Jaggy

Hello, It's been 16 months since I last posted, however, this build is not over yet! In the intervening time the company I worked for went bankrupt, I sold my house, moved to a temporary condo while waiting on a US Green Card and then moved to a rental in Texas, then bought a house in Texas and moved into it- about 6 weeks ago. Last week I unpacked my modeling stuff, and the Arizona survived the move (Unlike my HMS Hood and USS Independence). I seem to have one missing part, and some paint chipping on the barrels, but that aside all looks well. I hope to resume the build soon. James

@EJS My trick for ladders is to use a toothpick (cocktail stick) that I have carved to resemble a flat head screwdriver to rotate the steps The soft wood is less prone to mar the PE or take off paint, and the wide surface (relative to a knife tip) puts the pressure over the whole step. I've found that if I rotate them with a scalpel tip I inevitably put too much pressure in the middle of the step, and then push them out of alignment. @Beefy I've had an unusual amount of free time of late, but that ends tomorrow, so the build will be slowing down now I'm afraid.

Foremast painted: Washed More PE applied (44 pieces on the mast so far) the whole assembly dry fitted: Some premature glamour shots:

I have some PE progress! Many little ladders, pre clean up and final paint spray. Ladders, and some railings, installed. These seam lines will be hidden by the funnel. Note the searchlight, forward on the third level. The body is transparent plastic, the exterior painted gloss black with a blue grey top coat such that when viewed through the lens it has a shiny blackness with depth. It looks almost silver in this photo, but that's just my light reflecting. Beginning to remove detail from the kit part Ready for PE PE applied to sides and bottom. Those supports were tricky! Test fitting, because it's a fun way to end the session.

Today I worked on this upper platform. It's nice and neat since it was all airbrush and maskng, and not brushpainted on with all the parts in place. I drilled out those windows, and then squared them up with a tiny file and made glass with micro-sol Crystal Clear. The kit had them as a solid mass to be painted black. In retrospect, the kit part with gloss black and a dab of Crystal Clear may well have ended up looking the same. I'm not sure I'm happy about the seams on the panel in the foreground. They are more visible in the photo than by eye, but it still sticks out to me. The thing is, the thing is maybe actually supposed to be this way, as that metal "wall" is a separate object IRL. I've also not been able to find any reference images this close up, as they would have needed a helicopter and a telephoto lens to take the same shot back then. I could do a bead of CA glue to close the gap and then hand brush some grey in there, but it may just wind up looking the worse for it. Thoughts? After:

Today I started on fitting PE to the funnel and a turret. Funny, it really does not look like hours of effort versus the previous images, yet it is. The funnel is still missing 2 ladders and a railing, but I'm waiting on those since they have to bond to the superstructure as well. Here's the funnel in position (most everything is dry fit only) I also added PE to a turret. I'm worried that it has very little purchase, as these railings are bonded only by pin point sized attachments. I'm contemplating spraying the finished turret with future and then a matt to help bond the PE in place. Any advice? The airbrush may blow the railings off. Each turret has six railings, plus ladders. in the above you can also see the new dry window glass. I'm happy with the effect. im less happy with the base of the turret. I painted a section with a slightly lighter shade, to create the look of a repaint job, but I think it's too stark. Weathering plus details yet to be installed should help mitigate it though. Thats all for now.

Weekend update: I have a number of things to share tonight. In my airbrush booth I have a home made lazy susan. I bought a large ball berring mechanism from a woodworking shop for about $20 (its rated for 500 pounds and silky smooth) and built a simple wood base and top from scrap. It's been a handy painting tool for years, but now it has new purpose. In working on this giant ship I have found moving it, and especially rotating it, is tricky. Just picking it up, moving it 180 degrees and putting it down again requires a little planning. So I thought, why not put it on my rotating base? I have marked where the base must be on my desk and the ship on the base with tape. As long as everything is lined up just so, I can spin it round and round and hit nothing! It sits high enough to clear most bottles (glues, paints), but not thinner (I buy in bulk), so it's a huge convenience. Spinning the ship: On to real progress: I've been thinking about my comments above, the PE situation, and the deck paint and have decided to paint the decks after all. There no reason for me to skip this. It's not hard to see the contrast, I was just talking myself into being lazy. Given that I've already paid a price for this, in not building with all the PE in place, I'd be foolish not to make the most of it. So, below you can see my first coat of freehand deck paint: There are some touch ups needed (easier to spot in the images below) but on the whole I'm quite happy. Vallejo paints brush well, and without a flashlight the brush strokes are pretty well hidden. The contrast is striking and it is accurate for the scheme I'm using. I've also been busy adding windows. In the image below you can see some that are dry and others still wet. There large ones on the superstructure are visible and well worth the effort, but I'm not convinced about the hull. I've done perhaps 50 of the 300+ hull portholes, but when I went to resume the effort I had a very hard time identifying which ones were done and which were just holes. That being the case, I may opt to not continues with the lower ones, it's fussy work with little descernable payoff. Still, OCD may get the better of me. Finally, I've been making steady progress with the midships bits and bobs. The deck clutter really adds to the look of the thing: Thats all for now!

