Ropuch Jr.

Super useful guys, thanks a lot!

VIGILANT REFIT The differences between HMS Vigilant and Wizard aren't much but enough to call her in (my work bench) for some modifications, extra detail and an excuse to use those phots again! preface: i only have one low resolution image of Wizards starboard side, some detail can be found but nothing fantastic 😕 Starting from the hull are the portholes, keeping as many as possible, I filled the portholes that I believed to be skew whiff and marked for their new locations. TBH I was putting this off for a while, somehow didn't believe id pull it off/mess it up and put myself off the project entirely. Biting the 4.7" shell I took a deep breath and cracked on. Firstly, for reference, will be the two images I used. As you will see there's much potential for some scratch building, though they may be very small details I'm looking fir ideas etc. Thanks in advance! you will notice that [most of] the portholes are in series like colons : : : and not staggered like Vigilant came Below is the process. i held the model up against my screen and tried my best to count and locate the port holes. marked it with a pen. Now I was fearful that the CA glue would be very hard compared to the resin, so I sealed the marks with a thin layer of CA and a finger dipped into my partners nail varnish (our secret ok 🤫) and wiped the CA off almost immediately and left to dry. Doing this will help me know I have crossed the CA onto the resin as the black marks would start to disappear. as rough as rough can be 🤮 I used my dental tools to poke holes into the resin like a centre punch would for metal, to help guide my pin vice correctly. I stepped up from the smallest drill straight to the correct sized drill bit. ill clean things up later at the prep before enamel painting the hull and superstructure. NOTE: the sequencing of the words and images aren't quiet right, this is because i was watching 'all is quiet on the western front' for the first time as boy I'm sure you'd understand. Thank goodness I was born before the 21st century and not before the 20th! The hull looks a mess as the CA doesn't help with is translucency, I primed the hull and let it set for a few days. I followed @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies idea of plating relief in his thread here. Using 10mm model masking tape, priming over it, CAREFULLY peel it off and then prime over it again gave it a great effect! Initially I didn't think it necessary but found in a photo that it could be seen my efforts I need to smooth off the rough edges, this is due to not scoring the tape before peeling off TOO FAST! SUPERSTRUCTURE Moving above deck with the confidence from the port hole job, I continued to keep the spirit of making reasonable adjustment to make Vigilant more Wizard. Starting off with levelling out the parts of the super structure where they would be glued to the hull of the ship. not enough to warrant a photo but I'll briefly explain. I placed a disposable nail file on the workbench and rubbed the superstructure on it, taking care to not sand one side too much so it doesn't sit skew whiff when glued. Using mk.1 eyeball to check its level across two planes. repeat for the mini 'Queen Anne's Mansion' part. Firstly removing the walls on B turret, the door in the middle port side and cutting back the walls for the twin 20mm Oerlikon mounts. main superstructure as Vigilant Port side door removed, port holes marked and then drilled, secondary armament walls cut as in photos and ammo box removed and replaced with 3D printed parts The 'Queen Anne's Mansion' had quite a bit of detailing made. I guess my confidence in scratch building has risen significantly by now. Refence photos followed by my work. rain deflector above port hole, could be a gully or something like that. extension under the Bulwark and lack of door on portside plus the extra portholes. you can see the resin hand rails, after removing the door there was a gap in the railing, so I took the railing off and use very thin (about 12-16 AWG that was laying around in a drawer) wire, stripped it and straightened one of the treads and glues it on to replace the resin hand rail. That's as far as I have gotten, there are still quite a few more things to do on the superstructure and then the other parts of the ship. I am only going to alter things if i can see it on a photo, or know for a fact its there. I have looked for as much reference material as possible and can't find much for Wizard (expectedly) there's only maybe DK Browns book but don't know what's in there and what info it could provide. if anybody had his book on destroyers I'd like to know! I believe references could be made about her in books on her operational involvement in Op Neptune, though I doubt there would be. Note to scratch building. I have enjoyed it. Although its has just been a wire and some glued sprue it hasn't be difficult and definitely packs a punch in the overall finish. I have an area that needs attention. I don't know what it is but looks important, and I want it on my ship because I've seen it in a photo. Above the foremost porthole and the round thing inline with the top portholes, inline with the back of A turret, What are they? recommendations for scratch building it?

🤔 I never did prime years ago, partly because I never knew what it was or what it even did... the're still fine now 😅 @socjo1 thanks, I invite you to follow 👌

@Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies do you rub it down a little? when i was replacing my broken wing mirror cover, I used the primer and didn't like the finish before the gloss coat because it was grainy and wouldn't leave a smooth surface for the gloss spray.

