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Dear Fellow Modellers Flyhawk has a lovely kit of one of the German K-Class cruisers, Konigsberg. These were built strictly to the limitations of the Versailles Treaty, so they were very light indeed, just over 7000 tons. The Konigsberg and other KM ships seem to have gone for ID colours on their turret roofs about the time of the invasion of Norway. Konigsberg was damaged in the opposed landing of her troops at Bergen on 9th April 1940 and so couldn't immediately return to Germany. After being spotted by RAF reconnaisance aircraft, tied up in Bergen harbour she was targetted by FAA Blackburn Skuas of 800 and 803 NAS, flying from the Orkney Islands, and sunk at her moorings on 10th April. So she has the dubious honour of being the only ship to be sunk by FAA dive bombers and thus represented the Skuas finest hour. You will notice two of her three turrets are at the stern and are offset. I believe the idea was they could bear quite a way forwards if necessary. In practice such situations often led to damage to the ship's superstructure. Hope you like it? Andrew
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With the Hadleigh Castle in the rear view mirror I'm thinking about a project for next year. While I have a couple of Starling kits and IBG Hunts in the stash the plan is that 2025 will be the year of Flowers. I have the excellent Atlantic models HMS Buttercup (it was boxed and purchased as Bluebell - but hey life is too short to worry and I quite fancy the quirky acoustic hammer look) which I will build out while I work on scratch building several other variants. I most enjoy painting attractive models, and so my choice of ships will be determined by the camo' schemes they wear. For the scratch builds Starling Models will be my choice of resin details, but I do think I am going to have to learn how to draw PE so I can fit out the various builds with the PE parts required. I'll spend some time over Christmas identifying which ships I plan to build and what bespoke parts each might need. That is the plan anyways - now to see whether it survives contact with the enemy ! Hull drawing for my first hull trial. If a success I will make a couple more, if not I'll try a different approach. I will be basing all the models within a seascape so I am not worrying too much about the details under the waterline provided I can get the correct hull shape showing in a rolling sea. I also hope to get better at making hulls as I go so the later ones might be more detailed - we'll see. Hull outline constructed and now to be filled with putty. I can already see the rear cross section bulkhead is not correct. Current plan is to file and sand it to a better shape once the hull is filled and solid. P
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Hello all. Having finished the old Airfix HMS Iron Duke recently I have had to delve into the stash to find a relatively simple kit to start, which will be built alongside a much more complex project that I will start and post up in the New Year. I ummed and aarred for quite a while (as I do), rejected many potential subjects, then narrowed it down to this one, which I had almost started at least five times before. The one I chose was the White Ensign 1/700 U.S. Coast Guard Lake Class Cutter. The kit is mainly resin, but has an extensive photo etch sheet along with two lengths of brass rod. This is sort of a sad build, as it was the last item I ever ordered from the original White Ensign when they were based in Herefordshire. However, it will also be a fun build because I know just how good their kits were. This is what was supplied: A nice, sturdy box with a lovely colour illustration, It is quite petite when compared to a 6'5" pen... There is plenty of fine detail in the hull and no sign of air bubbles, and just a little flash along the forward waterline, Lots of smaller (and not so small) detailing parts. Again there is a little flash but nothing untoward. One of two ships can be made from this kit, Tahoe or Itasca. The only difference that I can see in the instructions is in the type of ventilation cowls. There is plenty of photoetch to keep me out of mischief, some of which will be interesting to size and fit (lifeboat rigging, for example). The instructions are the normal White Ensign style, giving plenty of information, not only pictorially, but also with the written word. Must make sure I read them as I go along. This is the colour scheme which is for Tahoe. I just need to find out what 'Spar' is, and also what the nearest equivalent to WEM CC (ColourCoats) M22 Steel Deck Grey is in my collection. The last time I tried to start this was in the 'In the Navy' Group Build a few years ago, when I promptly found out that the United States Coast Guard was not navy. I then thought that I could modify this from Itasca into HMS Gorleston from WWII and promptly realised that it was beyond my skills. Anyway, hopefully I will be approximately sixth time lucky with building it, it really does deserve to be built. Any advice will be greatly appreciated, especially if I say that I am going to do something and it is plainly wrong, which has been known. It will still be a day or two before I start this properly, I need to sort out a base for it first as I like to get them attached before I get too far - it makes handling the model a bit safer. Thanks for looking Ray
