Chewbacca

Bit of a disaster this morning. I was fitting the funnel yards: when I angled BRAVE a bit too far and heard a crunch... as the full weight of the resin hull - and it is heavy - was taken on the forward Cheverton davit cradle and the CA gave way! Fortunately it was nothing that couldn't be fixed albeit more than a little fiddly given that most of the rigging was still in place and whereas when I was trying to fix it in place where it should be on Saturday when the CA simply refused to grip, now that there was a chance to grip the rigging thread where it shouldn't be attached, it held in nano-seconds. But about 30 mins of mildly swearing to myself was enough to get it back in place. It's not quite right as the falls now don't drop quite vertically but as Col says above, with the naked eye it will be difficult to see that. If you look carefully in those photos, you can see the funnel yards just abaft the Cheverton and abaft/down from the 1st Frigate Squadron funnel badge. The ones supplied with the kit are designed to fit further aft which is where they were fitted to the Batch 2As (BOXER and BEAVER). They were moved forward in the Batch 2Bs (at least in BRAVE and LONDON though I think they may have moved aft again in SHEFFIELD and COVENTRY though I have no good photos of those ships' funnels to show either way). Anyway, the upshot of it is that the supports were not the right length, so I have cut those off and replaced them with 0.2mm Albion Alloys nickel rod. but looking at a very good overhead view of HMS CUMBERLAND shown in an earlier post, I fear that I may have fitted the supports too far inboard and that actually they extend right to the outer extremities. I might be tempted to live with them as is. I have also started work on the foremast. There is an additional platform on the forward face with a small antennae that hangs down from it about 600 mm tall and 300 mm diameter. I think I know what it does but it was shrouded in secrecy back in 1991 and was fitted just before we deployed and removed immediately we returned; I also think that its purpose remains classified so I won't say anymore. Anyway, have made one up from scrap PE and 40 thou styrene rod, only subsequently to find a better photo that shows the shape is slightly different in that the platform sides taper in towards the front so I will have to remake it. However, given that it is only a difference of about 0.5mm on either side, I will not remove that one until I have made a replacement and compare the two. And finally, as part of the foremast build, I have dry fitted the 1006 radar antenna. Or more precisely, I have balanced the 1006 radar antenna on the platform guard rails because the radar support is not tall enough. So have added a shim from 40 thou styrene rod That close up photo really shows that I need to smooth the front face of the antenna itself! Thanks for watching

Cheverton fitted and rigged. Unfortunately the photo doesn't show the rigging lines very clearly because they are so fine, but does show my poor paintwork very well! I think my CA must be getting past its best because trying to fit the gripes to the davits proved somewhat challenging and even holding the Uschi van der Rosten line in place for 30 seconds it would not grip. in the end I had to use accelerator and even that took a while to bite. I've known CA age through absorption of the moisture in the air and solidify in the bottle, but I've never known it simply lose its adhesive properties while remaining liquid. But having done a quick Google search, it transpires that the average lifespan of a bottle once opened is apparently only 6-8 weeks; my bottle is about a year old so time to renew methinks. I've also added the yellow deck warning circles around the Sea Wolf launchers and close range battery. These were printed using a Laser colour printer and the clear version of the decal sheet that was giving me problems earlier with the white variant. With these, the ink appeared to be much more robust and able to be handled. I did have a few issues with the aft Sea Wolf decal. The first one I put on went immediately opaque and white. I carefully lifted it off in order to put a little more Micro Sol underneath and it left behind the adhesive layer which fortunately came off in sheets with tweezers. It was a bit like latex glue. No photo unfortunately as my hands were a bit full at the time, but when I added the replacement (I had printed 3 of each, just in case ) it did the same again, albeit not quite so dramatically. I thought this time I would not over-react and leave it to see what would happen when it dried. Fortunately, it does seem to have dried clear; any remaining issues with this should be overcome when I spray the final matt coat.

