Chewbacca

Thanks Crisp, duly noted and thanks for the link Thanks Mike,, strong hint aimed at SWMBO! It's interesting looking at the Hobby Search link that they provide some PE but not some of the more obvious parts that would benefit such as the catapult. Still I guess it won't be long before someone comes along with an upgrade pack. I did a lot of research about 4/5 years ago into the development of HMS DORSETSHIRE but I haven't yet looked into KENT so I'm unsighted as to how accurate the kit actually is. I know both Les Brown and David Griffiths have questioned the accuracy of some of the Profile Morskie County Class in their respective books.

I know I'm a little late to this but have been on hols for a month with no Internet (hurrah!). For most of the decals I print I simply use Microsoft PowerPoint. It does everything that Georgio says above. It can get a little challenged with really small decals (it can't cope for example with cockpit flight instruments in 1/48 if you want to see the needle and the markings on the dials) but for the sort of thing you want it's fine.

I'd take 1/600 certainly of any RN platforms other than the obvious ones that have been overdone such as HOOD, KGV etc. However, since that's never going to happen again, I'd take 1/350 of anything post 1918 with a preference for 1950-70s. A 1/350 ARK IV would be ideal but since Airfix missed the perfect window in the late 1970s when she starred in Sailor on BBC TV, I think the chances now are pretty limited

Question is, are they close enough to release for me to risk putting BOXER on Santa's list this year or will I have to wait for birthday next year? Also it's gone very quiet on the Trumpeter 1/350 County Class cruiser HMS KENT. Has anyone heard anything in the past 3-4 months?

Is that a Robin or Regal? 🤣

Never seen a seascape done with bathroom sealant before but it works extremely well . I don't think the weathering is overdone at all. just look at more recent photos of the Task Force when it returned from the Falklands in 82. they were covered in rust and had only been away 3 months. Some of these ships on the Atlantic and Arctic convoys wouldn't have seen paint form 9-12 months between time in dockyard hands.

That's a great way to achieve that effect in 1/700. I wonder if it will work in larger scales?

That's an interesting concept. Whilst I can the efficacy of doing this to sail closer to the wind, and I can perhaps see it being done temporarily with 3 or 4 oars close to the bow or stern. if they positioned them the way that you suggest surely they'd have to leave a very large gap either side of the boom or have to move the oars to avoid fouling the boom every time the wind changed direction by a few degrees? Additionally putting all of the oars in the water would dramatically increase the drag. Like others, I've never seen any evidence to suggest that that was a practice adopted (though that's not to say they didn't!)

Nice brasswork. Almost seems a shame to paint it!

And a question to the knowledgeable masses. Does anyone know of a good supplier of 1/350 ensigns? I used to print my own in 1/600 but my colour printer's dead at the moment. Thanks

Thanks Rob. Made a little progress in amongst all the building work though it's not fun trying to work with a layer of brick dust on the bench. Fortunately the model itself is in a glass cabinet in another room while they're on site! Since the last update I've managed to get the rest of the detail onto the aft gundecks including scratchbuilding a small platform between the aft 40mm that I have no idea quite what it is nor actually what it looks like; I have just a hint of its shape from one photo at an obscure angle that shows probably 10-15% of the structure. The aft 6 inch is now secure as are the masts though disaster struck this evening. Not content with fighting builders' residue, I'm fighting cats as well. I foolishly left the model on the bench this evening while I stopped to cook supper and when I came back, the main mast was bent half way up at an angle of about 80 deg and one of our kitties was looking very smug sat on the other end of the table. The annoying thing is that this was just after an hour or so of fettling to get it in exactly the right angle before I applied the CA. I've managed to fix it almost but unfortunately where it bent was just above the brass rod reinforcement so it's now an inherently weak structure butt join with less than about 1/4mm2 contact area. The photo below shows it is still slightly bent aft but I'm hoping that when I start the rigging which will be next session I can use some tension to pull it back into line. So I think now all of the upperdeck fittings are on there. It's the rigging still to go - which is quite complex with a plethora of radio aerials in addition to the shrouds and halyards - plus finishing off some ship's company figures, a final matt coat, remove the masking for the bridge windows, gloss coat the sea and finally put the edging on the baseboard. I've got a relatively quiet week this week coming so with a fair wind it might - and I stress might - be ready for the Bovington Show on Sunday. Even if it's not I'll have something there so if you're coming to the show come over and say hi - I'll be on the Ferndown Royal British Legion Modellers stand most of the day

Thanks, I did suspect that that may be what they were but perhaps somewhat foolishly I was perhaps expecting them to look more like traditional block and tackle. I should have done a Google search for images of Renown - they are quite prominent aren't they!