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Hello all. I have just finished this lovely little resin kit of the United States Coast Guard Lake Class Cutter 'Tahoe'. There was a comprehensive etch set with it, and a superb instruction guide. Two ships could be built from the parts supplied (USCG Itasca was the other). Both were transferred to the Royal Navy during WWII. There is a build log here if you missed it: It does contain some builder errors and potential errors, but I have nothing but praise for the kit itself, and I thoroughly enjoyed building it. This is how she ended up, but I may well replace some of the thicker rigging in the future as explained in the build thread: Thanks for looking, kind regards, Ray
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Having gotten the Titanic for Christmas and not being too keen on modelling a subject that so many lost their lives on ( generally I don’t like to model subjects where I know someone died). I’m going to convert the kit to the Olympic, the only one of the White star trio to have a long career before being scrapped in the thirties. With the added distinction of having sunk a German submarine. I’m going for the Dazzle camouflage the Olympic wore while serving as a troop transport. Sprues. Even with the small scale it’s a fairly large kit. Step one will be to figure out the best way to modify the A Deck ( the most obvious difference between the two ships) then get a proper handle on the rest of the modifications needed.
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Phew, finally finished this build of IBG's Hunt type II destroyer in 1/700, modified to become the Type III HMS Talybont. I build this for the D-Day GB, since it was the ship my Grandfather was serving in at the time as the gunnery officer; HMS Talybont was assigned to Omaha beach and along with USS Satterlee, provided close support for the US Rangers' assault on La Pointe du Hoc. I've included some of his writings on the event for those interested (scholars of D-Day, I hope will forgive any parts that have subsequently proven to be inaccurate). She's presented as best as I can guess she appeared at that time. Many thanks to those who helped me narrow down these specifics. Talybont's career had its ups and downs; suffering two collisions with civilian ships in fog, and as part of the (for the RN) disaster at the battle of Les Sept Iles in October '43 in which the AA cruiser Charybdis and escort destroyer Limbourne were both lost. I have a lot of reasearch and correspondence surrounding that event, and had originally planned for this model to commemorate that loss, but my rate of progress wasn't up to the task! That is a story for another day perhaps. Specifics of the build; the IBG kit is nice, but a tiny bit simple or out of scale in places. Modification to a type III is reasonably simple, mostly moving around some superstructure, adding some torpedoes and constructing a new funnel. Being such a personal build, I've frankly gone completely out of control when it comes to aftermarket upgrades; I've put a list below in the knowledge that I won't remember in a year. Paints are substantially colourcoats, the specific colours being guess somewhat from earlier period photos and RN practice at the time; with some utility Tamiya and various (rather heavy handed) oil work thrown in here and there. Please forgive the sea base; it's a bit of artistic licence modelled from a photo of a Daring pulling at tight turn at flank speed; while she was certainly on the move on D-Day, I doubt an full bore flank turn was ever on the cards! It's turned out rather too over the top, but hopefully I'll get the knack one day with practice. It's made of artists foam, cut to shape and coated in W&N modelling paste, painted and topped with W&M gloss gel; A bit more of the paste is used unpainted for the wakes. Crew painting and positioning is largely a random guess; I had originally intended to use the brass barrels as a means to provide LED lighting to illuminate inside cotton wool 'explosions' from the guns in true youtube style (indeed there are holes through the base, model and gun mountings for just such a purpose), but it was all too small and time too short. A blessing in the end I think, given how badly that was bound to turn out. The plate is from Nameit! (with apologies), since is the first time I bothered and in retrospect silver on silver was unlikely to be particularly legible. I'll replace it with a new one next time I put an order through. For those intersted, this is what an unholy amount of money spend on aftermarket looks like, when compared to the first time I build the kit as his previous ship, the type II HMS Bramham, mostly OOB: Although more charitably, that does also include a