Funnel now fitted and started to add the Cheverton davits. Haven't been able to find my 1981 copy of BR 67 but did manage to find a 1995 copy online (https://www.amphion.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/br-67-admiralty-manual-of-seamanship-1995-05-01.pdf) which confirms that the gravity davit rigging is basically the same regardless of which type of displacement boat is carried so next job is to progress with that. I still need to add the transmission shaft between the motor and gearboxes which will be a length of 0.2mm Albion Alloy nickel rod I've also started the detailed painting of the Lynx and thought I would dry fit it to the deck to see how it looked. Unfortunately, the undercarriage and deck markings do not align. The idea with a Lynx is that in the ideal position, the deck lock is in the centre hole in the grid at which point the nose wheel should fit on the cross point where the bum line meets the fore and aft line. As this photo shows, that doesn't quite work with BRAVE. So is the Lynx too small or the main circle too large which pushes the harpoon grid further back? I think the latter because the fuselage is 37.5 mm long and should be 37.2 based on a Lynx HAS 3 being 13.02 m long. However, I shall live with it. My pilot never hit the middle of the grid anyway (other than once when he did so by fluke when we literally threw it at the deck in an emergency landing that was touch and go whether we could land at all or have to ditch alongside)! And finally, have finished printing replacement SCOT radomes. the 3D version which i have still to finish cleaning up is on the left; the kit supplied item is on the right. I know which I prefer! Thanks for watching

Very nicely done. I have many friends who were onboard on that fateful day in May 82. She is a very fitting tribute.

Boat deck is just about there. The Pacific has been added and tie down lashings from strips of white decal sheet added to both it and the Gemini. Also scratch built an outboard tank for the Gemini outboards from 20 thou styrene. There should be two in there but one was gobbled up by the carpet monster though in fairness, I doubt whether there is space there for two anyway as I fear I made the test tank a tadge on the small side. The Pacific davit has also been fitted though it doesn't look right somehow. I'm sure that the end of the jib should plumb the centre of gravity on the boat and it looks far too far forward, but if it were any shorter it wouldn't be long enough to sling the boat over the side. Perhaps at this stage I should admit that I never spent any time on the boat deck of either BRAVE or BOXER during seaboat operations so what would I know anyway! Fitting the slings from Uschi van der Rosten line was fun (not). Even under a modelling lamp there was not enough light to see what I was doing and since I needed two hands free for the tweezers and the CA loaded cocktail stick, I end up holding a 20,000 lumen torch in my teeth to illuminate the work area! Although macro photography can be horrid at times, it does have its benefits though because until I took the first photo above, I hadn't noticed that I hadn't quite cut the slings and had left a small curl of line hanging. Must get in there with a sharp scalpel. The curved guardrail at the forward end of the hangar is security for the high power antennae runs that come together there. Nothing in the kit for that but the base is simply a small length of 40 thou styrene rod. The one task left on the boat deck is to add the Gemini davit which has been folded and the cut points of the PE touched up. Whilst I was at it I have also prepped the Cheverton davits. The motors have been added from 20 and 40 thou styrene rod. I have left the PE falls attached for now but will remove them when I fit the boat and davits together. I have started detailed painting of the Cheverton - photo to follow. I need to find a photo of the Cheverton davit rig to work out where the various lines go. I have plans for the 27 fit motor whaler rig on the same davits so I assume it is going to be similar but I'm hoping there is something in my 1981 copy of BR 67 Admiralty Seamanship Manual. And I have largely finished off the SCOT deck. All of the guardrails and waveguides are now added and the radomes themselves dry fitted. But the more I look at them, the more I am convinced that they are the wrong shape. At first I thought they were too short but comparing them to the Jacamo plans there are almost right - 6.1 mm versus 6.3 mm. I think they are too fat at their widest point so I intend to leave them off for now and will look to see if I can do a better job with 3D printing some replacements. I've already drawn the Inmarsat radome and that's come out okay so this should be relatively easy. I think the next task is to fit the funnel so that there is somewhere for the Cheverton davits to rest against. Thanks for watching