LAYING DOWN THE HULL The overall detail and quality of the resin kit is very nice and I am satisfied with my purchase. I have chosen to display HMS Wizard in her 1945 configuration, with hull on a stand. It would be nice to do a diorama waterline display. It would be too much for me to do and too many firsts to handle. I will make my own stans and have the ship sit on a set of blocks. To make sure it doesn't slide off the blocks i will hide magnets inside two of the blocks and inside the ship. the two main halves closeup of the forecastle For the magnets, they will be placed centre and deep enough to keep the mass low and not too heavy. I decide to position them in line with the ends of the bilge keels. Then I used my router (im a carpenter) to trim holes to the right depth (4 magnets deep) so that when the top half of the ship joins with the bottom of the hull the magnets don't get in the way. the magnets all couldn't fit in the bottom so I had to trim to top too this can also be achieved with a dremel, I used what i had to hand. magnets inside sitting loose to see it all fits well which it does so i glued the. in with CA glue, some toothpicks wedged inside is case they come loose or to some effect like that. I have an activating spray which fast dries the CA glue. Still takes 24hrs to fully cure Now to glue the two halves together. I prepped the surfaces sanding smooth with water to keep the dust from getting airborne and clogging the [nail]file. There was a little guiding stump at the stern of the ship and I got rid of that because we didn't get along very well. Regards to the model it was very well made, the edges just needed a light sand and that was it really, the lines were dead flat and no gaps, although I found the after starboard side was out of line and forecastle port side too was a little off. nothing for me to worry about for now. I have mixed CA with talcum powder, about 3:2 ratio respectively, and smeared the flat edges on one half and put the two together tightly wrapping them in masking tape to make sure there are no gaps. I wiped as much excess glue off as possible with nail varnish remover before spraying the CA activator. I sanded the seam and evened out the models imperfections fore and aft, and proceeded to prime coad it and rub down again to fill small gaps and expose any more sanding duties. masts for hadeling during painting aft most imperfection revealing itself good example of filling small cracks and scratches that's it for now. are there specific primers for resin or are most likely to work well? I have vallejo primer and intend to use it unless otherwise recommended by you guys. While I wait for paint to arrive I will prep superstructures and bits what I will glue on before I paint it in G45 paint and antifouling for the Hull. How thick should the plimsoll line be?

oh boy this looks great!! what size tape/plating relief? spacings?

to preserve the paint/protect the work. also when, as in, varnish before decals? after, never, always robgizlu established that before decals and weathering @robgizlu thank you, this is top notch! @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies thank you, ive just ordered from SH. should be good matches. there wasn't any thinners there but found some other elsewhere...

Thank you, this has helped tip the scales, i will also like to compare the two to satisfy my curiosity. one me question, what varnish is best to use? also when?