couple of years of experience and a large amount more time spent on it. Here's the RFI. Many thanks to all those who followed and provided help and encouragement along the way. A nerdy reference of aftermarket jubbly bits in case it is useful to anybody: Shelf oddity RN Hunt II detail set (general; bulwarks, 271 installation; detailing 4" twin mountings type XIX - Shelf oddity Twin Oerlikon power mountings - Starling models Quad pompoms - Starling models hunt upgrade set Torpedo tubes- Shelf oddity (IJN type 6 + scratch) Depth charge gear - Starling models hunt upgrade set (resin), shelf oddity PE (cages) Boats, carley floats - Micromaster, Davits - Starling Anchor chain - Shelf oddity DCT - Micromaster (Mk. V**) 285, 291 radar - WEM MFDF - shelf oddity Figures - Ion Decals - Sovereign hobbies draught markings, Starling Pennant numbers. Masts rigging, various bulwarks, huts and cowl vents; bridge superstructure, funnel- scratch. Doors, hatches - WEM? Starling? Atlantic? Thanks for looking in, Andy
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Hello all Here's my latest one off the bench; HMS Starling coming into Gladstone Dock to a big welcome on 25th Feb 1944 after Walker's 2nd Support group had had sunk 6 U-boats in one patrol in the Western Approaches. All my family are from Bootle so its been nice to pay homage to those who served in the Atlantic and to good old Liverpool itself. This was my first stab at a resin model and I was impressed with the detail in the revamped Starling Models kit (though I didn't enjoy removing all the printing supports!). This welcome into Gladstone was well documented, so there were lots of pictures of this scene to go from but i only realised after painting that it looks like Starling had lost her camouflaged pattern, in favour of overall grey. The lock quay was made from foam, with a layer of filler spread across, through which I then dragged a fine razor saw across to mimic the bricks. The lock door was made from styrene and a spare PE Jagdpanther radiator. Initially I optimistically only ordered 120 resin figures for the crew and the crowd but I'd estimate there must be around 400 in the end (a mix of resin and PE figures) but I could probably do with another couple of hundred really to properly give a sense of the real crowd that day- there's only so much fiddly figure work i could take!
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One of the largest battleships ever built, and certainly one of the most well known, she was the pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Saved for the decisive battle that never came, she only saw combat during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and was ultimately slaughtered by nearly 400 aircraft from 11 aircraft carriers. I picked up this used 1/700 Fujimi kit at a local IPMS show a few years back, but the bow had damage, so its been shelved for a long while. Recently I reached out to Fujimi for a replacement part, which has since been received. All the parts (I hope). A little bit of the superstructure has been started Previous damage Replacement part And next to a 1/72 P-47 for size comparison. I have too many builds going on right now with slow progress (trying to do a good job!), so I need a build that requires easy assembly, easy painting, and completely OOB. Main colors are grey and deck tan, so hopefully I can't mess this up 😅
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Dear Friends Akizuki or autumn moon was the lead ship of a new class of Japanese super destroyer that entered service in 1941. Rather than being configured as a ship killer with multiple torpedo batteries these were intended more as AA escorts for carrier task forces. Unlike the normal 127 mm Japanese destroyer main armament, these destroyers went for 100 mm 65 cal guns as much handier for AA work with, by Japanese standards, a reduced battery of 4 torpedo tubes. They were 2,700 tons, with a speed of 33 knots and a range of 8000 nm at 18 knots. The Fujimi kit is a good base for the ship but comes to life with the specialised Flyhawk PE set and turrets from Rainbow. Akizuki was in action from the moment of completion and in 1942 took part in defending many of the supply convoys to Guadalcanal. She was sunk in the Philippines in 1944 Hope you like it Andrew
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I hope it's okay to bandwagon onto this GB. This was the ship my Grandad was serving in during D-day, which was assigned force O to bombard and provide close support to the landings on Omaha and La Pointe du Hoc. The reason for the Rangers' assault on the Pointe was to neutralise a suspected battery of 15.5cm guns, which were in a position to do immense damage to the landing and support craft on Omaha and Utah. In fact, they had been moved some weeks before and been replaced with wooden fakes; but the prospect of moving to within 4000 yards of this battery for the supporting destroyers would've meant likely annihilation had they been present. As it happened the landings started somewhat off course, and some landing craft had to