@Jockster Wow thanks for the feedback I failed to conscider the surface I was putting the deck onto. I did clean it, once, before the primer but then, yes, I did spray a matt grey blue on some deck details and made its texture irregular. When the deck didn't want to go down nicely, I assumed the deck was at fault and perhaps not sized quite right (you know, because the problem can't be me of course!). I generally do take the subassemblies approach, or at least want to, but was motivated to paint all the big pieces at once so their colour would be the same tone. I was worried that if I painted each on a different day then the amount of primer darkening the paint, or possibly even the paint itself, might be inconsistent. As the build has progressed I've become increasingly aware that this concern was unfounded and tha it lead me to some bad choices in build order. The other factor that pushed me in this direction was a desire I started with to use a different paint for horizontal surfaces. At one point I thought I'd be that, and it would have meant that most PE would have been painted elsewhere, or by hand, and so I thought there was no reason to delay the grey blue paint. If you study the image of the funnel you may notice the horizontal grey shade is different. It's very hard to see, so much so, that I decided not to bother after that. Something I should have tested elsewhere first I now realize. (I hope that this does not sound defensive, I'm just explaining the sequence of mistakes that lead me here. I entirely appreciate your comments.) I've never thought of using the PE sprue nubs as anchors and I can't wait to start doing so, it will make a number of things easier! Thanks again, much appreciated!

There's one particular bit of PE I'm really worried about. I'm not sure of the name of the part, but on the elevated turrets there are these rings about the base, with very fiddily vertical supports. This image is a crop of a detail photo from Nicks build, to show the bit: I'm not sure if I should try to assemble this, paint it, and then install it or assemble it in place and then repaint everything. I fear I will need the turret base to ensure I get it set straight, and if I install it post paint I'll maybe scrape off existing paint fitting it, especially given my weak primer.

I've recently switched to Mr Surfacer 1500 black with about 50% thinner and thus far it's been trouble free, though I think I'm destroying brain cells rapidly breathing the stuff!

A big step today, I've glued a deck! I'm not sure how you do it but I take a strange pride in making my weights as haphazard and precarious as possible for no descernable reason. This brings me up to the present, my next post will be 'new' work. As I said in the intro, please jump in and tell me how I can be doing this better. I'm about to start wrestling with the problems I've made myself painting before applying PE, and I think it will be ugly.

Am am almost caught up to the present with the build now. Below I've just added deck details near the bow, lots of little bits and bobs, each requiring more clean up than one might expect: And now with capstans and other bits: And the same work on the aft end: Detail:

And now for some dry fitting! As you can (hopefully) see, I've cleaned up the turrets some, lightening the shade on the blast bags and blending the color on the red tops. At this stage I've really started to worry about the turret PE, which you will notice is still missing. I need to install 5 segments of railing, plus ladders, plus some tricky bits on the turret bases still. I probably should have done all that before I even started with the primer. Any advice? Eveything on the deck is just dry fit and WIP, but it's fun to set up the bits and see what it's going to look like. Here I have some progress on deck details, some washes are done and I've picked out the fire hoses etc. I'm unsure if I will do the brass windows, as Nick did. I think they look fantastic, but I can't find reference for then not being grey. Can anyone wade in?

Do you like repetitive tasks? If so the ship building is for you! I've avoided late WW2 naval subjects for fear of mass producing all those AA guns. The Arizona was an old ship by the start of the war, and so its armament reflects an earlier era, happily. I made a little jig to hold the deck guns as I worked on them. It was at this stage where the kit revealed its greatest flaw: poor engineering. There's about ten pieces of plastic in one of those guns, and each needs cleanup. Each has seam lines, and multiple attachment points, and those attachment points are large and very poorly placed. In fact, I'd guess they are placed without regard to the cleanup process at tall. As I began working on the smaller assemblies of the kit I marvelled again and again at the disregard Trumpeter shows for the model builder. I wish this was a Tamiya kit, I'd happily pay double for their quality. Building a beast like this is a many months long process, I want to enjoy it! It was also here that I ran into my first real trouble with PE. I found the railings on these guns was slightly too large, and so each one had to be bent and cajoled into place, resulting in what you see above. I wanted crisp 90 degree corners I assure you, but the bottom of the railing has to fit in too small a space, and so I have what you see above. I did manage to straighten things out a little later on: I'm pretty happy with these guns, I just lament that they will be mostly hidden in the final product:

And now the turrets. Many things went wrong along the way. 1. You can see the paint chipping off the barrels, thanks Vallejo primer. I know this happens with other primers, but with Vallejo is happens more. This paint will fall off if you look at it funny, or just think about bumping it. 2. My first attempt on the blast bags was brush painting with Tamiya acrylics. I wasn't happy with the color anyhow, but wow do I hate brushing with Tamiya. 3. See the uneven stripes on the turret top, that's because Tamiya tape ripped off my Vallejo primer. Some more ore photos of the turrets, as they were at this time: