salmo G

wow! thats stunning, beautiful aircraft and fantastic modelling skills on display here. Love the paint/weathering finsh.

Stunning! if it wasn't for your giant fingers in the shots I wouldn't have believed it was 1/72....... excellent assembly and finishing skills.

Now that's a thing of rare beauty (both the original and your model) superb finish, well done!! I want one.....

lovelly build, I do like the barracuda, whats the kit?

Hi Steve, Yes post war, pretty sure only the mk Vs saw wartime service. Mark, If you make the effort to really squint into the cowl opening you can see the cylinders, but persoannly I was more than happy with the basic kit part provided. Tony, seen the pics I think you are refering to however I wasn't convinced the scheme was anything other than the standard day fighter scheme on some dodgy old photo's, if I got it wrong its a bit late now lol! Thanks all for the kind words, really is a superb kit and will def make another sometime soon.

The wait for Eduards Tempest release is almost over so thought I would share one of last years builds to get everyone in the mood (its my no1 target at Telford in a couple of weeks!) The special hobby kit is superb and I didn't add any AM stuff apart frm some masks for the markings, its not quite Tamiya quality as some people have said however its a very impressive offering and has real presence on the shelf, the only real issue was getting the cowling to line up with the fuselage but superglue and a modicum of muscle solved that one, I also cut in and sanded back plastic tube to better represent the cannon ports. Everything else is just as Specialhobby intended and if their 1/32 Whirlwind thats due for relese next year is this good I will be a very happy chappy. Ohh and I think with all the extras included such as resin gun bays and fabric belts its pretty goof value for money too, may just have to pick up their mark V somewhere along the line too as the thought of that big sabre on display looks very appealing!

Hi Jamie I've followed the thread for this and been very impressed with the work that you all put into it, when Flyhawk eventually release that 1/350 POW these are the colours I will be using! Well done to all concerned. Now if you want to carry out a similar exercise on HMS Queen Elizabeth's first admiralty disruptive scheme (the one thats similar to POW's scheme) i'd be eternally grateful as I have one pencilled in to build next year........ ive already spotted that both colours and the pattern changed over time so looks like i've got some choices to make! but the detective work that you have all put in on POW will ceratinly help.

Hi Tom I consciously chose not to as I wasn't sure if I could pull it off succesfully, once its on its on and theres no easy way other than a partial repaint to repair any damage. Its something I have in mind for a future build but will need to do a bit of trialling first, I also consciously avoided any huge bow waves as in most the examples i've seen the cottonwool tends to look too much like, errr cottonwool! Again something I may try in the future after a bit of practice. Not too visible in the crappy pics I took with my phone but there are areas of gloss on the side of the hull where waves have just passed.

Evening. Not done anything really to the ship itself but i've managed to get the base polyfillered, papered, painted and covered in cottonwool! just mounted Musketeer in it tonight and covered the gaps. Its supposed to represent one of those windswept stormy seas that battered such little ships so cruelly in the Atlantic or Arctic. Its not ended up quite how I envisaged for a few different reasons but i've learned a few more tricks and the next one will be better (this is only the 3rd one i've made like this) just a bit of paint touch up needed, rigging and that damned pompom that I keep putting off..... (northstar kit, stunning detail and very accurate but too clever for my clumsy sausages) ohh and ignore the still wet blobs of gloss medium, I literally have just put her down! Fingers crossed should be finished by the end of the weekend except for some figures and chain for the anchors that I need to pick up at Telford in a few weeks time.

I always use milliput and i've never had an issue, looks like an easy repair and sure with it being at the beginning of your build your still fired up and will get past it pretty quick, will be watching this one as Hoods such a beautifull ship.

Evening all! Managed a bit of work this weekend, got a seascape roughed out using polystyrene (wanted to use blue foam but couldnt get a hold of any locally and wanted to just crack on) Also added nearly all the remaining major pieces, still a few smaller details to add and the small matter of a 4 barrelled pom pom to make up but feel like I am getting near to the end game now. Hi Tom, not a clue! could well be as you say, all I know is that they are missing from the kit so i added a representation which is too small.........

Looking good! youve nailed that dirty/used look well, I really like a weathered western approached scheme.

Hi Jamie No problem, it will hopefully be complete in a couple of weeks and I will post some pics in the RFI section, as a matter of interest what is the social media page your refering to?