make a long run westward, parallel to the beaches to reach the base of the cliffs. Talybont and USS Satterlee moved in pretty much as close as was possible (<2000 yards) to cover this and took out various machine gun installations that were targeting the Rangers landings and cliff ascent. Talybont was even able to use her short range AA pom poms to good effect at this range. This is a build I've had in mind for a few years, but it's been slow to get off the ground. Hopefully this is a good incentive to actually get started on it properly. HMS Talybont was a Hunt type III escort destroyer. Unfortunately, no kits in 1/700 are available for the type, but the hull was largely unchanged from the type IIs, of which IBG make several kits. The type 3s had a different funnel, the aft 4" mounting removed and aft superstructure moved back to allow space for a pair of torpedo tubes amidships. I've already made a very limited start on modifying the deck, but a fair amount of scratch work will be needed for the funnel and new superstructures. The IBG kit is nice, but a simple or out of scale in places. A PE set by Polish company Shelf Oddity does exist however, and I've made a start removing the bulwarks in order to replace with some ridiculously intricate photo etch. I've also a wide array of replacement 3d print parts assembled for various RN subjects, a selection of which is shown below. Starling Models has also since made a 3d print upgrade kit, of which I have a few copies, so that will no doubt be making an appearance. There might even be a chance to mess around with LEDs, cotton wool and brass gun barrels for a bit of a diorama, but that's well in the future. I've had a lot of help from the good people of these forums to narrow down the likely fit and camouflage that she was painted in during June '44. These posts can be seen on the build log for the last time I build this kit, here: Hopefully will make a proper start on this soon Andy
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This is a pretty new subject for me, so I'll be quoting a lot of Wikipedia 😉 Aircraft Carriers were becoming all the rage in the 1930s, a new and exciting area of technology. Nations were converting ships to carriers, learning what works and what doesn't, then designing carriers from the ground up. In the rise of Germany military might and an attempt to improve political relations, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement allowed Germany nearly 40k tons for aircraft carriers. Germany designed 2 within that limitation, the lead ship, Flugzeugträger A, would be the Graf Zeppelin. The initial design was quite interesting. The thought was these carriers would need to be able to defend themselves against surface ships, with cruiser armor and 16 150mm guns for defense. This was common with a lot of early carrier design, with the belief that aircraft would not be fully effective as weapons. Lexington Class carriers had 203mm guns themselves. The successful carrier doctrine we know today was still years away. The launching of aircraft was to be from the two catapults on the flight deck, but not using the entire deck. This allowed for rapid takeoffs, as well as the ability to both launch and recover aircraft at the same time. The process to do this was complicated yet intriguing. Aircraft were loaded onto launch trollies on rails to the forward elevator, which would then go to the catapult on the flight deck, launching the aircraft via compressed air. In theory, 18 aircraft could be launched at 30 second intervals until the air ran out, requiring nearly an hour to fill up again. If additional aircraft needed to be launched in an emergency situation, they could use the entire flight deck like other carriers. Aircraft could be kept warm in the hangar deck, ready for immediate flight operations instead of a warming process on the flight deck. Graf Zeppelin was built with an upper and lower hangar, and was to be able to hold 43 aircraft, a mixture of Fi-167s, Ju-87s, and BF-109s. After studying carrier operations in the Pacific, this was changed to 30 BF-109Ts and 12 Ju-87Cs. Graf Zeppelin was laid down in late 1936 (once Gneisenau left the slipway), and was launched December 1938. The ship was scheduled to be complete in 1940, being an estimated 85% complete at the end of 1939, but the war and politics prevented this. At a Naval conference in April 1940, it was decided to halt work on the carrier in favor of strengthening coastal defense in Norway. She would be used as storage for timber for the next 2 years. By the time of the naval conference in April 1942, lessons from Taranto, Pearl Harbor, and the hunt for Bismarck showed the power of the aircraft carrier. Work was promptly resumed the following month. However, the world had changed in the 2 years she sat in port. Much of her equipment was in need of upgrades or complete replacement. The aircraft originally designated for her air wings were now obsolete, and the Luftwaffe refused to allocate the resources to design and produce new aircraft, requiring modifications to the current aircraft. The