Chewbacca

Thanks Dzar, all understood.

That's really nice. All we need now is for someone to do an aftermarket crew!

Am I correct in thinking that Alan Hall did one of his splendid conversions to this variant in the original Airfix Magazine back in the late 60s/early 70s?

I wondered that but I found 38 on the sprue - or more to the point, I fund the part of the sprue where 38 had been before I cut it off. Thanks for the info on the tank. I did think that it was perhaps a little small for the fuel tank and now I look at the reference pictures I can see a pipe going to the headlights.

Here's an interesting question then for others who have made one of these in the past. What's the part next to part 44 on the sprue? It's a cylindrical object with what appears to be bolts around one face, but it has no number and as far as I can tell, there's nothing like it in the instructions. Progress being made. I thought I'd do a dry fit of the main body to see what iot looks like (and ensure that it fitted between the cab floor and pump)

Nicely done. The challenge I usually find with EZ-Line is that the tension pulls the masts and yards out of alignment. That looks really good.

Thanks

I like that. I like that a lot. Especially the wood effect on the hull. So forgive my ignorance, what is the Umton oil paint wiping method? I've just done a quick Google search and apart from one result which came up in Polish, none of the links seemed to be modelling related but oil on canvas.

I look forward to following this with interest. I've got a similar long term project to build every ship I've ever served in and was treated to the Atlantic Models NEWCASTLE And ARROW for father's day to become GLASGOW and ALACRITY. I've got the AM (or was it WEM?) BRAVE somewhere in the stash that I bought for next to nothing second hand at the Yeovilton Show some years back which I must get around to starting but I think the fact that they're all resin is putting me off.

I've not come across Whitley but I'd trust Friedman. Along with Professor Eric Groves, Norman Friedman is probably the best living naval historian so I'd definitely trust his research. The key thing with the fwd superstructure is that the Batch 3s had a very different design. Look at these drawings which originate from a US ONI source Batch 1: SHEFFIELD Batch 3: BELFAST You can see clearly that in the Batch 1s, the fwd screen of B Gundeck extends all the way out to the deck edge and there is no upperdeck walkway on 01 deck from the foc's'le to the flight deck. Contrast that with the Batch 3 where there is a walkway either side of the fwd superstructure from foc's'le to flight deck. Thus the later ship fwd superstructure is narrower, by about, I would say, 4 ft either side. This is compensated by increasing the width of the bridge superstructure itself at 02 deck level in the later ships. Above that, the bridge itself does appear to be slightly narrower in BLEFAST than the early design but without measuring it, it may be an illusion caused by the different shaped fwd bridge screen, If you have a ,look at the ATF build thread I linked above, you'll see that there is very little grey plastic left in GLASGOW's fwd superstructure and an awful lot of plasticard!

Agreed, across the bulges. But that doesn't affect the beam at deck edge which would have been as built. Having just checked Friedman (which I would say is about the best reference for WW2 RN cruisers)it confirms she was 63ft 4in.

Could someone remind me when this starts please?

Always had a soft spot for the Bucc ever since seeing one low level through the lines of ships preparing for the 1977 Spithead Review, then seeing one pass down the side of LONDONDERRY in the Med in the early 80s and we literally looked down from the bridge wing into the cockpit and then finally have a six-ship fly underneath my Lynx while we practised TACDI. Count me in. I was fortunate enough to get one of the Airfix twin boxing "mistakes" about 12 years ago and made one in 208 Sqn desert yellow. The other one has to be 809 NAS from ARK's last deployment, either on the cat, bridle attached or catching the 3 wire. Of course if the Tan Model one does come out in time, it might be preferable to fighting the horrid fuselage joins again... I think my only concern is the timescale. Last time I did one I was off work with an injury and was modelling pretty much full time and that took 3 months.

Thanks. Maybe its just me being fussy!

I'm slightly confused what you're trying to do. From a quick check of Wikipedia (saves digging the better reference books out but I do concede it may be less accurate), BELFAST's beam was 63ft 4 in, while TIGER is 64ft, so in effect TIGER is broader in the beam in 1/600 scale by 0.3mm. Are you saying that BELFAST's fwd deck is wider than the TIGER hull? Of course the earlier Towns were slightly narrower in the beam at 61ft 8 in but even that's only 1mm. That of course assumes that the Airfix hulls are accurate (should be 32.5 for TIGER and 32.2 for BELFAST) But the key thing is that the Batch 1 and 2 Towns had a very different fwd superstructure to both the Batch 3s (BELFAST) and TIGER in that the earlier Town superstructure came right out to the edge of the hull, the later ships both had a waist. I think you are looking at rebuilding the fwd superstructure I'm afraid, but seriously it's not too difficult. Most challenging part I found was fairing the extensions into the curved fwd screen to make them look seamless.

