Tamiya E-Class Destroyer +++FINISHED+++

[Ray S]

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

[nimrod54]

I really like to see a nicely detailed maritime model, so I looking forward to watching this come together Ray. Who knows, it may inspire me to have a go at building one sometime.

 

Good luck.

[Joss]

Looks good I shall be following this one with interest!!

Joss

 

[Col.]

Wow! The kit itself has plenty small parts but that etch fret must contain some tiny bits! 

[Ray S]

Hello all! What a great selection of subjects in this Group Build already!

 

I have now started mine, so it is time for the update. I have not decided which E-Class Destroyer I am going to represent as I have had great difficulty getting detailed images of any, so I will be doing my best, and if the White Ensign instructions state 'Some of the Class had...' I will probably leave the item off.

 

First up is the removal of some details. The Aztec steps at the deck level break and the TSDS Stern Gantry at the aft end of the ship. These cut away easily with a scalpel and a curved blade followed by a quick swipe of a sanding stick (as they say in the magazines)

 

 

 

I then played with some glue and stuck the hull halves together. Detail here was nice and crisp, but it does look like there is some funny marks aft of each scuttle. I am not sure if it is my eyes playing tricks. I will find out when I prime it later. The only joint that needs sorting is where there is an interlocking section at the bow

 

 

A little smear of Perfect Plastic Putty has solved that one. The hull halves have a spacer inserted between them to ensure the correct breadth, otherwise the halves are quite flexible. Good thinking, Tamiya!

 

 

 

Just dry fitted together, all the joints between the baseplate and hull, and hull to deck look good so far. I might be able to get away with painting the baseplate black and gluing it afterwards rather than having to mask it off.

 

I next removed all the moulded doors and vertical ladders from the bridge superstructure and replaced them with photo etch. There appears to be another hatch aft, but I do not have any of those in etch, so they stay as is. They were attached carefully by using CA, and picking up the etch on the end of a damp toothpick to position them properly. Remembering not to stick tongue (the dampener) to the superglue ridden toothpick...

 

 

The final job for today was to remove the two plastic outside forward gun shield supports and replace them with etch - this time using fine tweezers to hold them vertical until the CA set. Why does that seem to take forever (unless of course you put them in the wrong place in which case bonding is immediate)? I think I will need to revisit one or two of those!

 

 

 

That is it for now, but please let me know if I am doing something wrong!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Ray

Edited May 24, 2017 by Ray S
Tidy up the post

[Ray S]

Hello all. I have found a series of image for one of the E-Class Destroyers, and have decided to make this to represent H17 HMS Escapade. She was one of only 3 E-Class destroyers that survived the war, and was sold to be broken up for scrap in 1946. Some of the images showed that she had received great damage at times.

 

Anyway, I have been able to get a bit more construction done.

 

 

First though, I mentioned previously about some funny marks near to the scuttles. In the above photo, I think you should be able to see what I meant. It is not too obtrusive, but they are there. It would be awkward to remove, so I have left them, and hopefully the primer later will help.

 

The rear gun house was supplied as a 'blank canvas'. I.e. had no sidewall detail. The box illustration and instructions showed that there was a hatch/door, and four scuttles on the side, so a couple of WEM doors were fitted and scuttles drilled with a .4mm drill. These looked to be a bit bigger than the scuttles on the bridge superstucture that had been moulded in, so I drilled them too for consistancy.

 

 

 

For some reason I cannot fathom, I took the photo from this side rather than the other where one scuttle had been drilled out too low. Some perfect Plastic Putty and a wipe with a damp cotton bud soon sorted that, then the hole was re-drilled correctly.