modified aircraft were noticeably heavier, which required further updates for aircraft handling. By January, due to the poor performance of the German surface ships, work was once again halted, with little changing by the time the Red Army approached in 1945. In an effort to prevent its capture, it was purposely sunk at port. Raised post war, the Soviets determined it would require too much cost and time to complete, and was instead sunk as a target ship. The Graf Zeppelin aircraft carrier offers plenty of what-ifs, but in the end, too many issues probably would have prevented it from being a successful ship. Its complicated and outdated design was compromised by the time she would have been operational. Aircraft development would have been hampered without significant war progress for resources. Her crew would have limited knowledge of carrier operations, against an enemy that had years of built up experience. Odds are she would have been hunted and harassed as much as Tirpitz was. But had war been delayed to 1941, who knows? I hope to build this Graf Zeppelin much quicker that the real ship, though while the part count is massively less, it still appears somewhat intimidating.
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This is the 1/700-scale AFV Club Knox-class frigate with Five Star Knox PE add-on set. Other aftermarket details include Five Star whip antennas and SSModel Phalanx CIWS. I used SSModel 0.05mm memory metal for the rigging, having learned that the elastic Infini Aero rigging I used on my last build makes getting the right amount of slack in the lines difficult. Painted with Vallejo, weathered gently with Tamiya enamel panel liner and some oils on the hull. Overall, the AFV Club kit suffered from a couple inaccuracies and didn't always have the best fit. Decals often were not sized correctly and didn't include flags or helpful things like helopad markings (which, incidentally, are molded onto the plastic and I was able to bring out by painting the surface and lightly sanding the paint off the raised lines, revealing the light gray, albeit not white, plastic beneath). The Five Star kit is lovely, but is also missing some obvious adornments, like the goodies that line the mast. Still, it all comes together in the end.
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Hi All. I thought it was about time to do a couple of maritime builds before giving attention back to my scratch build of the Fushimi Maru. So what do have? The subject will be the Type 42 Destroyer, HMS Sheffield using the 1/700 CybeHobby kit. First, the stuff: The box. I will be building her as the waterline version. The plastic. Instructions, decals and PE. This will be an OOB build but like life, things are bound to be either incorrect or missing and will need to be remedied. I know very little of this type, so if the 'collective' spot something please tell and I will give it some deliberation. Stuart
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Ok, I reached the point in Formidable construction that I have to make a base for her. And as making this base is basically watching Water Effect go transparent over multiple days before I can proceed to next stage, I decided to start a new ship. Something smaller this time, destroyer. And another one from Matapan battle - HMS Nubian. Page here suggest Nubian was reconstructed in Bombay during her year long repair following damage from May 41 so should I assume she was in her original "as build" config during 1st half of 1941? https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-10DD-34Tribal-HMS_Nubian.htm I am also looking for photos of her in first half of 1941. So far I have only a photo of her blown off stern showing she has wavy 2 color camo on stern. Should it be 507A and C or 507C plus darker grey like on, say, Hotspur? I was looking for Cossack Profile Morskie, but it seems this book is not available at the moment. But it seems there will be A LOT of work to turn trumpeter's model into somewhat reasonable reproduction of original so please point me to any inaccuracies and I'll try to work on them. Work so far, centered on repairing the bow:
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Hello everyone, I'm planning to purchase the 1/700 scale model of the Queen Mary 2 by Revell towards the end of the year and I need some advice regarding the paints and tools I'll need for this project. Since I don't own an airbrush, I'm looking for spray paints, preferably from Tamiya. Could you recommend the specific colors I should use for this model? Also, I'm interested in enhancing the detail of my build. Does anyone know if there are any photo-etched parts available for this kit? I've tried searching but haven't been able to find any. Thanks in advance for your help! Best regards, Szymon