Rigging looks excellent and I agree with Martian that the moulded ratlines and shrouds look good. That said, with the quality of the rest of your rigging, I think I would have been tempted to replace the moulded plastic with properly rigged shrouds/ratlines. As far as I can tell from the photos in #13, you appear to have 2 additional sets of block/tackle just aft of those that tension the mainmast shrouds that aren't attached to anything or is that just a trick of the photography? I hadn't appreciated quite how big this was until I saw the photos in #10

As others have said, lovely scratchbuilding there. May I ask what are the 3 objects on the fwd side of the mainmast just below where the tripod comes together?

This is moving along really nicely.

I'm speaking now from my experience of the RN over the last 40 years rather than having done any detailed research into watch routines in WW2, but even in defence watches there are certain things that have to be done like cleaning/eating/pot wash/routine maintenance etc and defence watches are 98% boredom. So there are some people who are assigned to those duties one in two anyway, such as galley staff and communal party. I would routinely relax one or two at a time from my Ops Room watch to scrub the flats for maybe 20-30 minute stints and then swap people around. Similarly it is possible to do light upperdeck maintenance in the vicinity of your weapon, so long as you can immediately close up if a potential threat is detected.

Thanks. I've used the latter technique for bending thin plasticard but I can see it would be easier with brass that wouldn't be trying to revert to its original shape. No, MG

That's certainly the way to go but knowing my luck - because it's happened before - I'd get half and then it would go out of production!

Really impressive stuff. Having retrieved my Flower Class from the loft monster 4 weeks ago to allow our builders to put a new roof on, I realised that it will take a fair bit of work to correct the awful modelling that it endured when I first started it back in about 1978/79 but its certainly do-able. Question is, how do I explain to the wife that the GLS upgrades will cost >£400 for a kit that still has it's original £29.95 price ticket on?! Note to self. Must learn to solder properly before I start this

I would endorse that view. Having waterlined the Airfix Belfast hull halves, then taken about 12 mm out the midships section and carved off the bulges to make GLASGOW, I was left with a very floppy structure until I was able to start adding some internal bracing. I agree with your observation about the clean lines of peace time vessels and there was something about REPULSE and RENOWN that made them both especially elegant. That said, when I eventually get around to making REPULSE, it will be as she was in December 1941 after having had the privilege of organising a memorial service directly above her resting place when we visited the Far East in 1999.

Thanks for the source. Looking even better.

Some really excellent brass work going on there. How do you select which radius to use on the PE bending tool? I can see it for something that needs, say a full 90 or 180 deg bend but for something like those deflectors it must be very difficult to get it right first time and as everyone knows, PE is not very forgiving to multiple bends I've yet to write mine. When it happened, we all agreed that none of us would write about the incident until all had retired from the Service and one is still hanging on in there!

There's a very useful reference detailing what ensigns, standards and pennants etc are flown when and why can be found here: https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/-/media/royal-navy-responsive/documents/reference-library/brd2/ch91.pdf This is the actual RN reference book so will be correct. However, I would caveat that by saying is currently correct and different regulations may have applied during WW2 (though the main ones I am pretty sure were the same). Note that as Crisp says above, NELSON was routinely used as a flagship so would have flown his flag but depending upon the time you are depicting NELSON and whether it was a Rear, Vice or Full Admiral onboard will dictate which particular flag to use. As for signal flags, by all means use them but remember that every flag has a meaning when used singly or in conjunction with others and are different between military use and the commercial international signal flags. So just think about which ones you use and why, Whilst I am up speed on current meanings, signal flags used in WW2 were very different and so you would need to check an appropriate reference. This one os quite good: https://www.flaginstitute.org/pdfs/Barrie Kent.pdf As for manning, it would be unusual in cruising watches for weapons to be manned, but then equally unusual in wartime for a ship to be in cruising watches. Much more likely to be in defence watches (a 1 in 2 system whereby half the ship's company is on watch at any one time) and under those circumstances, upperdeck weapons would be manned albeit with reduced numbers

I've seen models lit previously with just simply one or two centrally mounted small lamps but this takes lighting to the next level. Where did you get the fibre optics from?

I do fully understand that. The smell doesn't bother me - apart from old-style Tamiya which were disgusting - but the ease of clean up and drying time means that I use acrylic for probably 70-80% of my work and enamel for the rest. It was very good. 4 of us from our local modelling club went up and they arranged a bespoke day for us but they do a whole range of different courses. It was obviously very railway centric but the basic skills were the same regardless of the modelling genre. I think the thing that surprised me the most was the time delay you have with enamel if you make a mistake. One of the exercises we did was to spray a small test piece when we started around 10am and then completely cleaned it off with white spirit just before we left at 4 by which time to my eye it was completely dry and I would have overpainted it.