 

I ended up needing to revisit one of the ladders. Twice it has come off now, and I also had to refit one of the gun shield supports too. I have added another couple of plastic parts to the bridge superstructure, and used one of my reference images to fit a few Splinter shields around the bridge. The images I have come from different time frames (but the pennant H17 is visible in these) and the bridge looks different in two photographs. I have tried to use the details from both, so this may not really be correct. I have to admit I am not sure if splinter shields were easily added and removed if and when required. The White Ensign splinter shields came as 5 relatively long blocks, but the picture showed 2 'x's where the shields were, so I trimmed off 6 lots of 2 x's and fitted them where they showed in the reference pic:-

 

http://www.maritimequest.com/misc_pages/claude_marfleet_collection_page_2.htm

 

 

 

There are quite a few details on the side of the bridge are not moulded onto the kit parts, especially the rounded extensions aft, but the kit looks more like this version, but has no splinter shields:-

 

http://www.directart.co.uk/bmall/images/mpl1923.jpg

 

The fit of this kit so far is excellent, I have dry fitted the superstructures I have been working on so far and they fit perfectly, so I intend to get them built up completely then spray primer on before brush painting them. This should hopefully get rid of my perennial problem of being unable to paint etch properly by brush, the brass always showing through no matter how often I repainted. Over the weekend I want to make up the four gun shields from the etch parts, and I want to try to solder them for strength, but safe in the knowledge that I have the plastic parts as a back up.

 

That is all for now, thanks for looking,

 

Ray

[Ray S]

Hello again. I have now been able to make up the gun shields. I was going to try and solder them, but I found that they were rather too small for me to attempt, so I used thin CA to secure them. I found it very fiddly to get the shields onto the plastic guns themselves, but finally managed, and glued them with Glu'n'Glaze (to hold them in place) and then CA to finally fix them. There is quite an improvement over the plastic parts.

 

 

If I thought they were fiddly, what came next put that in perspective - the depth charge rails! These needed folding into a squared off 'U' section, and then a base plate needed a slight bend in it and then had to be fitted into the 'U'. The gap available was only just slightly larger than my smallest pair of tweezers which I needed to use to hold the part, so It took some doing, but again Glu'n'Glaze came to the rescue allowing me to get the part in roughly the right area and holding it while I readjusted the hold to fit it properly. This was then fitted to the stern.

 

 

There is more etch which needs to fit over this (the TSDS Stern Gantry). I have left this off just now until I have got the deck and fittings sprayed as I do not want the depth charge rails to still be brass coloured if the spray does not reach with the gantry in place.

 

I have also fitted a section of railing at the rear of the bridge superstucture where the foremast emerges. My plan is to have this as an area where I can attach the halyards later on, they should hopefully make it a bit easier to secure them using the rails. I was hoping to have fitted the railing on the main deck level, but a dry fit of the forward funnel showed there would be no room to do that.

 

 

 

Do not panic about the deck fitting - it is only dry fitted at the moment! I have decided to only fit railings on the forward gun platform rather than the splinter shields. My reference images show sheilds were sometimes fitted and sometimes not.

 

That is it for now, thanks for looking,

 

all the best,

 

Ray

[Hockeyboy76]

Looking good Ray. I thought my etch in 1/72 was fiddly!!

[Col.]

There's a lot of detail in that small space 

[beefy66]

Great work with the PE there Ray love the details but 700 is so small for my eyes. 

 

beefy

[Hewy]

 Blimey That pe work's a bit good, very nice

Glynn

[Jb65rams]

great work, you are a braver man than me tackling that etch. Got some for a 1/350 ship at that looks daunting enough.

[Ray S]

Hello all! Thanks to all for the very kind comments. I have to admit my eyesight is not quite what it was, and I am struggling a bit with the etch work on this, but as I have many even smaller kits with etch I have to get on with it! I am not giving in so easily, I promise!

 

An example of my faulty eyesight appeared when I was painting up the gun assemblies: I thought it was odd that the fourth one I painted looked a bit different to the other three - I had only fitted the gunshield wrong so two miniscule lumps were at the bottom instead of at the rear of the shield. Thankfully I was able to disengage the shield from the gun, twist the shield round the barrel and line it up correctly. Now no one will ever know!

 

I managed to get the stern gantry piece over the depth charge rails - that went a lot easier than I had anticipated. I sprayed that rapidly after fitting it, and thankfully that worked well - I had been concerned that brass may still have showed if I had fitted that at the same time as I had fitted the rails, but doing the original fit, spray then later fit and spray solved that. I then started painting the ship properly. I used Colourcoats paints, Old WEM RN03 Admiralty Light Grey, RN04 MS1 Dark Blue/Black (for the decks) and C02 Black for the boot topping. They brush painted well for the most part, but I think I may need to get some thinners for it, the paints seem to dry quite quickly on the brush, a bit like acrylics. I only needed a couple of coats to get good coverage.

