agyoung33

Thanks Erk - really interesting. I'll have to do some experimenting myself; it seems in my time out of the hobby that washes have expanded past just oils and enamels.

Lovely finish Steve! And thanks for the advice on the plank stickers! Safe trip to see your rellies too! Cheers Gaz

Almost back to a regular time for my build, but it seems as if those small ideas I have for "tinkering" add up exponentially time wise, but we press on! I've fitted the rails onto the quarter deck after much thought and it came out much quicker than I anticipated. I'm still accidentally bending the brass out of shape with careless fingers, but I've come to the point where I can bend it back to almost its original shape. Still bloody annoying, but at least I now reuse the offending brass rather than binning it. A misplaced cut also meant that one end of the brass rail was left weakened. I decided to vertically reinforce with a tiny bit of rail and CA. The "wobbles" are getting better, and the straight looks "straighter"! I'll take it as a small victory and continue - the methodology is developing at last! The next piece was to finish the Sea Dart launcher that I'd started the last time. It came out pretty well I think; the time it took was about what I'd expect out of something this small. Admittedly I could've saved myself some time if I'd actually remembered where I kept the kit launcher (long since disappeared!!!) While I was at it, I thought I'd give a go at making some replacement cable reels, and a tongue for the anchor. I'm now in a quandary as to closing up the fantail/quarter deck space. Do I break out the airbrush for such a small job or would it be better to use a brush seeing as that part of the kit is going to be very dark anyway. I'm leaning towards the latter. Okay, that's about it, thanks for looking in! Cheers Gaz

Thanks man! Thanks Terry - very nice of you to say so - boats are not my thing but I'm getting into it! Yeah, I'm very invested in how the oil canning will come out myself. It's in my head, and will involve oil paints I think. Those fine grain, very smooth blending, cheap "artists" oil stuff from down the local office supplies. Ofcourse I'm about a million miles away (or feels like) from getting to the paint at the moment. Must be patient! Cheers Gaz

Nice save on the mast there Steve! Got to say it's building into an impressive model - how easy was the wooden deck sticker to put on if you don't mind me asking? Cheers Gaz

Some excellent work there Erk! I like the effect on the wooden planking fore and aft. Did you use oils for the weathering? Cheers Gaz

Job bud! And quick with it too! It turned out really well - love the camo scheme, just adds to that aggressive ship look. Well, you've given me some inspiration when it comes to being bold with the plastic Jeff! Good onya! Cheers Gaz

Thanks Jeff! I'm abit scattered at the moment and I should have foreseen that lowering one section of the kit would mean I'd have to make it up elsewhere! Ya live and learn!! Not sure about an update anytime soon - I've been pretty busy with real life of late. I'd been deciding on whether to get the airbrush out of cobwebs when I suddenly remembered that the quarter deck railings need to be fitted first before I attach the helo deck to the hull proper, with all the attendant puttying and sanding. Its taken longer than I expected, but I'm loving it! Cheers Gary

Hey Jeff, just caught up on your magnificent beast - lots and lots of lovely scratch and improvising I must say - and it looks a treat! If it's not too late, what I used to do on my "lights" was to hollow out the centre of the lamp with a drill, and then depending on the scale I'd paint the hollow indent silver before filling it with a clear liquid (PVA if I remember rightly?). Anyway, it's looking great bud! Cheers Gary

Just a quick update on small details, and a bit of major surgery too. I was humming along quite happily with the adjustment to the bridge windows when I thought I'd get serious and see just what the overall fit would be. It's an awkward bit of model engineering, connecting the bridge superstructure to the deck below it. I don't know whether it was because of my mucking around with the bridge, but the aft section (which has the air intake for the turbines), when pressed down, would raise inadvertently raise the deck hosting the stack and masts behind it. I made my conclusion that the thing I needed to do was to make a "hole" where the air intake butted onto the decking below it. I've outlined it in pencil. And sans slot. The fit was pretty good afterward, and that made the grind abit easier to take. The small stuff included the anchors, the chain and well for said anchor, and I in the end added a blast bag for the gun. There's also the case of the missile launcher, and I'm in the middle of building a slightly smaller version. The kit provided looked too out of scale to my eyes that I couldn't leave it alone. As usual, I mixed up about 1000% more two part putty than I needed.... Like everything PE, that chain took abit of "fiddle" in order to get it curled around the capstan, and into the chain well. It'll do for my first experience with the stuff. A careful sand and the reshaped anchor well will be on the way! I added some "wings" to the shield facing outboard. These were placed to house a 5.56mm minigun I think. I found some quite clear pics on the "2ndmanchester" website (dedicated to the T42 destroyer). There's also a box I need to add which I assume is for the associated bits that the weapon would need stored close by. And fitted. *I notice I've knocked off a "box" on the port side. I suppose I'll have to make another..... Thanks for looking - and catchya next time. Gaz