Thanks. Not much done this weekend as I was out all day yesterday and busy much of today. However I have managed to get most of the major items that needed praying through the paint shop and I now have a interesting issue. Why is the airbrushed red, from the same bottle as the brush painted red just with some thinners added, a distinctly darker shade? You can see specifically what I mean if you look at the pump housing in the second photo, contrast that to the pipe that feeds it on the left hand side. I've had this happen before and never quite worked out why.

Incredible work. Love it.

Echo the comments that Graham makes above about converting the Airfix BELFAST to any of the earlier towns, but in fairness once the torpedo bulges are cut away, it is fairly straightforward if fairly extensive. My GLASGOW is here: Build thread is on ATF (as I couldn't get BM to work in those days): https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/airfixtributeforum/2016-airfix-ww-2-royal-navy-gb-wookie-s-hms-glasgo-t48362.html#p725396 I would also endorse the comment made that it might be easier to go for the as built state. The research I did for GLASGOW showed that the references contradict each other. So for example McCart includes a photo of GLASGOW supposedly taken in early 1940 during the Norwegian campaign which appears to show that the 2 fwd HACS are fitted with the Type 285 radar, but according to Norman Friedman's excellent reference on British cruisers, GLASGOW wasn't fitted with 285 until much later on. I too have a fondness for Hebburn built ships - my grandfather was a shipyard worker there all his working life bar the 4 years he spent in the Army during WW1. A great regret that I have is that I remember staying at his house when I was a child and being fascinated by the series of books he had that had been published by Palmers and Hawthorn Leslies showing the ships they had built in the 30s and 40s. After he passed away, apparently these books were nowhere to be found. I do recall him saying that he was especially proud of having worked on KELLY (twice, both in build and when she came back in for repairs after being torpedoed off Norway). MANCHESTER has a fascinating history and was the subject of a study that I was involved with some years back on the subject of command in the Royal Navy. The question was "Did Captain Drew take the right decision when he ordered MANCHESTER to be scuttled after being crippled during Operation Pedestal?" The study, which was conducted with a series of serving RN commanding officers and led by the prestigious naval historian Professor Eric Grove concluded that he had no other choice, despite the Admiralty at the time deciding to Court Martial him and finding him guilty of negligence.

Mieow!

There's nothing that looks right about that!

Thanks for that Jamie. It never ceases to amaze me how much more there is to know about subjects like this.

There's no doubt to my mind that whilst PE makes model aircraft look better, it brings model ships to life. I remember the days before PE trying to craft 1/600 guard rails from extended sprue without much success. Nowadays it is relatively straightforward (though I still make a pig's ear of it at times!)

Almost one month in (for me) and a little more work done although a couple of steps backwards Put the bonnet together and once it has set confirmed - as I had half expected - that owing to the engine detailing the bonnet now no longer fitted. well what do you expect when the bonnet plates are around the equivalent of 40mm thick - that's armour plating not an thin steel bonnet! Anyway, out with the trusty Dremel and the offending bits were thinned down and it just about fits. Whether it will still do so after a couple of coats of paint is another matter. But in trying to fit it, it forced the chassis longitudinal members apart and released one of the front leaf springs. So some remedial repairs needed there. Fortunately I think it'll be invisible. Finished off cleaning up the ladders ready for paint and built the ladder extension frame. Just need to find a decent video on YouTube as to how to best paint wood effect. Sinces its got to be 20 years since I built anything with a wooden propeller, its not a skill I've really picked up so this will e a good chance to learn. Made a first pass at carving the driver's milliput hand. I'll see what its like after primer. And finally got most of the major parts that needed primer out to the spray shop

Cheers. Never thought of doing that before so must give it a go. Couldn't agree more. There's real modelling skill in taking something that's 50 years old and a bit clunky and turning it into a fair representation of the real thing.

The top level WEM page is up and running but as soon as you try to drill down it gives a error 500 message. The main Tom's Model Works pages seem to be working okay but they don't list anything in 1/600. Looking good. I would definitely aim to paint the top of the rails in brown. A light dry brushing should be all it needs