 

 

 

Painting the superstructure was awkward with having fitted the railings, but it was so much easier than fitting them later and having to try and cover the brass then, so I am glad I fitted them then sprayed the lot with Tamiya primer first. The lighter colours on the gun mount area were painted over the Blue/Black and still needed only the two coats! One really great thing about this kit is the fit - I have been able to paint this before gluing the hull, deck and baseplate together. This has saved tedious masking, especially for the hull sides and deck colours and gives a nice, crisp delineation of the paints, so these are still just dry fitted.

 

 

 

The only thing about going back to Colourcoats is the longer drying times on the model compared to acrylics, but I am so happy with the way these paints work and look, a big 'thumbs up' to Colourcoats for their paints!

 

I did have one other small hitch (keep it secret) - I found that when I painted the etch I had fitted to accept the halyards later, I accidentally created a meniscus which filled the gaps in the etch and would have prevented the thread going through. Thankfully, a sharp scalpel and a steady hand allowed me to punch out the recalcitrant paint and I can now use this sideways ladder as intended! Phew!

 

Anyway, thanks for looking and reading this, and for the comments,

 

All the best,

 

Ray

Edited June 5, 2017 by Ray S
Tidy up the post

[nimrod54]

Nice work with the etch details Ray. The parts that you have added so far have made a big improvement.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

This is really nice work Ray

[Bugle07]

Really fine work with the etch and with the improvements your making.

 

 

Can't wait to see more!

 

Geoff 

[Ray S]

Deleted - duplicate post I accidentally posted an update twice even though I hit submit only once!

 

Ray

Edited June 11, 2017 by Ray S
remove unwanted text

[Ray S]

Hello all, thank you for the great comments, they are really appreciated!

 

I have been doing loads of small bits to the ship over the last few days, but the biggest thing I did was to make the masts from brass rod, and attempt to solder the yardarms. This was my second attempt at doing something like this, so I am still learning. First attempt:

 

 

I cut out the yardarms to the correct size, then fixed the mast to a ceramic tile with blue-tack, then fitted the yards with more, soldered them and ended up with a somewhat asymmetrical mast! Whoops! I tried to figure out how to fix such short pieces of brass to a mast securely, but the upper yard was only 4mm long so there was not too much 'sticking' room. Luckily I had an awful night's sleep following this debacle, and at 2.30am I had a brainwave:

 

 

Make the yards too big then trim them! It worked, and I had a good mast with two well attached yards. I then trimmed the top yard, and ended up with a skew-wiff result again. I found then I could use my side-cutters to quickly remove the top yard, and resoldered another yardarm, and this time I marked on the trim points:

 

 

This worked much better, then it was out with two or three needle files to clean up the solder joints and all was well. In comparison to the plastic parts I think it is a bit chunkier than they are, but will be a lot stronger for when I rig the ship.

 

I also fitted the railings to the aft gun platform, this has now been painted up and is awaiting final fitting. I think I managed to get the railing curves a bit better than on the front platform.

 

 

I have put the H17 pennant numbers on, so she is now officially HMS Escapade. They went on reasonably well, but there are some prominent ridges on the hull sides where they fit, so I used plenty of Micro Set and Sol to settle them down. Today I finally did some major gluing, and now the hull, deck and baseplate are fitted, and as per the dry fits, they went together well. I fitted the bridge superstructure, and used CA gel to fit the mast. I had wondered whether to use the plastic or my home made brass version, but decided on the stronger one, brass. I need to practice filing down tapers an masts a bit, but this is the best I have produced so far (but can do better).  I have also started work on the funnels, filing away the plastic funnel caps and replacing with brass. They are just dry fitted in the next photographs (as are the torpedo tubes and aft gun platform), but yet again they just click into place.