Slowed a little but still moving forward, added the bridge plus a few other bits n pieces and just about got the remaining major parts cleaned up and ready for paint, unfortuntaly I have damaged some of the PE davits when I removed them so needed to make some new ones (which look nowhere near as good as the originals!) One of the reasons I chose to redo this instead of starting something new was that I wanted to try mounting her in a rough sea, so far i've only really made a couple of seas and thy've all been fairlty smooth (and if this dosnt turn out ive not really lost anything) so ive made a start with a base and plastic card surround, next I need to choose a medium to sculpt the sea from, hoping to make some headway with this over the weekend.

Hi Everyone Made a lot of progress this week on Musketeer, main camo colours are on the hull, railings fitted and a bit of (over the top) weathering applied. The new colours from Colourcoats look much better to my eye than the original colours (see my earlier model of HMS Rattlesnake for a comparision, apart from the small area of MS3 she wears the same 3 colours as Musketeer but with the original colourcoats paints) Scratchbuilt the 4" AA gun for a bit of light relief..... Added quite a few seperate deck fittings to give a little detail to the build, some are based on pics some are educated guesswork based other similar ships and past experience, to my eye at least they improve the basic appearance of the kit and are pretty simple to sort and add (stole quite a few of these bits from the pile I made up for HMS Ceylon...... which I will get back to middle of next year) 4" gun support structure was completely re built when I originally assembled the kit, unfortunatly I managed to drop it when cleaning it and had to totally rebuild it again! Added raised circles to the deck around the main turrets as shown on various pics, not sure quite what they are for (guess they are to keep people away from the moving turret) but made them too small..... and in the spirit of crashing on and just enjoying myself can't be bothered to replace them!

totally stunning! very neat build and a lovelly subject, well done.

Very tidy work and a lovelly ship, have her on my wishlist in 1/350 scale, will be happy if the finish looks half as good as your half size model! superb!

Another very nice build, well done Rob!

Hi Terry The plating runs are simply Tamiya tape, dead easy to apply, maybe a tad thick for destroyers but dosen't look too out of place, the portholes are from a Flyhawk set (usn I think!) Jamie Yup thats the one (using that pic as part my ref!) got some paint on some bits already and it looks a whole lot better that the original scheme! Few more pics of progress below, Added new barrels to the turrets (they are only 45calibre designed for J/K/N class I think, should be 50 so I extended them slightly with plastic rod) I was always a bit uneasy about the TT arrangement with the missing central tube, I know there was set used like this however i've managed to unearth a few overhead pics of L/M class destroyers and they all show "normal " tubes so i've spent a bit of time slicing n dicing them to suit. Bridgework about halfway through detailing up, all simple stuff and just gives the kit an air of extra finesse Enjoying this so far, hoping to get major paintwork on the hull by the end of the weekend, then we will see how much better the colourcoats range really is!

Nice work Jamie, lovelly little kits these Atlantic model destroyers, your S class destroyers looking good too!

Simply superb Rob really nice build wish I could get my weathering effects as good as that!

I like it, very odd subject matter but quite cool in my eyes, may have to look into picking one of these up!

Lovelly smart built of an old gem, welldone!

After a nice straight forward build of Eduards 1/48 spitfire I wanted to see if I could finish a ship before Telford. I had an Atlantic models 1/350 Musketeer that I had finished over 10 years ago but I was never happy with, not least because the paint scheme didnt quite seem right with the combination of 507C and MS4A looking mixed up compared to photo's., Now that Colourcoats have released their new range this seemed like a chance to see what difference they would make. I quickly pulled the ship apart (easy when the main superstructure blocks were origionally glued in place with white glue, stripped all the railings off and dunked the seperate parts in oven cleaner to strip the paint. I've made a start by adding plating runs and some extra deck detail, plan is to improve some details and correct some of the issues with the original kit (and some mistakes I built into it myself!) i've got a few photos that I am using as a basis for the ship however theres still quite a few areas I dont have enough details of so no doubt there will be quite an element of guesswork involved in some of the detail work but I wont tell if you don't....... The kit itself is lovely and while a little simplistic in places gives a very sound basis to improve (if you want to) and the range covers some really lovelly subjects. I did have some pics of the model in its original condition however i seem to have misplaced them so the couple of pics of it halfway through the stripdown process will have to do to give a feel for what I started from.

Thanks for all the kind words, theres certainly more aviation fans than there are maritime on here! Think I will drop back to a little ship work between now and Telford at which I hope to pick up Eduards 1/48 Tempest if its been released, really cant wait for that one!