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Ok, so I decided to buy some new ship. Initially, I planned to get Cleopatra (to make her or Carlisle) and maybe also Trumpeters Zulu or Eskimo. So I went shopping. And what I got? Well... 🤪 I went through topic here: http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=23454 and I am under the impression that Flyhawk model is generally good (I have correct deck). Are there any major issues I need to look into? I plan to paint her for march-may 1941. Is camo in instructions ok? It calls for 507C and black with grey underwater hull? At the start, I was considering making her in damaged state after 26th May'41 attack, but I squashed this thought as 1) I want to preserve graceful lines of the ship and 2) it is massive undertaking as is, I do not need more challenge. The start is simple. I glued lower deck into hull and added decks of all galleries on the sides. Anyone has tips how to paint all the openings in the hull and then mask it for painting main hull sides? I obviously also made one little plane - Fulmar.
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I haven't been posting here lately, but perhaps an RFI and a WiP thread or two will pull me out of the current cycle of dabbling ineffectively in about 50 kits at once. I completed a build of IBG's HMS Harvester, finished as her sister HMS Highlander recently. This was for a 'Crest of a wave' theme at my local chapter, so really I just used it as an excuse to learn a bit how to do these sea base thingys. I made one cursory attempt before, and the results reflected the low effort put in. In this case, I had a concurrent 'quick build' of Tamyia's O class posed in much the same manner, but used as a mule to try out different techniques; very few of which I got on with but that at least saved them from this one! I'd seen lots of dramatic photos of Fletcher classes bouncing clear of the water like this, so there's a bit of artistic licence used, but it turned out to be a fun experiment. I've never got on with cotton wool, and the water coming from the bows didn't really work out how I intended. I'll have to work on that technique. The deck could do with a lot of water work, but with the risk of knocking off the rigging and PE, I chickened out at that point. Quick and dirty summary of the build; the kit itself is waterline, so needed some hull to be added to pose in a big swell. This is just under the forecastle and is carved of basswood. A few scratch additions were made here and there to match photos; many jubbly bits of 3d print from Starling models came out of the spares box to replace kit parts; the gun barrels got replaced for Master ones; and a few Ion figures got added to the bridge. Draught marking decals from Sovereign hobbies worked really nicely. Paints Tamiya, colourcoats and oils. The Western approaches colours are actually my own mixes as an experiment and came out too vivid; they are not representative of the well researched colourcoats versions. The base is a slab of modeller's foam roughly carved to shape, and the structure substantially W&N modelling paste under W&N gloss gel. HMS Highlander, for those interested, spend most of the war in the vital but thankless task of schlepping back and forth in the North Atlantic on convoy duty. I've had to guess a fair amount at fit and photo dating, but this is my best guess as how she looked in the climactic convoy battles of Spring 1943 as the leader of Escort group B4, particularly the brutal struggle to defend HX229 in March of that year. I have a real soft spot for these 'Brazilian H' class ships, with their attractive extended bridge, and escort-focussed equipment. I really loved this kit, but IBG tend to polarise opinion. A lot is left to PE, and I think to very good effect, but this does not make them particularly user friendly. Thanks for looking, as always I'd be very happy for any criticism, corrections or suggestions. I'm always interested to know more! Cheers, Andy
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At the moment, I'm planning to go with Trumpeters 1/700 USS Yorktown CV-5 kit. This was a new tooling over the disastrous CV-8 kit, which had the hull of a tanker. While not perfect, this kit is significantly improved. Im a massive fan of the Yorktown class, so its a great opportunity to get this kit out of the stash More later
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Hi all! Just completed my first ever ship model: the 1/700 SSModels USS Northampton. This is a resin kit 3D-printed with stereolithography: it is very detailed, but some of the tiny pieces are delicate! I added a few PE detail sets from Tom's Modelworks (704, 715, and 716 to be exact) and various guns from Bunker Studio. I decided to paint her as she appeared in 1941, with Measure 1 and Measure 5 (false bow wave), using Vallejo Model Air paints. Weathering included black enamel pin wash, some light dry brushing, and some work with various oils to simulate fading, grime, and rust. Rigging was done with 0.05mm Infini Aero (the stuff I use for 1/72 aircraft) and while I tried to give the lines some slack, most ended up too taught. I absolutely loved building this kit and look forward to taking on more challenges in the future. A special thanks to Themistokles' build of the 1/1200 version of this ship for great inspiration. Thanks for looking!