 

 

 

I had a bit of a practice for the rigging too, and have a plan. I will be using Caenis fly-tying thread for the rigging. It is really fine stuff and just on the limits of what I can see. I tied a test loop around one of my test mast pieces, and used Gum Arabic to glue it to the yard. It worked really well, and dried so I could not see where I had applied it. I think David Griffith suggests it in his book 'Ship Models from Kits', and it works a treat. I also tried threading it through the railings at the top of the mast platform, and I found that I could, so it looks like I will be able to get this rigged ok.

 

Well enough waffle, back to modelling!

 

Thanks for looking and the comments,

 

Ray

Edited June 11, 2017 by Ray S
Tidy up the post

[Hewy]

Really nice ray ,i like it 

Glynn

[Col.]

This one is going great and you're sharing some useful tips that apply to more than the ship modelers alone among us Ray 

[Ray S]

On 6/11/2017 at 5:33 PM, Hewy said:

Really nice ray ,i like it 

Glynn

 Thanks Glynn!

 

14 hours ago, Col. said:

This one is going great and you're sharing some useful tips that apply to more than the ship modelers alone among us Ray 

 

Cheers Col for that! I have learnt so much from Britmodeller it is great to know I can pass some of that on to others too!

 

One thing I did need for my next stage in this project was patience! Oh, and a lack of expletive deleted vocabulary was a bit of a sore point for me too, as all I could think of to say was 'OOPS' quite a few times. The rigging...

 

I had decided to use the Caenis thread. I have successfully used this in the past, but my eyesight has got worse since then, so I have struggled a bit this time. The halyards are many, and appear on both upper and lower yardarms of Escapade, but I have limited my numbers considerably. I found that when I wanted to loop the thread to start off creating knots, the thread would never twist the way I wanted, and I could also not see whether I had put the end of the thread through the loop or not.

 

I initially threaded some of the line through the railings at the lower end of the mast, tied a half-knot and covered it with Gum Arabic, and then let it set for five minutes. Next, I took the line up to the yard, wrapped it round the yard and led the excess off to the bow and sliced it into a lump of blue-tack that was on the bow, then covered the thread with GA on the yard and let it set. I did this port and starboard for one thread each side, then trimmed away the excess, only to find that the thread came loose back at the railings. Repeat. One good this about Gum Arabic is that it does not seem to be visible, but I decided that it was now also a bad thing! Another good thing is that you can peel off something that went wrong quite easily.

 

I redid the rigging and applied a bit more GA and tried to ensure it was all around the thread and the yards/railings:

 

 

 

This seemed to be going much better, but shortly after, I found another thread had loosened, so had to do it all again. Anyway, this time I decided I would reinforce the thread windings with thin CA, and this time they stayed in place. Huge sigh of relief all round from me. I used a fresh razor blade to trim the excess thread away, but I needed to be careful that I did not slice too close to the railings or yards, and I suspect that is what caused my initial issues with the thread coming undone.

 

Here is my toolkit for rigging:

 

 

In no particular order (except one):- Caenis thread (swap for EZ-Line if rigging biplanes), Gum Arabic, Blue-tack, two pairs of tweezers (one very fine pointed and one a bit blunter), scissors, fine paintbrush and water to clean same, a razor blade and finally, magnifiers. This was taken before I realised the thin CA would be a good addition too. I also made sure I moved from my model room to the front room where I got much better natural daylight so I could actually see.

 

I ended up putting one halyard each side for the lower yardarm and two for the upper. One limiting factor was that the holes in the railings which I had originally decided to used to attach the rigging to had become clogged with firstly paint and secondly the CA. Next time I will probably try and used a wider gap railing than I did this time. My learning lesson from this project!

 

Well that is it for now, I am just off to prime the rest of the photoetch so I can carry on with the model!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Ray

[Ray S]

Hello again, this is rare, two updates in one day!