DEEPER DIVE We will be looking at the model, comparing it to photos of HMS Wizard and selecting paint colours. I recieved my parcel containg HMS Vigilant from Atlantic Models a few weeks ago and was very impressed with detail of it all, i have only found 1 general issue with the model but nothing some sanding can do. I like the resin weight and texture is good to with with, especially its rigidity makes sanding and handling much easier. Based on these opinions so far I think I would buy again if my next project leaned in that direction. The box came in fantastic condition with the model well packaged inside, please excuse my cats inability to find a proper sleeping quarter, she loves cardboard boxes and must always test each one for its utility. This time Vigilant was a back rest. Inside the box we have a set of instructions identifying and providing the names for all parts, diagrams and assembly instructions with notes, a full colour painting guide, resin hull and decks (split at the waterline), were bubble wrapped. The main superstructure, aft superstructure, guns and gun decks came in a baggie (also resin) with another one for cast white metal parts such as gun barrels, propeller and yardarms. The sweetest part was the completeness of the kit as it had a full brass photo etch too! I now had to compare the two vessels and find out what else I need to order to help distinguish Wizard from the others. My first go to was to look online and fou d a few black and white images. I was blessed to come across this photo seller on ebay who had 4 photos of HMS Wizard before her 1952 conversion to a Type 15 frigate. I have left mateys water marks on so he can get the right kind of attention and credit. 1. Coming into port 2. Taken form HMS Indifaticable 3. dont know what's happening here, but i really appreciate the detals 4. Wizard (bottom) and Urchin (top) escorting Indifaticable into the North Sea. Probably to Kristinsund, Norway. This is the table I made using my book, the differences were the Sensors and AA armament layout. What's intresting to note is the ships have very similar layouts but with different weapon systems because the Emergency Flotilla programme demended that whatever was available had to be fitted. It clearly shows that Britain was clearly working on a Just in Time distribution method. This peak in intrest made me glance at the different flotilla numbers and Dock yards and it was all random with a few exceptions. In general terms the dockyards were given what Britain could supply, and the ships were fitted with whatever the dockyards had. At first this seems like a logistical nightmare working out what ship needs what ammo? I don't know if bofors and oerlikon have cross compatible ordinance, same with the pompoms etc? Further more, i could see in the photos that Wizard had many ready boxes and vents etc, chain railings instead of sheet metal around B turret and other minor things. This is exactly the type of detail wanted to find with these photos, otherwise I am building Vigilant and calling it Wizard. I ordered some ready boxes and nick na ks like that from starling models. they came through the post the other day. Question: what is your opinion on micro master? are they worth the price? what is the quality of detail in the final product compared to the super detail in the computer images on their online store? I want to increase the detail of the of my 25' motor cutter, the resin one is great but isn't hollow under the canopy. 25' motor cutter Although the kit came with a coloured painting guide i really wanted to her with my own eyes as much as I could, otherwise it's just another weekend quick fix... and that's not why we're here. The biggest crux for me, as my buddy would definitely know, was select g the right colours, especially the greys! I started to look at what people have posted on forums and the likes to find paint colour numbers and codes. painting with airbrush for the first time i wanted everything to go just right. I found a few intresting paints, vallejo model air, to be specific but the chart I found wasn't for air brush. so looking for conversion tables etc was a bit of a rough time. The best part of this struggle was comming across the short and snyder colours and that colourcoats have done all the hard work by comparing the original paint chips and formulated their own. selecting the line for '43-'45 Wow simply wow, i love the Internet 😂. I learned a lot about how the RN use light reflectance value to select the shade and colour for the colour scheme. The simple grey/blue colours are for camouflage, at the distance they should blend in to the horizon/background. BUT it's winter and I don't live in a house with a spare room for all of this and enamel paint would simply take FOREVER to dry and it would probably make the cat feel abit woozy... and we don't want that! After all that I did the good old unreliable colour test on my pc screen and halved two windows side by side, zoomed all the way in and got the S&S on one side edging onto the middle line of the tow halves and put it againt the model air colour chart 🙃 I'm as professional as they get! with pinpoint accuracy I couldn't make my mind up and bought 4 greys to make sure that eventually i am accurate 🌚

I would like to try scratch building. I think I will have to do it at some point as it's inevitable when something is not online and have to make do with prior experience.

I have selected an Atlantic Models 1:350 Resin

EARLY PREP AND RESEARCH HMS Wizard wasn't a ship that stuck out of the crowed so models of it does not exist, however after buying British Destroyers 1939–45: Wartime-built classes (New Vanguard) I quickly learned that wizard was built as part of the 7th and 8th Emergency Flotilla (New W & Z class) . The Emergency Flotilla was a program where the war department would build ships fast using existing designs, weapons and propulsion systems in order to beef up the Navy because they had a large area of the globe to cover now that France was out of the picture and losses in the Atlantic was enough to warrant concern with numbers. simply put, most ships built under the emergency flotilla program would be extremely similar to eachother. So I looked online to find anything from the EF, the closer to the W class the better. Almost immediately I came across 2 classes that would satisfy the criteria and they were both from Atlantic Models! The first was HMS Scorpion and HMS Vigilant, although the Hull and superstructure of Scorpion and Vigilant are extremely similar, I learnt that the weapon systems from Vigilant were match to that of Wizard (its really a coin toss atm). This would help decrease the cost of looking out for more bits and pieces online. The order came through the post last week. I will talk about this soon.

Hello everyone! I am a new member and loved the healthy forum here so I simply had to join! i am going to build a model warship for the first time and wanted to document it as it will help me keep track and I spire to keep going but most importantly a reference for others to inspire. I laugh and joke with my best buddy about how funny it was when we were 14 to smash out a model in a weekend. the results were simply terrible but we definitely had our fun whilst at it! over time one matures and takes a deeper intrest into the history of the models that peaked our modeling tastebuds. one also appreciates the time and effort put into models and is extremely rewarding when it is backed up with so thi g as rich as the history too. When I was young(er) I enjoyed being a part of the Marine Cadet Detachment of the Sea Cadet corps TS Wizard (training ship) in Wood Green. It was my first introduction to the Royal Navy and inevitably inspired a deeper into rest into the history of it and more broadly the navies it dealt with. with this I have decided to build a model of HMS Wizard as it would require some proper research and holds a little place in my heart as it was the catalist for my love of naval history and engineering. Please follow this thread to witnes my maiden voyage into maritime modeling. commentry, experiences, pro tips and contructive criticism is advocated here to better the experience