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Here's a build of HMS Hermes (1919) and HMAS Vampire (1917), from the Aoshima and Tamiya kits respectively. These two were lost during the Indian Ocean Raid of April 1942, caught virtually undefended while fleeing for Trincomalee by the bulk of the IJN Kido Butai airfleet. I thought it would be nice to display them together in happier times, in this case at the end of February 1942, when they were briefly bound for Fremantle together. Vampire had served with distinction as part of the Scrap Iron Flotilla in the Med virtually without rest since April 1940, and it would have been her first return home. Sadly they were recalled two days later to prepare for the invasion of Madagascar, and thus ultimately became ensnared in the Ceylon raid in April. Please forgive the photos. Originally as part of the excellent Salty Sea Dog GB, I 'finished' these two a while ago; and they did make it to Telford and back, but I was never particularly happy with the result, at least not enough to take any good pictures; before I upended the box they were travelling in 🤣. Since I entirely lack the inclination to untangle, repair and rebuild everything, I've decided to go with what I have. Anyway seeing as how annoying I know it can be to find builds on here that die out or questions that never get answered, I figured I may as well post what I have in case anyone in future has interest in the kits or subjects. The difficulty of displaying two ships together at a distance that doesn't look ridiculous (let alone anywhere near accurate) was something I struggled with. In this case I thought it would be nice to have some goofers on the Vampire enjoying the spectacle as she is acting as plane guard while Hermes lands on her Swordfish, although in reality that would put her a good mile astern. The diorama is consequently rather unbalanced to squeeze them both in. The odd shape is owing to my lack of space at home, so the base actually separates and the ships can be therefore sit individually on their own small hexagonal cut out portions. The sea base itself is rather rough, it's my first effort and let's just say lessons have subsequently been learned, I hope! HMS Hermes is from the Aoshima kit with various minor upgrades and scratch additions courtesy of Starling models (oerlikons) and Tom's Modelworks (upgraded PE crane). The aft netting is scratched from 0.1mm wire and some mesh ribbon, but the result is so shonky, it would've been better to leave it. It could've used Aoshima's PE set but I failed to find one. The kit is nice enough, a little abstract in places but suffers by comparison with the stunning Flyhawk one, and I spent no small amount of time bemoaning my decision to build the former. It says something about the state of the industry where I can feel aggrieved at building the worse modern tooled IM kit of an obscure single-ship class. HMAS Vampire is from the Tamiya, which is very nice, but a little simple in places, and despite being of the same ship, presents her in a pre-war fit that required a significant range of alterations. Mostly these were made using the comprehensive White Ensign V&W PE, Starling Models (oerlikons, depth charge gubbins, spools and vents) or scratch (2pdr pom poms, superstructure, masts). The stringbags are a mix of the kit ones and Flyhawks nutty 14-part versions. Yes, 1/700 aircraft, 14 parts. Figures mostly ION and Starling Models. Paint was predominantly Colourcoats with the odd bit of Tamiya thrown in here and there. My sincere thanks to all those who followed and helped out along the way. Particularly to @Procopius for sharing his excellent paper on the Indian Ocean Raid itself. I've benefitted greatly from the research of others, but the decisions and subsequent errors are my own. There are some issues with the scheme and fit of Hermes (left hull, lacking any photos, is entirely a guess on my part; Oerlikons and quad poms are incorrect and no doubt many others); and of Vampire (the blue B5 colour is almost certainly incorrect). I'd (as always) urge future builders to do their own research and perhaps check back on the WiP before assuming any details are correct, many decisions were plain (usually uniformed) guesses on my part. The result doesn't nearly live up to the quality of information provided, but I'm glad to have got them finished in the end. More info on the builds and research can be found on the WiP pages below. Thanks for looking! Andy WiPs:
