on the Made in Britain II Group Build on this fine forum. If you are interested it is here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235023311-round-table-class-trawler-finished/ I got this just before the sad closure of White Ensign, and it was one of the best £9.99's I have spent. It was a fabulous kit to build, and I only had one or two minor hitches with it, and they were reasonably easy to solve. I think I should have used Caenis thread to rig it rather than EZ-Line. I was unable to find a full hull camo scheme, so I just used the starboard side painting guide and produced something that does not look too out of place on the port side. I gave the prop a bit of a twist on the blades. I was really glad I had some vision magnifiers for this one! This is still quite a large ship in comparison to another I have done in the same scale: and finally the obligatory pen-shot for size! If you are interested in small(!) stuff, treat yourself to one of these if they ever appear again! Thanks for looking, Ray

Hello all! This will be unusual, me starting a second build in a Group Build! I have decided to go for something REALLY big this time: And to prove it is HUGE: Hmm...anyway, the detail parts next and the etch of course: Now, considering the size of the etch, how about these instructions? A whole A4 sheet for the etch fittings only. I did not think there were that many on the fret! It will be a while before I start this one, I have ordered a set of Colourcoats paint from Jamie at Sovereign Hobbies so I will start this when they arrive. Don't forget, any help or tips will be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Ray

I think this is the first new ship kit from Academy in quite a while. Interesting that they are going with 1/700 instead of 1/350: https://www.cybermodeler.com/news/academy.shtml

These models coming from Flyhawk are in a different league .The kit is just superb,it comes with everything you need except the the wooden deck which I have bought.The masts are very thin,I,m going with then,to see how they go,but might have to change to bass.Watch J1 this is a small part ,and yes lost it already,however ,were it went, no one will know. . The last photo is to show the detail in this model.I have added nothing.

Hello all, it took me some time to figure out what to do, but I have chosen the 1/700 Tamiya E-Class Destroyer as my subject. I also have the White Ensign photo-etch set for it too, and will hopefully rig it with Caenis thread (if I can see it now!). The obligatory pre-build shots: It looks to be a great kit. It has 2005 stamped on the runners so is quite new. The etch set gives quite a few options for the different ships of the class, and as Tamiya supplied pennant numbers for 9 ships, I will need to check which I have most images for before I choose which one I will do. Looking forward to starting this. One thing I do ask, if you see me doing anything which is wrong, let me know! I am known for misinterpreting plans, photos and instructions! Cheers, Ray

1/700 HMS Sheffield from the Revell kit with WEM etches. Painted with Life Colour and Vallejo. Base is a piece of MDF with DAS clay sea, painted with enamels. Dave

So here are my first ships models ever finished Sunday just past, talk about a steep learning curve! Started with building the Tamiya 1/700 HMS King George V with some etch, metal barrels, 3d models 20mm guns and Pom Poms and a wood deck, but then wanted to display it, enter the display case that was too big for one ship! So then decided to add in a destroyer, which is IBG's 1/700 hunt 2 class HMS Middleton (really like this little kit). Both are fully rigged too, also a first for me, both using different methods (streched sprue on the Hunt and Uschi rigging on the KGV).and have a mixture of 3d printed and etch figures (argh these drive you insane!) Then a sea base was required, another first, using acrylic gel. I did modify HMS Middleton to match pictures that I had seen of her, with the extra part of the mast, but i did make this a little taller than it should be. All in all for a number of firsts I'm pretty happy, sorry that the pictures aren't that great, but hope you like them.

I looked through the list of builds at the start of the chat thread and noticed the Russian navy in it's various forms was massively under-represented. Since I'm a very slow builder with a huge stash of Russian aircraft who hasn't built any kind of floaty thing in 35 years, my mission was obvious. I would have loved to do a pre-WW1 capital ship, maybe something from the Russo-Japanese war but I suspect a lot of them were bought in (I know Vickers Armstrong built a lot of ships and guns for both sides in the factories I could see from my house growing up). So I'm going for this 1980's Destroyer instead, on the basis that is was reasonably cheap and looks simple enough that I might finish it. The box top: The sprues (the top right one is mostly not used for this model); The instructions and modest decal sheet: Wish me luck, I'm about to launch Andy

