Chewbacca

RMAS Agile very nearly complete, just decals to go (which I will need to print when I print the other decals for LONDONDERRY). The bars that run across the working area down aft are cut from a lead wine bottle top. Masts from a combination of wire and 20 thou styrene rod and random bits of WEM 1/600 PE. Rigging from Uschi Van der Rosten line (can't remember if I bought fine or superfine ). The supports for the life raft cannisters are WEM 1/600 Seacat missile guides cut down and inverted; the cannisters themselves are simply cut from 40 thou rod. Now onto finishing the Dog class. Thanks for watching and have a great Christmas everyone.

There lots of amusing dits like that. I did it twice - first time for four weeks and the second for eight and it was great fun. I was the only officer there working alongside about 12-15 young ABs/Marines who used to do it for 6 month at a time as their shore draft. I think it was a real shame when firstly the Navy replaced the serving guides with civilians and then even worse when they too were retired and replaced with recorded handsets.

Many moons ago when as a young officer on holdover, I spent a short period showing visitors around HMS VICTORY. One of the questions we used to ask them was "How many ropes do you think we have on board?". The answer was one - the bell rope - because everything else had it's own name signifying its role in the rigging.

Thanks. I would definitely try to do it if you can. There is no way I could have created those tugs using traditional scratch building techniques. I'm almost completely self taught on CAD. My son did a CAD module as part of his engineering degree at Uni and gave me a 30 minute crash course but apart from that I've worked it out from YouTube tutorials and trial and error. But I think a lot of it depends on which CAD programme you choose. I started off with TinkerCAD which seemed okay if a little limited but a fair few BMers suggested Fusion 360 so that's what I use now. The problem that i find with Fusion is that all of the support is for the professional version which is several hundreds of pounds per year. I'll watch something on YouTube and then try to replicate it in mine - which is the free hobby version - only to find the button I need is greyed out. I've also tried Blender but gave up after a couple of hours as it didn't seem very intuitive. That said, to my mind the most difficult part is setting up the print files using Chitubox as so often I end up with a whole set of beautifully printed support struts with nothing attached to them. I don't know how the professionals do it with just one or two tiny supports per piece. As she has said on more than one occasion, "I'm not bossy...I just have better ideas than you!"

I've often imagined what VANGUARD would have been like sat off the coast of Kuwait in 1991 alongside MISSOURI and WISCONSIN. Keep the 15 inch turrets but replace the secondary armament with Sea Wolf, Sea Dart, TLAM and Goalkeeper.

Bit more work on the tugs. Given that I now have a few days off now until the New Year, with a fair wind these should be completed today/tomorrow unless Mrs Chewbacca decides to reprioritise my time... The PVA covering on the base appears to have protected it from the paint though I wasn't happy with the finish as the PVA seemed to highlight the undulations in the polystyrene. So I put a secondary coat of tissue over the top to moderate it. I'll be getting the first coat on over that today so we'll see what that looks like. Thanks for watching

Ah - that makes sense. Thanks.

I only have, I think, 3 models in my completed collection that wouldn't fit with this GB so I won't put them all up here but here's a cross section: 1/350 HMS HECLA,, South Atlantic June 1982. Fully scratch built with extensive use of3D printing for the Falklands 40 GB. One of the very few GBs that I managed to finish in the allotted time period! 1/350 HMS BULOLO, flagship of Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, off Singapore 1945.. Scratch built (no 3D printing this time!) for the Pacific War GB (though not finished in time) 1/350 Atlantic Models HMS PUMA, Navy Days 1970 1/48 Westland Wasp, 829 HECLA Flight, South Atlantic June 1982. Based "loosely" on the Fujimi kit with extensive scratch building and a scratch built flight deck/quarterdeck base 1/48 Trumpeter Hawker Seahawk FGA6, 804 NAS, HMS BULWARK 1956, Operation Musketeer. Figures adapted from Eduard US Navy personnel 1942. 1/48 Grand Phoenix Firefly NF Mk 1, 1792 NAS, HMS OCEAN, 1946. Aircrew from CMK. 1/600 HMS INTREPID, from the Airfix FEARLESS kit. As she was at anchor off the Caribbean island of Bequia for a beach banyan in late February 1981 1/600 HMS GLASGOW from the AIrfix BELFAST kit and a lot of scratchbuilding! Set in Romdalsfjord in Norway on 29 April, GLASGOW has just evacuated King Haakon and Crown Prince Olav of Norway, and part of the Norwegian gold reserves from advancing German forces in Molde and are enroute to Tromso. Still haven't decided what I'm doing for this GB. Can't be anything too complex or I'll never finish it in time!

Dmitri, If this is your standard of work as a novice, I'd hate to think how god you'll get with some experience. Your quality of work and attention to detail is astounding. I think the thing is, you model to what is feasible in the scale. I have traditionally always worked in 1/600. Then about 2 years ago jumped to 1/350 for a couple before returning to 1/600 for my current build. The challenge I find now is that I know what is feasible in 1/350 and am trying to replicate that (not very successfully) in 1/600! The larger the sale, the more detail we can include. My rule of thumb is nothing smaller than 0.1 mm on the model so that means in 1/600 I can include something that might be 60 mm in real life. in 1/35 that would be 3.5 mm.