It's coming together very well Jeff! It'll be a good day when we can see the turrets mounted! Any chance of a close up on the details? Gary

Sorry about the photos blinking out. It seems like I've got a serious problem with Village.Photos....I thought it might have been the pic size but it isn't. I'll see what I can drag up. Cheers Gary

Like you say man - what we're used to - 26C and I'd be starting to melt! Cheers Gary

Nice work there Jeff! Enjoy watching this kind of stuff. It's like hearing tumblers turning, as you manipulate the plastic into shapes. Fantastic mate! On a different note - I didn't know it got that hot in Perth! I do remember afew days where it seemed as if you just stepped outside and the shirt was wet with sweat but 40's! Wow! Cheers Gary

Not a problem mate! It's what this site is about, isn't it? Cheers Gary

Well back again for the 3rd(?) straight weekend. That must be some sort of record. But in keeping with the older posts, not a lot has been achieved. I've certainly not cracked open the paint. I have however managed to look at the 4.5in turret and gun and seen what my sweaty little hands could possibly do for improvement. It's a never ending story, I just feel inclined to do it - must be genetic. I had a look at the gun, and figured that's the first thing I'll replace. It's overscale, and by the looks of things, not quite round either. I remember an article I'd read in the past about using tape to simulate fume extractors, or perhaps it was the buckles and seat belts to cockpit interiors. Whatever it was, I thought it'd be easier to do that than try to drill out plastic rod. The original is to the right - it's been cut away from the base. I'd planned to reuse it but it went "ping" and that was the end of that. After what seemed an epoch I'd finally managed to wrap the tape around a spare piece of brass rod that I have. I got some CA and reinforced the tape, and, setting it aside on the cutting mat it began to bind with the mat...oh the hilarity. There's a wee door on the back of the gun housing- suspect it's a maintenance hatch. There are rectangular shapes on the bottom edge, so I tried to add those as well. (they're quite evident on all the turret pics I have of the ship). Afew pics with the thing fitted. It's sitting high at the moment (due to the blu-tac), but the kit part as it was sat too low. I'm still debating whether I should put a blast bag around the gun or leave it as is. Annnnddd if you've not noticed, the pics I've been taking are significantly better now! I finally remembered the detail settings I used to photograph model kits in the past! Finally; but that foc'sle looks a mess don't it? Thanks for looking in, Gary

I've had the pleasure of getting some more done on this over the past week or so, and thought it might be a good idea to post it up (come to think of it, your mileage may vary on whether that's a good thing). I made what I'm going to call a signal lamp that sits on the roof of the helo housing at the stern of the ship. I won't bore you with pics of it, but suffice to say I had to make certain parts multiple times as they "pinged" away from my tweezers. But as I was going through reference pics on the 'puter, I noticed a descrepancy between the model and the real thing. There's a prominent lip, or ledge on the forward superstructure that's not meant to be there. I thought that's easy, I'll just file it away and get onto making the bridge windows more prominent which due to the age of the kit (I suspect) are on the bleary side of definition. I used .25 plastic sheet and cut into thin slithers. Put them on, and slapped some liquid surface primer into the gaps. I'll let it harden overnight and get some fine grit on it tomorrow. Thinking everything was going sweetly, I sanded off the little ledge I'd mentioned earlier below the front of the bridge. I test fitted the modified bridge and discovered that there now was a significant overhang. Sigh. The bridge front is flush with the front edge of the structure - I checked an overhead view of the Gloucester, and it did seem to indicate that the neck between the forward radome and the main radar housing was shorter than depicted in the model. The correction would be easier than you'd figure, and the width of the saw blade was just about right to eliminate that pesky overhang. So, saw between the front radome cover and the main radar housing. Must be overhanging by a solid mm or so.... Arrggghhh - what have I done!!!! There's still a small overhang, but I can handle that with some fairing in using some plastic and filler. The cut was thankfully very clean and by the looks of it won't require too much filler to hide the join. Oh yeah, before I forget, I finally found some detail pics of those black rectangles that you see on the bridge wings facing forwards. They look to be wells housing signal equipment (a guess). Anyway, I got to drilling and backing those out as well. Lucky guy that I am. Thanks for looking in. Cheers Gary