Hi all: I've built a few ships in 1/700, but I've always had problems with PE parts, namely railings, either I glue them on before I paint it, and it makes paint the thing nearly impossible, or I put them on after and it may mess up the paint. Anyone have any advice on how to work with PE parts in 1/700? Doesn't necessarily have to be railings, can be PE in general. Cause it drives me mad everytime. Any good advice or links are welcomed. Thank you. Also, any tricks to gluing a large piece of PE such as flight deck or sides of superstructures? Cheers Val

I've been working on some fairly challenging (well for me) limited run aircraft kits and happened to see this kit going very cheap (A$ 10) at a local hobby shop while looking for some paint. I figured it might be a good fun quick build while working my way through the tediousness of masking and painting canopies for my Hampden. Not much to it. Straight forward instructions. So a straightforward quick build right out of the box. First a bit of weight in the bottom of the hull. You have an option of having the planes out or in, I went for out. The hull halves fitted well together, and in no time at all I had an alomost complete submarine. The sail at this point is not glued to the main hull. She's an impressive beastie, even in this small scale. So on with the paint. First the underside of the hull, for which I used Italeri Acryl Rust. That's it for today.

A first for me - a ship. My favorite at that! OOB with Tamiya Acrylics and some light weathering with my own mix of pastel dust. Recommend this kit - some bits are a little fiddly but overall a joy! Enjoy! Cheers and Happy New Year! Aiden

Hi All, Bit of a back story to this one. A couple of years ago we were looking through a big tin box full of old photos that belonged to my mum's side of the family - Amongst the many pictures of family was a newspaper cutting from the mid/late 1930's showing four RN sailors on a gangplank disembarking from (If memory serves me right from what was said) HMS Arethusa. "What's with the cutting?" I enquired, "Well," said Mum, "One of those sailors would have been my Uncle Frank. He was the brother of your great uncle Fred." Uncle Fred had married my Nan's sister and we occasionally went over to visit Auntie Aggie and Uncle Fred (as we knew them, none of this great uncle/aunt thing for us back then), who lived in a little village in Northamptonshire when we were kids. "So," Said I "What happened to Uncle Frank then?" Dad pipes up "He was on the Barham" Ah. A bit of a conversation then ensued where Dad said he'd done a bit of research when he was in the navy himself (1959-1967/8). It turned out Frank had been a signalman and that he was one of the 862 lost when the Barham was torpedoed, rolled over and exploded. Dad had spent a couple of hours trying to find Franks name on the memorial at Southsea back in the day. I'm sure you've all seen the newsreel - I used to wince every time I saw it anyway but it takes on an added poignancy for me now. There is now a fair bit of information available on the internet about the Barham such as the HMS Barham Association Website, crew lists, the aformentioned film, details of the cover up/news embargo carried out by HM Government at the time combined with the story of the last prosecution carried out under the Witchcraft Act when a Spirit Medium announced that the Barham had been sunk before the government had announced it. The last item is quite an interesting tale in itself and can be found at http://www.webatomics.com/jason/barhamconspiracy.html There is also a list of all the names on the Southsea Naval Memorial and whereabouts they are located within the memorial, which meant it was only a matter of minutes to find Frank's name when I went to Southsea the other month. As for the kit, it's in 1/700 scale and made by Trumpeter and claimed to be the ship in its 1941 fit - If it isn't could somebody let me know? I picked it up earlier this year and started building it at work during my lunchtimes but hadn't really progressed very far before I paused, realising it'd be a good subject for this GB. Here is where it is at currently - Just under the 25% rule. I've also ordered a set of etch from Starling Models and might even get some replacement 15" barrels as the kit ones aren't very good. More to follow in the next few days hopefully. IanJ

Hi peeps, Here's my latest completion; Hasegawa's new tool 1/700 light cruiser Tenryu in it's late 1942 configuration. As is normal for my IJN builds no PE has been used. Paint is Humbrol 27 for the dark grey, Humbrol 160 for the waterline red brown with Sovereign Colourcoats IJN Linoleum for the ship's decks and IJN Deck Tan for the boat decks. Some minor rusting on the hull sides has been added using Humbrol 113. All in all this is a very nice little kit which builds up quite easily though a touch of filler is needed around the steel deck area on the bow. Mike.