Got to be over a year or so since I last caught up with this. The only word I can think of is wow! The level of detail is incredible. I was especially interested in your wake animations. Like a few on here, I have spent a lot of my working life at sea and throughout all of that time looking at the effect of the hull on the sea had never realised that the angle of the wake from the bow is the same regardless of speed until I left the Navy and started working in industry where we have a number of hydrodynamicists. And in conversations with them, they said that the angle was always 19 deg which is what I have used ever since in my seascapes. Yet I think you said 39 deg which is a huge difference and the animations don't look to be that extreme. Is that a typographical error or is it really 39 deg? Thanks.

Haven't caught up with this for a wee while but I must say the attention to detail is superb. You are giving us a masterclass in how to build this iconic WW2 cruiser.

Well you certainly cracked the anchor! Superb work as ever John.

Reminds me of a job application I reviewed many years ago when I was at Handling Squadron at Boscombe Down. The job was for a Technical Author for Merlin helicopters and the mandatory experience stated something like: "military aircrew (preferably rotary wing), military air engineering officer or commercial equivalent with experience of the military airworthiness procedures". One application, in the section that was providing evidence in response to that experience requirement, read along the lines of "I have flown abroad on holiday once with my parents". Needless to say, the individual did not get offered an interview!

Normally called "falls" but I think I prefer "dropping down bits"

Sorry, I can't help with any kits or aftermarket that will help here but have you considered 3D printing them? They're a pretty simple shape so would be easy enough to draw I would have thought and there are companies out there which will print your own designs. This isn't complete and it's not necessarily drawn to 1/700 scale, but this took about 25 mins to knock up in CAD: I appreciate that may not be an ideal solution but it might help you out of a hole.

Cheers Steve. I've started some of the detail painting and thought I put them together dry fitted to see how they look. One challenge that I wasn't expecting was removing the parts from the masking tape base. I have always taped a strip of masking tape to a piece of card sticky side up and then placed the small parts on that for spraying and it has always worked very well. But I finally ran out of the roll that I have been using for over 10 years and had to buy some new. For this, I've never invested in expensive Tamiya tape or the like because it is sticky side up and does not go over pre-painted work, but this new brand by a company called Zalujmus, which I'd never heard of but it had the best reviews on Amazon, is so sticky that it has proven difficult to remove the parts from the tape. In the end I had to resort to sliding a No 10 X-Acto blade between the tape and piece to release them but they still left behind a residue that needed to be scraped/sanded away. Back to the B&Q own brand methinks! Thanks for watching

I'm not sure I'd have fancied hitting the ramp at 60 odd kts somehow! So in preparation for the Harriers that were to come later, it performed a VTOL recovery and take off - courtesy of one of Swan Hunter's cranes.

Hi Richard, I've not seen the kit so I don't know where exactly Airfix has broken the hull waterline but this photo gives a good idea of where it is in relation to the stbd anchor which sits a lot lower than in earlier classes. However, if Airfix have put the break at the top of the boot topping then yes you will need to either build it up with sheet styrene or add the hull bottom and then cut away at a point below the join. It is worth noting that unless you plan to set her alongside in a millpond sea harbour (in which case the lights would be white not red/green), you will need to cut lower than you think to allow for the way that the sea rises and dips alongside the hull caused by her movement through the sea, even in perfect conditions.

Have a look at my HECLA and PUMA builds. They were done before the Black Cat or Starling figures came out so are 3D printed. Whilst PUMA is predominantly civilain figures, there are some RN figures mixed in there in No 1s whilst HECLA has a mix of No 8s, overalls with foulies and aircrew. Happy to share the STL files if they're any good to you.

Thanks Crisp. I think I looked at that thread a while back and I think you're right, there weren't any major changes in that period as far as I could tell.

Thanks Rob, that's really helpful. Much better than my 3D printed ones. Just need someone to upskill my painting now!

Looking great Terry. Have a good trip.

Thanks Paul. I haven't yet; that was going to be the next trial if the PVA glue on it's own didn't provide sufficient protection.

The base is now remade but I'm experimenting with various techniques to protect the expanded polystyrene before I take it back to the spray booth. I fear that I may end up simply spraying Acrylic top coat with no primer - I haven't tried that yet. The current test is a brushed thinned down PVA solution but even that seems to have slightly attacked the outside of the polystyrene. In the meantime I have started painting the 3D printed boats and supporting equipment for the dockyard scene. This shows the components for RMAS Agile, 2 Dog class tugs and a selection of PAS boats. Thanks for watching

Making excellent progress with this Jeff. I'm impressed with the way that you can get exact 90 deg cuts in sheet styrene that thick. I usually use much thinner (~20 thou usually) because my cutting skills simply aren't up to cutting anything thicker with the accuracy required.