Some mean work there Erk - looking very cool! Cheers Gary

I'm late to he show, but woah - like very much what you're doing here Stuart! Always loved scratch built stuff!! Cheers Gary

Hey great stuff Jon! I'll follow along if you don't mind - I got the kit recently, and am thinking the WE PE might be the best match for budget and possibly skill level (I'm a complete newby when it comes to ships)! Cheers Gary

There's some nice work there Jeff - she's taking shape and I love the fact you've got some paint on her already. Hope the search for extra boats is a frutiful one. Having just reread David's above post are you really going to scratch the extra boats!?! That would be some job bud!!

Hi Stuart and Jeff - I enjoy the painting process as much as construction. Trying to get the blending of paint just right, using multiple shades of whatever colour I was using - I used to preshade and all that other stuff to get colour depth on my armour models. If this comes out as it does in my minds eye, I'll be very happy! Jeff, I'm considering an Invincible class carrier right at this moment! I'll pipe down and get back to the "Might Manc" and hopefully that itch will go away! Hi David; yes I thought of a "reverse" mesh, object that would allow me to tape it to the hull and get those ridge lines up. But all my pondering came to nothing - it was the little squares of tape method that was the first thought in this, and the last. I did think of fortifying the system once or twice. There's a nice bottle of beer in the fridge and it's quite hot Downunder at the moment.... Thanks for the encouragement guys, be back shortly with an update. Cheers Gary

Howarya? Just a small update today. I'd talked about an idea I'd had to get some oil canning on the kit and this update is that idea going into action.... I had a window that allowed me to get little bits of tape stuck all over the hull of the kit. Not one of the most exciting things I've ever done, but spread over 2 days it wasn't as mind numbingly boring as it looks....It only feels that way. Ofcourse, spreading it out meant that there was an inconsistency in tape width/length etc. So much so that I went and redid the port side. It kept me off the streets I keep telling myself. I'll take it as a lesson in patience. I used a car primer from the local which I'd experimented with earlier. I found the coverage to be good, too good in fact. I'd guessed that I'd only need 2 passes before it got too thick. What goes on must come off. The tape. Tortuous at first, but quicker as I found a more efficient way of getting it off. Despite only 2 passes with the rattle can primer, I found the ridges to be too high - I could feel them with my fingertips. So it was an hour or two or scrapping with a blade, and a final light sand with some 1200 grit. I think it came out ok, I was after a sort of irregular conformity. Subtle, but definitely there when looked for. All I want from those ridges and lines was a place for the paint to catch when I get around to weathering etc. Anyway, that's my take on oil canning! I am SO looking forward to sometime getting the airbrush going again! Cheers Gary

Some delicate, time consuming work there Jeff! Keep on going mate!! Cheers Gary

Hey thanks bud! It surprises me! I think if I'd just left it as a box build I'd just end up kicking myself in afew years. Besides, some of the molded on details are pretty spartan and blocky, and I'm not quite sure what they where meant to represent. It doesn't help that the the kit is basically a marriage of Batch 1 and 3 particulars. I never did manage to get the original from Dragon, (there's a Premium edition of a batch 3 out now though), but the Revell sprues look abit tired to me. Oh!, 1250 scale must be tiny - kudos to you on that! Yeah, I've had that exact problem with reference pics for this. I don't have a set of plans for the "Busy Bee", so it's pics and videos on the net. If I couldn't get a good pic of some detail I searched for Gloucester pics to see if the corresponding detail was present there. There are also afew sad vids of T42 hulks being towed to Turkey and the scrappers yard - I managed to take screen shots which helped, even if they weren't of the Manchester. But you're dead right - it's playing detective which adds to the fun,. Gary