Found a photo of BRAVE taken from above and looking the boat deck which confirmed the Gemini cover was grey. So that's now painted and covered in a very light wash to help show off the folds in the cover. Photo to follow once I've done the rest of the boat deck area. The Exocets were primed and sprayed light weatherworks grey and added to the mountings. Took BRAVE along to our local model club last night and all agreed that the 3D printed versions were considerably better than the kit supplied variants. Not shown in this photo but the fo'c'sle guardrails are also now fitted. I tried to use the pre-cut ones from the spare set of PE I have from BOXER but the angle of the fo'c'sle bulwark is slightly different. Now given that both ships' fo'c'sles were identical, one of the kit versions is clearly wrong but I know not which though i strngly suspect that BOXER being a later casting is right. I ended up using the more generic guardrail that came with the BRAVE kit and carefully trimming the forward end to fit. Finished up the detail inside the hangar by adding the 3D printed 0.5 inch Heavy Machine Gun Pod and Yellow Veil jammer, both in their trolleys and adding some tie down lashings from strips of white decal. You can also see the ground power cable reels outboard of those to port and the Avcat pump on the stbd side. Now they say that with every cloud comes a silver lining. I had to take the day off work today because I had to go into hospital this morning for some minor surgery (nothing serious) and having been called at 0830 this morning by the unit to ask me if I could go in early because there had been a cancellation ahead of me, I ended up back at home, a little sore but all stitched up by just after 1000. I thought I would take it easy for a pair of hours and then, at 1200 by which time I was feeling a lot better, texted my boss to say that I was feeling fine and would work from home this afternoon. An immediate reply to say do nothing of the sort; you've had surgery, rest and recuperate! So that gave me a good few hours at the bench. Main effort therefore has been on buttoning up the hangar roof. Started off though by adding the white vertical line decals that all of the Batch 2B T22s had for Sea King operations which marked the pilot and co-pilot centrelines. note to self though - need to extend the flight deck centreline decal by a millimetre or so. It is worth saying that this photo does not do justice to the flight deck which is no where near as rough as this makes it out to be. I think it is caused by the light reflection from my modelling lamp which was off to the side. Then it was time to dry fit the hangar roof and door to the model. I think it would not be to far from the truth to say it fitted where it touched and there would need to be a fair bit of filling, sanding and touching up.. This photo was taken after I had shaved about 0.75mm off the hangar roof on either side and added the first coat of Vallejo filler to the joins. Since then after the filler set, I have sanded it back and given it a first coat of dark sea grey followed by a second coat of filler on the port side where it is still way out. Photos of that to follow but leaving it to fully set overnight and then will sand again. I've started painting the 6.5 m Pacific with a mixture of dark greys for the deck and inflatable bulwarks. Need to add some more detail to the centre console - helpfully the PE Set for BOXER has a helmsman's wheel and the aft nav light rig but need to scratch build the throttle and the propeller/gearbox assembly. I've also been adding detail to the SCOT platforms with additional waveguides from the SCOT office to the radomes. Again photos to follow on that. And finally, one of the three inclined ladders on the upper deck. This leads up from the flight deck to the stbd waist. Folding those treads was a nightmare as the gap between each was too small to get even my smallest tweezers in so ended up having to try to do with the tip of a scalpel. Unfortunately, because this PE set was designed for a later casting of the T22, the ladder isn't quite long enough to give the correct angle. It's not too obvious with this one but I suspect it will be for the two from the stbd waist up to 02 deck. Thanks for watching

Thanks everyone I don't recall it ever raining during the 6 weeks we spent off Kuwait. Just extreme haze caused by the smoke coming off all of the burning oil fields after Saddam Hussein's retreating forces adopted a scorched earth policy. We had one trip when we returned to BRAVE after about 6 hours of operating with the US Navy from USS TRIPOLI and WISCONSIN we landed back on around 1200 noon local time; the sky was as black as we might expect it at midnight. My maintainers were scraping the ash from the leading edge of the blades. I do have some photos somewhere but they are not scanned in. I will have to see if I can find them and upload a couple of examples to show what it was like.

