Will Vale

Thanks again - I've not heard the blowing tip before, and I have seen the foaming (and just hoped it would go away) so I'll definitely give that a go. I've got the decals on now (straight onto the polished surface) which seems to be going fine. The Bandai carrier film is thickish so they'll definitely need a gloss coat to help the edges.

Having painted and polished the front plate was the ideal time to decide the moulded-on handrails and little bit of rope (?) between the front lift rings needed to be removed. Bye-bye shiny paint. Luckily the Bandai plastic sands really well. I've repainted and re-polished the part and installed the handrails, which are a bit over-scale at 0.45mm but at least they won't bend easily. I have some 0.3mm wire which would be better but it's brass not nickel-silver and I thought the shine was important. If you go this route as well, don't do like I did and drill the handrail end points using the Bandai moulded rails as guides - they're in the wrong place. The rails should start in the middle of the moulded area and run up to the corner rivet. I decided to live with it since I only noticed after painting and polishing again, and this was supposed to be a quick fun build. Ha, that turned out well. I guess one out of two (fun) isn't bad. [edit: Found another photo showing the handrails in the position I've modelled. So you can choose! Score :D] I also drilled out the various lifting eye/tie downs and realised that one of the nicely-moulded ones on the front had broken off or perhaps been mis-moulded. Probably the former. I made a somewhat rustic replacement from styrene strip, it should look OK when painted. Will

If you're prepared to try acrylics and want to paint small parts, the Games Workshop foundation paints brush very well and have a very high pigment content so they (mostly) cover in one coat. Not a huge range of colours and they tend to be somewhat desaturated (I suspect some of the opacity comes from neutral-coloured filler) but I haven't found that to be an issue. They're on the cusp of changing their range, I think the same thing in the new range is called "basecoat". Their normal colour paints aren't bad either but most will need more than one coat to cover. The brown, green, red here are one coat of the foundations each (the green is a mix, the red is as-supplied, and the brown has been drybrushed with another brown). I painted this in a hurry straight from the pot and it still levelled well. If you find your acrylics drying out, a wet palette is supposed to be good although I haven't tried it. Oddly, I remember having good luck brushing Tamiya acrylics a few years ago but I can't reproduce the results now and always botch it. Possibly the GW paints have made my technique lazy? Will

For a moment I was thinking that a B1-B would be pretty huge in 1/17th scale... A figure makes a lot more sense I was very taken with various period figure photos from Euromilitaire, all the uniform detail can look amazing. I look forward to seeing how one of these things actually goes together and gets painted. Cheers, Will

Really nice, it looks so crisp and solid and, well, real. The photography is great is well. Will

I guess I'll give it a shot then, starting on something inconspicuous. I really don't want to end up with brush marks! Thanks!

Hi all, I'm working on a submersible with a shiny surface on which I need to apply decals. I've sprayed Tamiya gloss white from a can, wet sanded with 2000 grit and polished the surface to a hard gloss with Tamiya compounds (fine + finish), and it looks great. The decals are from Bandai who I have no experience with but they look fine on the sheet. There aren't any compound curves involved either. The problem is that I normally decal using Microset/sol and a Klear coat over, and then a matt coat over that, I've never wanted to end up with a gloss surface before. So... * If I apply Klear over all my hard work, will I have to re-polish the surface afterwards? (I'd be brushing it on if I use it.) * Will Klear react with the Tamiya compound? * Can I apply the decal and polish it directly (with the very fine "finish" compound)? I saw mention of this for doing car decals on another forum but it was the barest mention and it sounds a bit risky. * Are there any other good ways to approach this? Thanks in advance! Will

Had a good run at it today - fine weather at last so I've sprayed the plating and fins. Then sanded out the dust, then sprayed it again. Then repeated and finally polished with 2000 grit paper and Tamiya compound (fine and finish). It's not a perfect finish but I'm delighted with it, best I've done yet. I think I could do better if I was braver with my wet coats - i.e. if I let more paint onto the surface at once. The Tamiya compound is new to me but it seems to work very well - I never really understood what car modellers saw in their shiny vehicles, now I get it: polishing is extremely gratifying. It might not be obvious from the pic but I did fill and sand the four large sink marks in each of the two rear side sections (the big ones). I used Tamiya liquid putty (liquid surface filler?) and it was a great experience - easy to apply, dried quickly, and sanded well. "What have you done today dear?" "I polished my submarine!" "Realllyyy?" :D Will

This diorama is awesome: http://hyperscale.com/2007/features/typeviicuboatak_1.htm

Great stuff, I hadn't found that one! It makes sense of some other pictures I've seen where the baskets appeared to be unlined since it looks like they add it when they need it. I think the base is a ridged metal mesh so lots of variety. Unfortunately it looks even more like I should bite the bullet and open out the sides... On the subject of prototype images, this Google search might help. It's the Japanese name, with images bigger than 800x600. One thing to watch for is that there are a lot of pictures of the full size museum model which is not particularly accurate in detail. If the picture looks moodily lit and/or very clean then be suspicious. I take it you ordered one? Thanks Shar2, the Bandai kit mostly breaks down by panel lines around the non-skid shape and the rest was a simple masking job. Tamiya light sand (TS-46) is a reasonable colour match if a little dark, and gives a nice contrast in shine. It looks from the pic like I need to dirty it up quite a bit though. Will

