Search the Community

Out of my comfort zone to say the least... I'm building the Showcase model and as you may ascertain from the date on this initial enquiry it's taken me a while to start it... As mentioned in the thread linked above, I'm building this one as the Royal Navy's HMS Wren, sunk by German dive bombers off Harwich on 27th July 1940. My grandfather was her Chief Stoker and fortunately survived. Over thirty of her crew did not. I have gathered the recommended additions from Shapeways; the bridge, range finder and the also the turned gun barrels. I don't intend to make any of the other changes indicated in the thread above as the scale is too small for me and I doubt I would be able to do them justice. I expect to make mistakes as I go, particularly as the order of things seems quite different for ships; please don't be shy if you see me headed down a blind alley or towards a modelling precipice. I will be grateful for the advice. It seems safe to start with the hull as I don't want to be handling it once it has some decking and structure on it. Painting is one of my favourite elements of our hobby: getting to paint on day one seems like a huge advantage in ship modelling! Cheers.

Remember the opening scenes of Red Dwarf? A spacesuited figure is painting, the camera pulls back & we see a huge spaceship. Well, that partly inspired this build. I built a Star Wars freighter and wanted a different way to display it. I had a redundant noticeboard and an idea. Plastic card, Polystyrene foam and glue came together to create this... Here's the Squadron badge. I thought some colour might brighten things up, and then this happened. I used a Japanese wing roundel and a pirate decal plus pen & pencil. Panel lines were enhanced with acrylic pastels. The Starships all seem to have maintenance trenches. This is only loosely based on them, I just used what I had for greeblies. More greeblies. We're going from left to right BTW. No prizes for guessing what these were originally supposed to be. The front end of the Vaurbian Freighter hoves into view. Above it is a repurposed 1/350th F-5. And in this shot is the Imperial shuttle. This picture was taken before I added the F-5. See, it's back again. The F-5 and various other bits were donated by @bootneck, so my thanks to him for his generosity. Hopefully it doesn't look too far out of place. I tried to add a nav droid behind the cockpit. There's room for more ships to be attached to this, so I'll start another in the near future. The WIP is in the usual place. Comments are always welcome, and thanks for looking. Pete

Here's another bits box product from the Lincolnshire Starship Yards. I've swapped over to the Star wars universe for this one. The Empire covers a large area. There are numerous worlds and moons, all of which require supplies in order that the people can exist and perhaps produce items or basic materials that can be used in payment for those supplies. They need an intergalactic Amazon Van. And here it is. The Vaurbians seem to have died out/vanished years ago. Mostly, just these ships remain. They are controlled by an A.I. which is in a sealed compartment in the ship. (I admit I borrowed this idea from Anne McCaffreys' 'Ship that sang' books. But, It may be a Vaurbian in there. No one knows. The main thing is, the ships are ancient but keep working. There is usually a small crew of droids or humans for basic maintenance and internal cargo movement. I like the idea that the humans are rather like old time Canal boat people and may be family units, with their children perhaps joining other ships as they mature. Though with FTL drive and associated time lapse they may never meet again! The ship is atmosphere capable and around 400 feet in length. The basic shape was a 1/48th F-18. I simply added bits and pieces here and there and faired them in with filler where necessary. The forward end of the ship is to your left. The green drive unit at the other end. The drive unit is obviously FTL capable and has been known to pull in any attacking ships. Only to abandon them in another time and place, never to be seen again. Hence the lack of armament. A view down the spine towards the nose. The odd shaped 'shields' were Airfix Railway Cement wagon parts. They reminded me of the panels on a Tie Fighter though. The round (main) sensors on the nose. There is no 'bridge' as such as the A.I. can see all, and it always knows where and when (FTL time lapse seems to be mostly ignored in the films) it is. On the belly the main landing gear doors (with lousy scribing!) can be seen. The brown round thing is the cargo bay access. It extends down to ground level. It would be about 7 meters in Diameter The cargo bay is in the middle of the ship and would be about 80 meters long. A useful amount of space. Under the nose, And so, under the tail too. Rear side view. Here we see a 1/76th truck wheel in a Gazelle Tail Rotor housing. Also a TSR2 bit and ships crane & lifeboat. And that is your lot until the next build. Any questions or offers to develop the idea for Disney are always welcome. I know the paint finish and some of the scribing is a bit'iffy', but it was a fun build and will live in the mancave forever. Thanks for dropping by, Pete

A question for the number crunchers out there.... I plan to build a section of the maintenance trench that runs down the side of Star Destroyers. A sort of vertical diorama. It will be mounted on a redundant 22" x 34" magnetic notice board so it may take a while. It won't be an exact copy, but very much in the spirit of, with lots of greeblies using whatever the spares boxes yield up. But I do want to get the size about right in 1/350th scale. So, The question is, How deep/tall should it be? Does anyone out there have a Star Destroyer in whatever scale that they can measure and then convert the numbers to suit? Thanks, Pete

Having looked at this review by Shar2, what are their products like ? Anyone build a resin ship from them ? The reason I ask is i will be coming into some money in the near future and want to build a Hunt class type II ? I believe there wasn't much difference between the two. My only other option is from Iron Shipwrights in 1/350 for there Hunt class type II. http://www.steelnavy.com/Hunt.htm I already plan on using colorcoats paints as Jamie really knows his stuff. My grand uncle served on L72 ORP Kujawiak from 1940 until her sinking in the Mediterranean in 1942. It will be a rarity for me since i don't have much space but it is important for me to build all of my familial connections. He also served on two U.S.Navy vessels from 1944-1954 one was a landing ship but i cant remember the hull #. The other was CVE-86 USS Sitkoh bay. Anyone do a 1/700 model or a 1/350th model for future build purposes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Sitkoh_Bay Any info would be very helpful on either of them. I have the hull # for the Landing ship but will have to dig it out of my safe. Dennis

Hello all newer person here at Britmodeler. Ive done mostly aircraft and a little bit of armor since the late 1970's. I haven't done any ships since a horrid attempt at a 1/700 Prinz Eugen in the later 1990's. That was a very bad kit and my skills weren't up to snuff for a ship. Im interested in attempting my first ship since then. And i've decided i want to keep to 1/350th. I have an interest in eventually building a relatives Hunt class Destroyer escort. Now before i outlay $ for a resin kit in the future. I want to get my skills up on a couple of practice kits. Im thinking of Trumpeter's 1/350th HMS Abercrombie Monitor. I find the ship interesting and different and this will also get me some practice at RN Distemper camouflage and colors. My question is this. Has anyone here built that particular kit ? If so anything positive or negative to say about it ? Also if thats not a good choice for a first kit please suggestions are most welcome. As always I will thank you in advance. Dennis