A little more progress interspersed around my other hobby - restoring classic sports cars. My son has been home this weekend and with the aid of one of his friends from uni who is now a design engineer at Noble we have started work on redesigning the wiring loom for a 1982 TVR Tasmin. That makes getting BRAVE finished by the end of next month look like a walk in park! Hangar deck markings are now all complete and I have added the harpoon grid. Although the starboard nose wheel guide line looks to be not straight, it is and it is just the perspective coupled with the fact that the hangar deck in the vicinity is slightly blown upwards. I did look at trying to sand it all back but figured that that part of the hangar is going to be difficult to see and anyway, the deck was never completely flat, there were undulations all over the place. Also finished the detailed painting on some of the fitting to go inside the hangar - the ground power cable reel, the AVCAT pump and a Yellow Veil ECM pod and 0.5 in Heavy Machine Gun pod in their trolleys. Just need to wait for the paint to dry on those and they can be added and then the hangar door/roof added and faired in. One additional piece that will need to be added is a central bar that was suspended either side (inside and out) of the top of the door' It was there to brace the door during launch and recovery from the downdraft from the rotor disk; not quite so much of an issue with the Lynx but for the Batch 2Bs that were Sea King capable with of course the much greater weight and associated downdraft it was a major issue and without it the door could very easily be blown in. You can see it very clearly in this photo of BRAVE together with the outer top track in which it ran (photo supposedly taken in 1986 off Gibraltar with one of her bridge watchkeepers water-skiing behind ) Although I had painted the RAS winches, I was looking at the photos of BRAVE in the Gulf and all of them have the covers on these winches. So covers have been duly made from thin foil, carefully "scrunched" around the winches and painted. I need to have a look to see if the midships winch was similarly covered - I suspect it was. One cover fitted showing the original bare winch on the port side And with both covers on. Similar technique for the Gemini inflatable. I have yet to paint this cover. I can't for the life of me remember if it was grey PVC or green canvas. I need to try to find some better photos. I've also primed and sprayed the remaining bits of 3D printing including the new Exocets (don't need a photo of those) but do have a bit of an issue with the hull decals. The ship's side pennant numbers have slightly silvered. You can't see it from straight on but at an oblique angle it is quite noticeable - much worse than this photo shows. I have pricked them both vigorously with a new X-Acto blade and smothered them in Micro-Sol in the hope that that might do the trick. Thanks for watching

Looking first class and thanks for the update on the MRH. I'll watch this with interest and bear in mind when I do eventually get to mine.

Exocets printed and a pair of them dry fitted to the stbd mounting. Much better size. I shall even have space to fit the armour plated bulkhead that fits between them I've been continuing with the decals (and have now completed the flight deck markings which led me into the hangar where because the Batch 2 T22s were designed to carry 2 Lynx which were a bit of a tight squeeze to say the least, had markings on the deck for the main and nosewheels to follow. I do have some photos of these but they are sketchy but I thought the easiest way would be to fit the Lynx in there and see where they should go. Hmm. Whilst I know there wasn't a lot of space between the tail pylon fold and the door when it was closed, that shows that the kit hangar isn't even long enough to allow the tail to fold at all. I don't think it will make that much difference because when the hangar door is fitted it will be only 1/3 open so to see to the forward end will be almost impossible, but I am glad I didn't invest in a second Lynx to put in the hangar. You'll remember that I noted above that the headdress decals that I printed to go onto the angled side panels of the air intakes looked small and that I was going to reprint. Well no need, because the Atlantic Models decals arrived last week (along with a replacement Cheverton which is way better than the one in the kit). Peter kindly includes all of the Batch 2B badges at the right size in his decals set so I have replaced my home printed one with his better quality, correctly sized version. I had a bit of a shock last night when reading some of the other build logs in the SSD folder, @Mjwomack reminded us all that there is only 6 weeks left in this GB. Gulp. Even though progress is being made, I'm not sure I will get BRAVE finished in that time. But onwards and upwards.

That is looking absolutely brilliant and I have to keep reminding myself that this is 1/700 not 1/350.

More like one front line squadron 10-12 a/c, one training squadron 8 aircraft and the rest as hangar queens providing spare parts to keep the others airborne because we won't have bought the right spares packages (again). I remember going to one of the early Puma 2 planning meetings in 2010, one week into my then new job and had to get my boss to sign me off as a suitably qualified and experienced person (SQEP) on Puma which he did. I then went to my Puma desk officer and asked him to tell me about the Puma. All I knew about it was that it was an Anglo-French design that had been in service with the RAF for decades and that I had made the Airfix kit of one back in the 1970s! SQEP - yeah right! My desk officer should have gone but the powers that be demanded that I attend as the unit Commanding Officer. Over the next few months I did learn quite quickly (along with every other RW type for which I had responsibility).

