NIK122

Thanks Redcoat! I'm glad you like it. The terrain technique is something that I picked up from my dad's model railway projects. He used to use 'modroc' over the cardboard. It's the stuff they used to use for broken bone casts. It's something I unfortunately don't have in my stash

Good evening. Some more progress and the start of the display base as follows. I've started chipping and weathering the trailer. I don't seem to have taken any photos of the chipping so here's one of the rear axel after the fact with a dust wash. I decided to build the base this weekend as a break from the more involved process of weathering and to help bring the project together as one unit. I started with the obligatory piece of oak plank. This piece is 600mm by 160mm. A bit of a beast. The intention is to build a base representing a section of road with a ditch running the length of the base but not parallel. Why make it easy? With the trailer being so low I figure raising up the terrain will make the finished display more interesting and the subject easier to look at? Its ended up looking like its on an elevated or banked road. With the addition of foliage and maybe telegraph poles it may remedy this.........we will see. Dry fitting the base and model below. I started with the model running right to left but after thinking about it, left to right made more sense with the vehicle parked up on the side of the road on the continent. The terrain is framed with pine, 28mm by 10mm. Both ends of the pine frame were shaped to form the ditch and then it was just a case of following the contours, left to right with the cardboard strips. Anyone familiar with model railways will have seen this technique before. Its cheap, surprisingly relaxing and well, the grounds the limit. I added more card from another box to form the road etc and pinned it down. A wash of thinned PVA was applied to the whole surface and when this was touch dry weight was added to the surface over night. If I do this again I will use more rigid card as once dry it was a little more spongy than I would have liked. The following morning when dry I've added two part wood filler over the whole surface. Two part car filler would have been just as good but as I wasn't bothered by a super smooth finish it wasn't a problem. This was then sanded back after 20mins. This is what I like about the product. It lets you get on with it. Mig acrylic mud has then been applied over the surface. Neat over the verge and slightly diluted on the road. I used a hairdryer to speed this up and then fine sandpaper to remove the coarseness of the texture on the road for variation and so that all the wheels and tracks will sit down on the surface. And finally a test shot. I've a static grass applicator in the post, something I've never used before, so the next post will follow on from here. Thanks for looking

Good evening. Some more on the trailer. The oils have dried and been sealed with more gloss coat and a Tamiya black panel line has been applied to the planks. After some procrastination I've decided to just add the license plate decal and not the large optional number on the right rear mudguard as I can only find one image showing this feature which incidentally is what the kit box art is based on. Instead I opted to mask and add the white width markings on the rear mudguards to add some interest. The license plate decal was a pig to fit and needed notching. With hindsight I should have removed the three raised details as I can't find a reference image with them on. I couldn't bring myself to do this though after the paint was added. It ended up being academic after damaging the paint on the right mudguard whilst removing the mask for the white markings. Moving on, the bits and bobs for the winch were next. This consists of some after market resin parts and a doctored towing eye from the spares box. The hook is from the trailer kit and the single link is from a chain I've found that is near enough for the other details that will be added. The problem with the towing eye was the open side where the cable is attached. This has been fixed with drilled out stretched sprue. It will make gluing the metal cable to this part a lot more straight forward. Below are all the parts for the end of the towing cable and the bracket for fixing down the spare wheel. Finally it all added to the trailer. I turned blue holding my breath when cutting the tow cable to length as messing it up could have been a disaster after gluing the winch housing in place. The spare tyre has been weathered but nothing else. Everything is glued in place apart from the chain tensioners as I don't fancy crimping on the chains in situ. The cable eye and rollers etc need picking out with a gun metal paint. It's all looking very shiny but not for much longer. Another dry fit. The wheels have been weathered and that is it for now. Thanks for looking

Superb!

