Rob 1

Awesome work! It's all looking really good, I'll keep watching with interest.

Yep, very nicely done.

Has there been any announcent about detail sets for the new HMS Belfast model yet? I'll hold off buying the main kit until I know a full deck and photo-etch set are going to be available.

I'll add my comment on here as I've just completed my HMS Warspite this weekend, with the Pontos set (almost 13 months after starting it). Phew. Good work so far Mike. the amount of detail can seem a bit endless at times, but keep at it; be assured that the result will be well worth it in the end

Looking good, nice work. She certainly was an awesome ship, and had a hell of an anti-aircraft armament - its amazing the naval aviators managed to get her (and Musashi), I guess it was down to sheer strength of numbers that she was up against on her own without any air cover.

I think that is what's known as 'value egineering' (better known as government cutbacks on military spending!)

That's a bit tragic ...

I would second the blue-tac to assist with painting small parts. My last build had a number of 20mm AA weapons (Oerlikons) made up from various parts, I just laid a flattened strip of blu-tac along part of my work table and stuck them all in a row, and proceeded to assemble and paint until completed.

I fondly remember this kit as a lad. If you're not careful, you'll be inspiring me into getting another one ... I'll keep watching with interest

A very crisp build, and excellent subtley shaded paint finish.

Very nice work. I've heard poor reports of the kit as one of our club members built one, but you've done a superb job with it, as well as the diorama as a whole.

That looks very good Jeff. Tugs are interesting subjects as they were/are seen around all dock areas and are uniquely different in shape and proportions from most other ship types. The little 1:700 one looks very good too Callum in a diorama setting, in its natural home in the dockyard. I got one of the Alliance ModelWorks 1:350 'Woban' class tugs, nice little kit, and will get some serious weathering and 'used' look when I get round to doing it as part of some diorama with a ship.

You're certainly doing this legendary battleship credit; well done and keep up the good work.

That's good work, and an interesting choice of subject and era/theatre. I remember having this kit quite a number of years ago, and built it in the traditional colour scheme (long gone now), so good to see it again.

The build is looking really good, neatly finished, and the wash works really well in bringing the detail out. As for railings, I used CA on my last model, which worked but was difficult to use and took ages. However I've just fitted all the railings on my current build (HMS Warspite) using regular PVA (just typical from a craft shop), and it worked really well for me. To echo what Jockster said, the big advantage of PVA is you can apply it with a typical medium/fine paint brush, I just thin it slightly with water to a paintable consistancy, run along the base of the rail and quickly place into position and hold for a short while, once it has grabbed (which is fairly quick with PVA) then lightly paint all along the join with the thinned PVA which seals the gap and bonds all along leaving a nice neat finish. Also, when dried, PVA is surprisingly strong. The other advantage is it dries virtually transparent, so you may get away with a little over-application on finished painted parts. I'm a big convert to PVA, and have used it for most of my Warspite build, I only used polystyrene type cement on early larger assembly parts prior to painting. Also, if you are intending to do rigging, in my experience, PVA is the miracle glue that makes it relatively easy to do, as you can apply the tiniest dot, it grabs the line (stretched sprue in my case) instantly, sets firm very quickly (in a matter of seconds) allowing you to move on to attaching the other end, and dries transparent; I discovered this after having spent a very frustrating time experimenting with CA and other glues for rigging.

This is a great project, and coming along well. Looking forward to seeing further progress in due course .

Very realisitaclly weathered and finished, looks great.

That looks great. Nicely built and finished.

That's a good collection of naval vessels, all finished to a very good standard. Thanks for posting the photos.

I built the Revell one so this airframe is quite familiar, but yours is superb - well done.

Agree with zed, pretty much any British cruisers: Leander, County, Town (batch 1 & 2), or Colony classes.

That's a good point leighivansmith. I've always built mine in a number of modules (superstructure blocks, masts, turrets etc); large enough to put as many pieces on as possible so the paint covers all parts joints etc, but small enough so that I can reach everywhere easily to access for painting.

That's looking really good Foxy. In fact, it's interesting seeing all the build phases, and seeing the differences between Queen Elizabeth and her sister that we both know so well now. Its also good that the very similar Valiant can be built from this kit, which gives a good scope of the class that can be built now.

Ah, dug back through previous threads and found it. That is really good work Frank, the overall impression of the finished build is excellent. This should inspire me for the final push on mine, although I'm into the interesting latter stages now and progressing well.

That's a very good build all round, and an interesting little diorama. There's a few photos around of aircraft being craned aboard carriers which make good images but I think this is the first one I've seen modelled, so well done for the concept of the diorama too.