Thanks Terry. Continuing with work on the fo'c'sle, I have now hit the next challenge that this kit wants to throw at me. You may recall that back on page 1 I said I wasn't overly happy with the Exocet missiles as I thought they looked a bit clunky and I thought I may have to redraw them in CAD and 3D print them. In the end I though, I decided I would live with them for expediency but I thought I would do a dry fit before I painted them: Oh dear. What's the saying, "gonna need a bigger boat". In this case it is "gonna need a bigger mounting". Or smaller missile cannisters. Now I know how big an Exocet missile is, but what I cannot find out from any of my reference books or the internet is what is the exact size for an Exocet cannister and therefore what I cannot determine is whether the missile cannisters are too large or the mounting is too narrow. But looking at this photo of the mountings dry fitted: contrasted to the real ship: I would definitely say that the mountings are about the right size so therefore logically the missile cannisters are too large. Back to the CAD and draw some new ones. These also at least have the door opening mechanisms at either end which the kit ones lacked: Slightly frustrating but then isn't this what modelling is all about, overcoming the shortfalls in the kits to create something that is almost like the real thing? Thanks for watching

Thanks Col. I used to teach Royal Navy Warfare Officers and towards the end of their training we would push them to the limit with multi-threat (air, surface. sub-surface), multi-axis warfare. When they first experienced it, they would always zoom in on the air threat because a Mach 2 missile does head across the radar screen quite quickly and tends to focus the mind whereas Anti-Submarine Warfare, also known as Awfully Slow Warfare, seemed to happen at a snails pace by contrast. But as I used to point out to them at the debrief, "Best way to sink a ship is to let water in the bottom not air in the top". BRAVE actually withstood 2 Harpoon hits, this one port quarter and another on the starboard beam before she was finally sunk with a torpedo from HMS SCEPTRE. Have had a day's leave so in and around the usual errand running that was required and a nice lunch out sitting on the beach (at about 4 deg C!), managed to make some more progress. Firstly added the flight deck side skirts (not sure what to call them really, the bits that extend below the flight deck extension) and the supporting brackets: Still some tidying up to do on there when the Vallejo filler has dried. So in the meantime I turned attention to the fo'c'sle. Painted the details on the capstans with a 000 brush and then added the anchor cables. Now ordinarily I would expect the cables that can be seen on the fo'c'sle to be be painted white (at least they were when I was a fo'c'sle officer ) but all of the photos of BRAVE's foc's'le seem to suggest that they were dark with a strong hint of rust. This is perhaps the best photo and this was taken in April 1986 when she was brand new: I actually have a much higher resolution version in my collection but cannot for the life of me recall where I got it from (I certainly don't own the copyright) and this is the only online version I can share which perhaps doesn't do it full justice. But you can see that the cables are definitely not white. I painted mine with Vallejo steel then dry brushed with a mix of light rust and a small drop of burnt umber which I didn't fully mix in to give a tonal variation. The navel pies are ones that I 3D printed a few weeks ago as are the RAS roller fairleads which you can see just abaft the breakwater. Interestingly, the Jacamo plans are wrong in this area because as the photo of BRAVE above shows, the starboard navel is in front of the port navel yet the plans have them the other way around and too close to the cable holders. Unfortunately the cable holders themselves are at the wrong angle and are canted afar too far inwards. If I'd spotted it before I would have cut them away and replaced them with 3D printed but it is too late now, I risk doing too much damage so will live with it and look out for the correct angle when I do the Atlantic Models BOXER at some point in the future. I've also added the SCOT deck. This is a strange way of doing it as the deck is a half thickness piece of resin with the SCOT cabin and some whip aerial bases moulded on. I would have thought that it would have been easier to mould the intakes deckhouse underneath to the right height and supply the cabin and whip bases separately rather than having to get a thin deck to perfectly align to the moulding below. Which as the filler in the second photo evidences, I failed to do! The later Atlantic Models BRAVE has it all moulded as a one-piece deckhouse which makes much more sense. I'm thinking it may not have been such a good idea to add the home printed headdress decals to the side sponsons so soon as I fear they will get damaged as a sand back the filler. But if they do I have some spares and in any case, as I look at them now, I cant help but think that they are perhaps a tadge too small so I may well reprint them about 15% larger. Thanks for watching