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Having bitten off way more than I could chew in a fit of enthusiasm during the Salty Sea Dog GB, I'm left with several builds still on the go. I think in the interests of not wasting mod time, I'll just continue them in new threads here. The first half of the build, along with most of the research can be found here: This one has stagnated for a while, and it actually has taken a lot of modifications to take the (initially hoped for shake and bake) Tamiya kit to convert her to her configuration at the time of sinking in April '42. Still, we've had some colour. I hope you'll forgive some comparisons, they're not intended to show off my shonky work, rather for me to see some side-by-sides to work out which guesses were right, which were wrong, and what subsequent modifications and remedial work I need to make. Bizarrely, the easiest way to do that seems to be posting them here over incessantly clicking between internet tabs and photo windows. ( /\ this photo is actually a slightly earlier configuration) Nothing like some zoomed in shots to show up how shonky your work is! Andy
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Another build that didn't make the Salty Sea Dog GB deadline, I hope it's not too obnoxious to continue it here. The build (or rather, a large amount of obsessing about camouflage without actually doing much building), up until this point can be found here: Most recent update sees the major colours of the camouflage (mostly) down; colourcoats 507C, B5, MS1: There don't seem to be any photos of the port side camouflage, barring some fairly obscured views of the island, so this is pretty much a guess as to what it might look like. Many thanks to Jamie and Richard for sorting through it all for me. It's not come out quite how I imagined it, but I'm reasonably happy. Looking back at the photos and plans, a few bits that haven't come out quite right, but after a bit of 507A on the flight- and quarter-decks, I think we're not a million miles away from assembly. Cheers, Andy
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Well, time to give myself a well deserved KUTA, and get a thread set up! A long time ago, in a group build far, far away, a naive model maker recklessly launched 5 ship builds, despite the closest thing he had built before being a DUKW! Needless to say, only 2 were completed within the GB time frame (Matchbox Narvik class destroyer and Lindberg USS McNulty), one sailed over the line a week or so later (Matchbox USS Indianapolis) and the other two, well, just stalled. These were the Matchbox USS San Diego and USS Fletcher. I think part of the reason is the camouflage required for both of them. Fletcher has an irregular pattern all over the hull and superstructure and San Diego has odd geometric patterns, requiring some fiddly masking. Neither has been touched by brush or glue since March, so time to bite the bullet and try and get them finished! Here's where Fletcher is up to; And here is San Diego; As more needs doing on San Diego, I decided to start there. Matchbox helpfully provide a nice side profile on the back of the box showing the camouflage pattern, which I scanned in and printed out on A3; However, unhelpfully, they only show one side. Found this online; Also I have this; Which has this inside; So, time to get busy with the masking tape! A decent session last night, and this is where I'm up to; Some of the starboard hull side I will do freehand; And the superstructure; Just got to mask up some of the gun turrets then it will be ready for some paint.
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OK, so it's not actually Christmas Day, but we are still very much in the festive season, plus one of the aforementioned ships was a Christmas present. So, I would like to do a triple build of these three Matchbox US Navy ships; USS San Diego USS Indianapolis And to round off the trio, USS Fletcher No idea when I will actually get started on these, as I'm in the middle of 2 half tracks plus I have a thread in the KUTA build, but I'm really looking forward to getting them underway!
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