Hi all, Just finished this ship, though still working on the planes. I usually do planes, but thought i'd give Japanese aircraft carriers a go. I was kinda drawn to their rather colourful decks of stripes etc. I was initially looking for a good Shokaku model, but couldn't find one for a reasonable price in Australia. But then Fujimi came out with this release of the Zuikaku 1941 earlier this year. I painted the main white stripe markings and the red/white stripes. A misalignment resulted in the middle white stripe ending up slightly off center at the front of the deck. I only used decals for the diagonal lines at the front of the deck, the circle towards the after and the name symbol. Thoughts: - relatively simple to construct. - hate dealing with the tiny pieces. I've broken the side antennas so many times. Broken the hooks under the stern of the deck and had to recreate one of the 3 anchors - I'm trying to use PE parts for the 1/700 planes for their canopy frames, which is very tedious, Definitely won't be finishing them anytime soon. - I was hoping fujimi would also have released wooden deck detail parts, but didn't see any and don't want to pay the ridiculous prices for the ones on ebay. - Having seen the older Tamiya version, I think the Fujimi is the better of the two. slightly better details. I wanted to have one of the middle elevators lowered and put a B5N2 kate on top. I chose the middle elevator and cut out a thin plastic sheet so it can sit at the bottom of the hangar tub. The original elevator wouldn't fit without sanding and was too thick. I also made the elevator sheet a tiny bit smaller so it can fall out if I turn the ship upside down. This way, I have the option to have it displayed raised or lowered just by swapping out the pieces. Paint: I used Tamiya IJN Gray (Kure Arsenal) for the hull and Wooden Deck tan. I thought the gray looked a bit too dark, so gave it a very light coat of white to lighten it up. Anyway, thought i'd share my pics

Hi everyone, here's my latest completion for 2016, Aoshima's Kiyokawa Maru in 1/700. From Wikipedia: Kiyokawa Maru's Tabular-Record-Of-Movement from combinedfleet.com: LINK. The model is built strictly Out-Of-the-Box and painted using a mix of Humbrol, Xtracolor and Sovereign Colourcoats enamels. The airgroup consists of four Mitsubishi F1M "Pete" and two Aichi E13A "Jake" seaplanes, one of which has it's wings folded. Comments feedback welcome! Mike.

Pictures of my recently completed model of HMAS Launceston, a Royal Australian Navy Armidale Class Patrol Boat. The model is 1:700 scale a straight out of the box build of the Dodo Models kit with minor enhancements for rigging and antennae. A detailed build log can be found here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234999281-dodo-models-1700-royal-australian-navy-armidale-class-patrol-boat/ and pictures: I hope you enjoy.

Here are some pictures of my model of HMCS Goose Bay, a Royal Canadian Navy Kingston Class Mine and Coastal Defence Vessel MCDV which I have recently completed. The model is 1:700 scale a straight out of the box build of the Dodo Models kit with minor enhancements for rigging and signal flags. A detailed build log can be found here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234996793-dodo-models-1700-canadian-navy-kingston-class-mcdv/ and pictures: I hope you enjoy.

The latest from the innovative South Korean company Infini Model has arrived in the UK. The sets include the thinnest wooden decks ever made, at 0.1mm thick using materials and techniques developed by Infini Model for small scale ship models. Also included is a set of turned brass masts to replace what are usually overly thick and chunky looking injection moulded items in 1/700 scale. They come with a small sheet of photo etched brass containing the essentials for using the headline parts, which includes replacement breakwaters and so on. A nice touch is the inclusion of extremely fine anchor chain to replace the grossly over-scale moulded on representations found on most kit parts. As per usual with Infini Model, a nice set of full colour illustrated instructions has come to be expected and they do not disappoint. Get 'em while they're hot: https://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk/collections/1-700