 

I sprayed the etch with Tamiya Primer, let it dry a bit then got on with my work. First though, I had a look at the aft gun platform and I thought I found it wanting. I must have sprayed it too heavily because when I looked closely, spray had 'pooled' at the junctions of horizontal and vertical bars on the railings, and gave a really odd effect. I have to admit I did not feel like taking the railing off and trying again, so I thought I would modify them to have canvas dodgers on them. Out came the Glue-N-Glaze, and I spread some over the opening in the rails. FAILURE. It did not produce a meniscus smear. Then I remembered that you needed to dilute the GNG so I popped a cocktail stick into some water and just that little bit was enough to thin the GNG and it then produced a nice covering over the rails. I put this on the outside of the railings, that way you can still see the inside detail and when painted they look slightly translucent, just as if they are canvas. I painted them with a different shade of grey, this time Humbrol 64 acrylic. The Glue'N'Glaze seems to shrink slightly as it dries, and gives the impression of canvas stretched over the railing structure. (If you look closely you can see the 'pooling' in the top row of the railings - they look like little squares).

 

 

I then fitted the replacement steps up to the forecastle from the etch sheet, they folded easily enough and were fitted with GNG again (wonderful stuff this is for fitting small pieces of etch - it has some strength but crucially give 'wriggle' time) and was then hopefully permanently fixed with this CA applied with some fishing line held in self-closing tweezers. There was also a really small bit fitted to the front of the bridge, the DF antenna. It is touch and go whether this stays or not as it has a minisule attachment point. Thankfully not all ships were fitted with it, and my references show Escapade both with and without. I suspect I may have fitted it too soon, but I will find out later!

 

 

 

That is definitely it for today now, but hopefully I can crack on again tomorrow sometime. Cheers for dropping in,

 

Ray

Edited June 13, 2017 by Ray S
Added extra info!

[Ray S]

Hello all!

 

Forward planning is not a strong point of mine. No matter how much I look at instructions, something always passes me by, especially when using etch upgrades. I would have thought I had learnt by now, but no. Anyway, yesterday I was looking at fitting the ships davits, and I noticed something was amiss:

 

 

The kit parts had a slot to fit into, and the etch parts rested on their two legs. I should have filled the slots before painting. Hopefully this is this kits boo-boo out of they way. I usually use Perfect Plastic Putty as it can be easily wiped off with a damp cotton bud, but I have found it can affect the paintwork, and I did not want to repaint the deck, so I used good old Glue'N'Glaze again. Yet another of its great properties is that it can fill gaps like these quite easily (slightly diluted again) and was able to be wiped off the paintwork with the damp cotton bud, and led to easy retouching of the paintwork. It did leave a slight indent which was good (if inaccurate) as it also showed me where to fit the etch davits later! The davits were easily made up, they consisted of two halves which fold together to give a slightly thicker component, and I secured the two halves together with the GNG, then clamped them in self locking tweezers for an hour or so, then fitted them to the deck with CA Gel, which worked quite nicely. I am beginning to like the gel, it seems to work more consistently than the liquid CA for me.

 

I also started work on the ships fleet of life boats:

 

 

As you can see, they are quite big(!). I had thwarts on the etch fret, and they were fitted with the GNG, and then painted with Humbrol 110 wood brown. There are five oars to fit and a rudder on each boat. I decided to fit the smallest boat to the deck, and then I will try to fit the oars afterwards. I have heard that the rudders were detached and laid into the lifeboats, does anyone know for sure? I cannot see them on reference pics. I have also got the aft funnel platform fitted, although I still need to attach the two sirens. I have also fitted the funnels, midship gun platform and the aft gun platform properly now, so Escapade is getting nearer the finish line now. Here is where I am at now:

 

 

 

Hopefully I will be able to do some more over the weekend, what with all the sun and warmth forecast. I can use my hayfever as an excuse to stay indoors!

 

Thanks for looking, all the best,

 

Ray

Edited June 16, 2017 by Ray S
Tidy up the post

[nimrod54]

Great recovery Ray and that's a handy tip with the Glue 'n' Glaze, she's coming along really well.

 

Enjoy your time indoors over the weekend, hopefully you will get some more done. I have been informed that we are up early on Sunday and off out to scatter Roxy's ashes along our favourite walk with her. Then in the afternoon / evening it's BBQ time, guess who's cooking!  I thought it was Fathers Day, silly me.

 

[Ray S]

Duplicated post again, don't know what happened again!

 

Sorry,

 

Ray thecomputerilliterate

Edited June 17, 2017 by Ray S
remove unwanted text