Not a very exciting update (no pictures) but while waiting for favourable spraying weather I've cut out the triangular panels at the base of one of the sample baskets. Took a new Swann-Morton blade and quite a long time, but it does add something. I really ought to open the sides as well but I think it would then fall to pieces. Next step is to look for some suitable mesh and psych myself up to do the smaller basket. Annoyingly, the open sides are more noticeable than the open base in pictures. Grr. Will

I've been using that for a little while and I'm in two minds about it. It's really neat and easy to apply (brush on) and water clean-up, but it's softer than styrene when dry, so it's way too easy to sand it away to nothing

It's interesting listening to some of the pro/anti GW spin on the miniature wargaming sites. I'll have to go and get some of the new ones and have a play - the "dry" paints sound really interesting, and if the basecoats are a development of the existing foundation paints that can only be a good thing. I hope there's still an equivalent for Dheneb Stone, it's the most amazing base colour for weathered concrete: Will

Excellent scheme, I love the white and green together.

That's beautiful! I didn't think I liked the Albatross but I reckon you've changed my mind.

It's a neat-looking thing isn't it? Reminds me a bit of The Matrix... In other news, I finally found a top view of the real thing: http://nantroseize.com/kabe_images/Shinkai4xga.JPG Unless the shape of the orange bit has changed over time (not unthinkable) the Hasegawa kit is much more accurate there. I don't think I'm going to worry about that too much, but I am going to use the pic to help weather the (I assume) brown non-skid coating on top. Will

Ooh, I didn't realise that they were doing two. I must admit I assumed you meant the Bandai one. Exciting news indeed!! I got it from HLJ - I'm in NZ so even with postage they're usually cheaper than the local options. It's not showing as in stock any more but I guess you could back order it. It's still in stock at Hobby Search but a bit more expensive: http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10163533 Batteries included! :D W

Spooky, I had just left a comment on your review before I saw this. There are some interesting differences between the two - the Hasegawa kit has raised fasteners whereas the Bandai ones are sunken, and the shapes of the orange sonar dome / access tunnel are different. I'm in two minds about the fasteners - some of them are raised and some are sunken on the real sub. I think Hasegawa's take on the sonar dome is more accurate but it's very hard to tell since I haven't found a top view on the internet and perspective gets in the way. I think that's a good idea. I looked at the baskets too and while the shape is pretty good on the Bandai kit (they seem to be made of flat strips) I think they're lined with some kind of fine mesh on the real thing. It's a pity they're single piece mouldings, it makes it harder to drill/cut out the panels, but it could be done. I guess if I try it and fail it would be possible to scratchbuild some replacements. This pic definitely shows something translucent: http://www.mpi-bremen.de/Binaries/Binary44...nkai%206500.jpg That ROV (I assume) would make a cool load Will

That's looking great. Wildly different to conventional (well, real) helicopters. It's a while since I've seen the movie, does the gun pod swivel forwards like a hornet's abdomen/stinger?

Thanks Christof! It's strange - the sub was built in '89 (and launched in '90?) but this year it's the subject of two plastic kits and a nice Lego set as well.

That's magnificent - so crisp, and brought to life by the subtle weathering.

Nice review, it appears to compare well to Bandai's 1/48 version despite the smaller scale. Hasegawa have also got the raised fasteners on the cowlings right, on the Bandai one they're sunken. The orange sonar "dome" is also a different shape - parallel sided in the larger kit. I can't find a definitive top view on the internet but it looks like Hasegawa did better here as well. I'm building the Bandai one here if you're interested - there's a link in the first post to a good (Japanese-language) Youtube documentary about the Shinkai which has some useful reference for colour and detail. Cheers, Will

I realised I forgot to photograph the viewports I did at the weekend, plus last night I cleaned up the manipulator parts and sample trays so I could dry-fit them. I think they'll need to be primed and painted in detail, plus the camera turrets and lights would benefit from wiring. This gives an idea of the overall shape too - there's a nice big fin and prop assembly to go on the back which are awaiting paint. By the way, I hope this is OK for maritime? It is a sea-going vehicle, but it's a submersible not a submarine, and in an odd scale to boot. Let me know if I should be posting elsewhere. Cheers, Will [edit: fixed broken image]

Those eyes are fantastic!

I managed to do bit more on the cockpit at the weekend, mainly weathering and final assembly. I got distracted by some light relief in the form of a Bandai submersible. That actually helped since it put in me a modelling frame of mind and I came back and weathered the cockpit parts last night. So here's where things are at the moment: I haven't made the sight or the gunner's MGs yet, I thought they would be fragile so I was going to add them much later on. The instrument panel is from the etch, with glass from a layer of OHP film (this looks way better than the Klear I used on the side panel dials). It was tricky to get it to stick using CA but it seems to be OK now that it's together. I used Peco track pins for the knobs in the lower corners after losing some Eduard parts. They're still flat, but they show a better curvature than the Eduard ones, so I'm pretty happy with that. Once it was dry I repainted all the glossy blue-grey areas with the more neutral colour I picked as the RLM-66. I also added the glazing for the bomb sight and ammo box windows. The floor is weathered with acrylic paint stippled on, plus some final MIG dark wash for shading. This ran into the paint a bit but I don't mind because the exaggerated definition helps when the thing is closed up. As you can see, a lot of detail gets hidden: So just about done with this bit. I see other people are onto their second build by now! I think I'm just a plodder... Will