Yep! It's looking sweet

Good afternoon. Following on from yesterday I've got the oils laid down so here are some shots and an explanation of the technique used. The model has had a gloss coat applied and was left to dry over night. This morning I put some small amounts of oil paint on some cardboard in preparation. Three hours is long enough to leave the oils before use I think. The cardboard soaks up the oils that leach from the paint and this helps speed up the drying time which is still considerable. I will leave the oils to dry for at least 72hrs. I used burnt sienna and burnt umber, Winsor and Newton oil paint to create the effect. Mainly burnt umber. The need for a broad range of colours is unnecessary as the variation comes from the combination of base colour and the thickness of oil paint applied over it. The oil paint is applied with a flat brush matching the width of the plank if possible. A mix of stiff bristled brushes is then used to drag over the oil paint exposing the base coat below. This method works really well on bringing pioneer tools to life also. I've tried to approach each plank individually as whilst the colour of the planks could be fairly uniform the grain is always going to be different. Maybe not on a high end yacht but a yacht it's not. This process is a lot of fun as there really isn't much that can go wrong because of the slow drying time. If you don't like the way its going then a brush dipped into white spirit will remove the oil paint and you can start over. Each plank has more or less oil applied and then by cleaning the flat brush in white spirit and drying it on kitchen roll it can be used to remove as much or as little oil paint until you are happy with the effect. Not having a super steady hand, for once, helps with the randomness of the wood grain. Picking out each of these thinner planks didn't require masses of patience. A fairly liberal coat was applied but with burnt sienna in places to add some red to the effect. Over paint is easily cleaned up, again with white spirit. Before and after shots below. Finally some shots of this afternoons efforts. You can really go to town and add knots if you like. I had a go but its not particularly easy. I'm more than happy to answer any questions on this topic. As always thanks for looking

Hello all, especially to Ukraine. No witless platitudes, just solidarity and hope for a free Ukraine. Just a short update as I've been away. The following is progress up to last weekend. I will be back to it this week. The base coating of the timber deck almost became a disaster as I don't seem to be able to except that Tamiya paints even with retarder are a pig to brush. I went down the brush painting path as it meant no masking. Once sealed any mistakes with oils will be easy to remove with white spirit again removing the need to mask. I'm going to restock on enamels for brush painting in the future as I seem to have nothing but fond memories for Humbrol when I think about it. Below is the trailer dry assembled with base colours applied. The wheels are from 'Custom Scale' and are the weighted street pattern tread type with the correct rims. The kit parts have six openings in the rims when there should only be two. The effect at the moment is more accident than design due to the trouble with the paint. The box art was used for the colour palette as the image is great. The coarseness of the painted grain is deliberate as once sealed I will refine the wood grain effect and darken the wood with oils. Hopefully the variation of base colours will give a more realistic look through the oils by varying the opacity. There is always a 'get out of trouble' option of just painting the decks grey as per the instructions if it doesn't work, or maybe a combination of both to show wear and tear. I will photograph this process and post it for anyone that is interested. Once again apologies for the photos. Another trip to the opticians is in order. It appears that the paint mix wasn't quiet right when applying the lightest grey coat as it looks like its speckled. Hopefully this will tone down with weathering. I want to weather the Famo and trailer at the same time to harmonize them both. The trailer will have more wear on it though. So, fingers crossed for the next stage. Thanks for looking

Great build. What method have you used for chipping the paint on the wooden floor?

Well I've just read this entire thread and well, you sir are a very talented chap. Fascinating to follow the build and the history of the boat. Have you ever considered publishing a book on modeling this subject. I think it would be a damn good read

You've done a lovely job on the model and the base really sets the whole thing off. Something to be proud of

Nice job beating up the fenders. How have you done it? I've thought about using heat before but bottled it. You've managed to get some nice realistic creases into them

'Hope springs eternal' as they say when it comes to builds. I don't seem to be able to just build straight out of the box. This is partly due to the pleasure I get from a little research. It's a kind of archeology of books. I'm following your Cromwell build with interest. I've got the Cromwell ARV, Accurate Armour conversion lined up for sometime this year and look forward to your input. Thanks for following my current build John

OK, interesting. I think I will try out the sponge suggestion that you offer on the underside of the model first to check it out. I've used the hair spray method before but not the masking fluid option despite having the product. Although time consuming, maybe I'm wierd, I enjoy painting in the chips after applying a light color with a sponge. I guess the nerves are coming in with this project after investing so much time building IT and not wanting to end up with a less than satisfactory paint job. Thanks for your insight PIAT