Meant to add - that rigging is excellent in such a small scale

Nothing done over the weekend as we were away at a Naval Association reunion event but now back and pressing on. The replacement flight deck extension has been cut from 20 thou styrene sheet and the position for the harpoon grid measured, marked out and cut with a slightly larger disc cut out and secured underneath using liquid poly. While I was waiting for that to set, I have finished up the quarterdeck fittings including the access ladder which I had to refold as I had folded the sides incorrectly. Even with an RP Toolz PE tool, trying to fold the edges which were less than 1 mm wide was challenging but got there at about the 3rd attempt. The position for the ladder was also challenging as I could find no photos of the flight deck with the circular hatch open. I recalled that it was right down aft and just to one side of the tail boom when the cab was on the spot but the only photo I could find with any hatch showing was this very sad one post the Harpoon hit during Sinkex 98. And that clearly shows a hatch to be on the starboard side alongside the harpoon grid which is almost exactly directly above the 182 sonar winch. I cannot for the life of me remember what that hatch is there for but it certainly wasn't for the access ladder. The Jacamo plans do show a ladder where I seemed to recall that it was down aft do that's what I've gone with. It's going to be hard enough to see anyway as with the ship at flying stations, that hatch itself was always closed so the position is only visible if you squint in through the quarterdeck accesses. Getting the angle was tricky but I used a slow cure CA and once it was holding sufficiently well so as not to fall over, I placed the flight deck over the top to ensure that it did not foul. And then it was onto fitting the flight deck itself which is held on with fast acting CA. I've started to rub down the join but post this photo being taken I have added a light coat of deck grey and it is apparent that some filler is also going to be needed. Thanks for watching

Well I never. I have never seen any of those black covers before but looking at those photos I think you are absolutely right and I stand corrected. My apologies for sending you down a rabbit hole.

+1

That same report in Proceedings records that there were 10 operational launches from the Fighter Catapult ships (as opposed to the CAM ships) in 18 months. But there were only 5 Fighter Catapult ships as opposed to 35 CAM ships. Interestingly, the Fleet Air Arm archive records that the Sea Hurricanes at least used by the Fighter Catapult ships had their undercarriage removed to save weight so they had no option to fly ashore. It does state that Fulmars were used as well but makes no comment on modifications made to the aircraft. There are records that the RAF operated CAM Ship Sea Hurricanes did regularly fly ashore into Canada, Speke and Murmansk for maintenance and pilot continuation training so they clearly kept their undercarriage!

Thanks Graham, very happy to be corrected on this one. Although I don't currently have access to my usual research library , I did some internet digging and found this fascinating report in US Navy Proceedings magazine which recorded that over the two year programme that the CAM ships operated, there were only 8 operational launches from 170 sailings. So yes, they would have spent much longer strapped to the catapult that I had originally envisaged. My apologies if my original post misled anyone but in my defence I did caveat it by saying I had no evidence to back up my comment! Note to self: check facts before posting!

Looking good so far. Although I never qualified on type, I did get the chance in the early 80s to fly in a good few Wessex Vs and do have a soft spot for them. Compared to the Lynx and even the Sea King, they seemed so over engineered and almost agricultural. I do have a couple of these in the stash and I'll be really interested in seeing what modifications are needed. Looking at the one you've already completed, the main rotor head looks to be quite high. Does that need tweaking?

I think they were Lister but don't quote me on that. I also don't actually recall the starting procedure which leads me to think they may have been electric start. To be honest, I had only a passing interest in the motor whaler as a stepping stone which had to be passed to the more interesting and powerful craft that we played with such as the Cheverton, Fairey Huntress (awesome bit of kit capable of 25+ kts) and Picket Boat.

The FAAM has, I believe, 2 x AEW Skyraiders but they are both in the reserve collection in Cobham Hall which is rarely open to the public. Last time I got into there was about 2012. This is coming along really nicely

Sadly I have only just caught up with this build just as you finish it! I've always had a soft spot for the EA-6B and it is one of my great regrets in life that I missed out on flying one. I was a Lynx Electronic Warfare Instructor and towards the end of my EWI tour in 1990, I had been appointed to VAQ-129 at Whidbey Island to train on the EA-6B as the RN exchange officer, But summer 1990 saw the Navy going through yet another round of defence cuts and of the casualties was the exchange officer programme so instead I went back to sea as a Lynx Flight Commander where my ECM kit was limited to the ALQ-167V (Yellow Veil) jamming pod. But surely a day without talking electronic warfare is a day wasted You've certainly done the mighty Prowler a justice with this kit.

That sea base seems to work a treat from those photos.