Model making has been on hold whilst I conducted some detailed research in to Storm Grey for my next project. This required me to make a visit to Australia……, well not quite, model making has been on hold and I didn’t go down under for the purposes of research. My work required me to go away to New Zealand, where I have been for the last couple of weeks (hence no model making). Anyway on the way back to the UK I managed to stop off in Sydney. And as might be expected I took the opportunity to look at the RAN ships alongside at Garden Island and the Attack Class patrol boat preserved at the National Maritime Museum. Before I went away I had decided that my next project in my stash reduction exercise would be the Dodo Models Armidale Class Patrol Boat kit which I had ordered from E-bay: http://www.dodo-models.com/ Unfortunately there wasn’t an Armidale Class Patrol Boat alongside in Garden Island as I had hoped but I did get to see Storm Grey close up which turned out to be very valuable because photographic references on the internet can be very deceptive. Going back to the model kit, as with the RCN Kingston Class MCDV the Dodo Models Armidale is very comprehensive and highly detailed considering the scale of 1:700. The photo etching is finer and much more delicate for the Armidale which worries me slightly but if done well it will mean the final model will look good. The following photos show the model kit components: Detail of build progress to follow soon.

This is a procrastination project whilst I sum up the courage to make the PE for my model of HMS Somerset. It is also stage 1 in a stash reduction exercise and a refresher for working with resin, something which I have not done for a long time and want to be comfortable with before I build my Christmas present. The starting point for this is the Dodo Models kit which I ordered from E-bay: http://www.dodo-models.com/ and this is a photograph of the real thing; and links to the Royal Canadian Navy website: http://www.navy-marine.forces.gc.ca/en/fleet-units/mcdv-home.page There is even a paper model: http://www.navy-marine.forces.gc.ca/en/navy-life/youth-paper-models.page Going back to the Dodo Model, the kit is very comprehensive and highly detailed considering the scale of 1:700. This is going to be an entirely out of the box build (with probably one or two minor enhancements) which hopefully won’t take too long for me to do. The following photos show the model kit components: This is a 1:700 scale model so some of the parts are incredible small and it will be a challenge not to lose items to tweezer ping and the dreaded carpet monster. Update of progress to follow shortly:

My first new build for the year and my first build on this forum. I haven't built a ship in ages - so this group build coincided nicely with one of the few ships in my stash. I'll be building pretty much OOB, though some photo-etch railing have been ordered for it - never tried those before so it will be a leaning experience too

A new Topic here on BerndM.Modellbau. New releases and sold out kits, back in stock: The new Guardian kits 1/48 from Special hobby will be in stock at March 2015, the kits can be pre ordered. Link to item http://www.berndmm.de/en/special-hobby-af-2w-guardian-submarine-hunter-sh48.html http://www.berndmm.de/en/special-hobby-af-2s-guardian-submarine-killer-sh48.html For the Spifire fans is a new PE set from Eduard in stock for the Airfix Spitfire Mk.Vb ( new mould) Link to item: http://www.berndmm.de/en/eduard-accessories-spitfire-vb-interior-sa-fe695-1.html Back in stock, is the Trumpeter Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-2 trop in 1/32 scale Link to item: http://www.berndmm.de/en/trumpeter-flugzeugmodelle-1-32-bf-109-g-2-trop-1-3.html Airfix Folland Gnat T.1 1/48 http://www.berndmm.de/en/airfix-gnat-1-48.html Airfix EE Lightning F.6 1/72 http://www.berndmm.de/en/airfix-english-electric-lightning-f6-a05042-1-72.html 06.02.14 Update: New in Stock is: Trumpeters Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 ( late ) 1/32 http://www.berndmm.de/en/trumpeter-flugzeugmodelle-1-32-bf-109-g-6-llate-1.html Airfix Dornier Do 17Z 1/72 http://www.berndmm.de/en/airfix-bristol-blenheim-mkv-fighter-a04017-1-72.html Thank you very much Bernd BerndM.Modellbau

We've got one each of the following Trumpeter 1/700 Battleship kits at further reduced prices! HMS Queen Elizabeth (1941) £21.96 USS Maryland (1945) £22.98 USS West Virginia (1945) £26.40 USS California (1945) £21.00 Also the USS Tennessee is still only £21.96! First come first served on these! http://www.mjwmodels.co.uk/trumpeter-1700--kits-286-c.asp thanks Mike