Good evening. Has anyone any thoughts on chipping effects on panzer grey? I'm contemplating applying a hull red colour by sponge and then brush painting AK chipping colour in the center of the chips. Alternatively sponging on a very light grey and then applying the AK chipping colour. I guess it's each to their own but I'd be interested to know what you guys think

Cheers Ron. The matrix has responded

I can't get this link, (no pun intended) to work Ron

Yet more brilliance! I was going to suggest that the handle was for the sunroof. I'll keep that to myself

'The difference between too soon and too late was about 376 nanoseconds.' 😆 I feel your pain! Individual tracks look great but nerves of steel are required. Looking forward to seeing your build completed

Thanks Ron. That's definitely heading in the right direction

Just had a quick look. Off the top of my head the links I'm after are in the region of 4mm by 2.5mm. They are pretty hefty looking things even in 1/35. Thank you anyway George

Apologies if I'm preaching to the converted but this sometimes happens with me when the air, then paint and back again action is rushed on the airbrush trigger. If you are thinking of buying a new airbrush I can recommend the Mr Hobby PS 289. I've got one myself and it's excellent value for money

Sweet! One of the coolest ships out there. IMHO

Good morning and bon dimanche. Finally I am ready for paint on the trailer although that's for the next post. I have been plugging away at detailing up the trailer with what little reference material there is out there and I've arrived at a point where I'm happy with it over all. It's most likely not completely historically correct but it's as close as I could get it. The winch, chain tensioners and tool box all needed attention to thin them to a point where they could be moved outward to create the channel for the towing cable as described in my last post. I've been lax with photos so apologies for not showing every step but hopefully you will get the idea. The sides of the winch housing have been thinned by 1mm overall and the top narrowed accordingly. The kit part had two chunky hinge or hasp parts above the two brackets which are incorrect and were removed and replaced with a single clamp. The two brackets were also removed and replaced with plastic card and rod for rivets. The rod is the crank shaft. The tool box was completely remade as you can see. It's an approximation. Sorry about the photos. The towing A frame was next. A resin replacement is provided with the Custom scale aftermarket but again the casting was, well........... Looking at the photos available the A frame was constructed from channeled section. Some shots show the flanges facing out and some in. The kit part has them facing in. One of the reasons for buying the aftermarket was the beautifully modelled handbrake and cable. After some consideration trying to tension fine wire between two delicate and brittle resin parts, this idea has been dropped. From what I can tell the later and simplified A frame had the flanges facing in and the handbrake deleted so it's the kit part I ended up using. The molded on handbrake was removed and the air line made from stretched sprue and Tamiya tape. The A frame with the rest of the missing details added. I did consider adding the more refined resin towing eye to the kit part but at this point I just wanted to get the kit done. The shovel is from the spares box, clamps from T-rex. And finally some shots of it all together. This thing is really busy with all the usable resin and scratch built parts added. Kid gloves are going to be needed for painting. The air hose is electrical wire sheathing and will need repeating for the connection to the Famo. If anyone has an image of this connection in situ it would be appreciated. I have the resin attachment so I get the idea but some reference would be great. The electrical cable for powering the trailer lights needs adding but I will attempt this when the trailer is attached and on the base. With the parts thinned and dry fitted the channel between the tool box and winch housing has been achieved. The major parts are still loose to help with the painting of all this.😬 The plan is to prime and then paint the wooden deck using oils. Once this is dry, sealed and masked I will paint the rest of the trailer. I think masking will be easier this way. I know there are wooden deck decals available but I fancy the challenge of painting the wood. I still need to source suitable chain for the chain tensioners. I've no idea why they couldn't have been included in the kit? Well what I had hoped would be a quick build, became another marathon. Thanks for looking

It looks great. 100% for effort on the paint scheme. I've seen this built on 'Greg's models' on YouTube and the work that goes into all the masking is phenomenal. I think you have done it justice

I don't normally follow this part of the forum but couldn't resist as my dad worked for Westland all his life. The kit looks great and you are more than doing it justice. I'm now following with interest. Keep up the good work