desmojen Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 Peebeep asked me to do this one instead of HMS Hood so here's the thread as I have made a small start on things now. The kit is the recently released 1/72 monster from CMR, completely made of resin and quite pricey too! I got the kit from Ali at A2Zee models. Here's a quick rundown of what you get for your hard earned... A load of resin parts, large and small, all sealed in their own little bags. Decals and Eduard pre coloured etch parts. You also get a choice of vac formed or clear resin windows. All surface detail is scribed, and very nicely scribed at that. The big bits are hollow moulded so the box of parts is surprisingly light. I have made a small start on proceedings now. I cleaned one pair of wing halves up and have stuck them together. Construction is almost like a vac form in that there is a small amount of excess material along the mating faces which has to be sanded off. Not a problem, but it certainly leaves a lot of room for error! As you can see in the picture above, the hull halves have light flash across the window openings. I have spent an hour or two fettling all these away. Nothing earth shattering, but it's a start. I'm still undecided on whether to try and build some sort of interior or not. Part of me wants to try and make a good go of what is an expensive kit, but the other part (the realistic side of me) knows that it's going to be a hard enough project as it is! Jen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousA667 Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 Yay! Personally I would spray the interior dark grey or black and leave it at that - think of all those seats and bunks! The cockpit looks to have some nicely detailed parts and that is usually the focus of attention. Others may of course disagree. It would look very nice on a sea base... peebeep Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeew Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 Concur with Paul about the interior. Also agree about a seascape base, "Magic Water" perchance? Whatever you decide Jen, this will be an impressive monster of a model when you've finished it...(No pressure!! ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted August 11, 2008 Share Posted August 11, 2008 Hmmmm... as nice as a full interior would be, think of the hours of research & subsequent hours of scratch building that would slow you down... and then tape the fuselage halves together (you might even spray the interior black first?) and see just how much of all that hard work would actually be visible? I suspect not much... but it's still tempting to do, isn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muller Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 I'll be watching this one Jen! P.S. Mike, you can add 'sÃocháin' to your sig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desmojen Posted August 12, 2008 Author Share Posted August 12, 2008 I'm glad you all seem to be thinking along the same lines as me! I have been very kindly helped out by a couple of members here with relevant reference materials, plus of course the incredibly excellent seawings site. I'm thinking that what I will do is put floors and bulkheads in roughly the right positions and paint it roughly the right colours in there (off the top of my head it was dark green and cream, or it might have been maroon). The windows are pretty big but the colours are quite dark so I think I'll get away with it at that. As for a seascape I've just done one for a customer, albeit much smaller than this would have to be, and I'm not convinced I can do a good enough job tbh. And just look at the trouble Pierre has been having! Add to that the immense cost of the resin and I think I'll pass thanks I think it would look good in a slipway setting....... Jen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obi-Jiff Kenobi Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 Did those boats have curtains at the windows? If so, you could model it with most of the curtains closed, and just have small sections of detailed interior visible through a couple of open curtains. Mind you, you probably still wouldn't see enough to make it worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 A very interesting project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martian Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 Magna do a very good set of passener seats which would probably do the trick. You might need two or three sets though. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamienB Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 Absolutely going to be a thread I think! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osher Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 Absolutely going to be a thread I think!Indubitably! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desmojen Posted August 24, 2008 Author Share Posted August 24, 2008 Thankyou everyone Obi is right, it did have curtains, what a brainwave! I have decided, though, to take tha path of least resistance and not bother. The kit comes with one bulkhead which fits aft of the wing seat. looking at it I thought a good solution might be to put the main bulkheads in, roughly where they should be. This will allow see through from the windows, but only in the individual compartments, rather than from every single window. I made three more bulkheads then out of plastic card. I also glued the photo etched cockpit sidewalls in and then sprayed everything dark green. Afterward I picked out the cockpit zone in interior green (ish). When you put it together and look into it, the combination of the dark colour and bulkheads makes it very hard to see in, even with no glazing, so I think it's worked. I am now in the process of making up the flight deck, which seems very nicely detailed indeed. Bet you won't be able to see that either! Jen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desmojen Posted September 24, 2008 Author Share Posted September 24, 2008 Flight deck is now essentially done. It's quite nicely detailed, not ridiculously so but perfectly adequate nonetheless. I have a load of throttle levers to add in theory but not sure if I'm bothered I will add a floor behind the flight deck parts to stop light shining through from all the portholes and then I can get the fuselage halves together Jen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smiffy Posted September 24, 2008 Share Posted September 24, 2008 Jazzy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousA667 Posted September 24, 2008 Share Posted September 24, 2008 That looks right neat, Jen. peebeep Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeew Posted September 24, 2008 Share Posted September 24, 2008 Nice work in the cockpit Jen. Like you say, not too OTT on the details. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grant Posted September 28, 2008 Share Posted September 28, 2008 That is going to look impressive! If you are not going to put it on water, then how about in flight? Seaplanes just don't look as 'pretty' on land. GRant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dahut Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 That looks very nice. How much dosh DID you have to dig out for it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeke Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 Mmmmm...looking delicious there Jen... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desmojen Posted September 29, 2008 Author Share Posted September 29, 2008 That is going to look impressive! If you are not going to put it on water, then how about in flight? Seaplanes just don't look as 'pretty' on land.GRant Nice idea Grant, I might just do that That looks very nice. How much dosh DID you have to dig out for it? The retail price is £125 I believe............ Latest progress then. I'm pleased to report that I have got the fuselage halves together I used a two part epoxy adhesive to put it together with, along with lashings of Tamiya tape and several clamps. I found the fit to be very acceptable for the most part. The dodgiest part was the flat fuselage upper surface. The parts had a little warping and bowing here and there. This meant that, despite the many bulkheads, the joint ended up with steps in both directions along it's length. it wasn't overly hard to deal with though. I used superglue as the filler in order to help with joint strength. I found that the epoxy overspill was adequate to fill the rest of the fuselage, very little extra filling needed. You might just be able to make out a lot of dark spots sprinkled around, those are pinholes which I've dug out. Visible as dark shadows in the casting, I've dug them out with a scalpel to avoid any possible problems where they may have shown when the paint is put on. I will fill them all with superglue. I was a little wary of the amount of rescribing I had to do on the top, the panel lines are a bit like brickwork with long parallel lines all the way along the fuselage. As it happened it was pretty easy. The superglue filler has a similar texture to the resin, so it caused less problems than it normally does (anyone who's ever rescribed a plastic kit with superglue filler will know what I'm on about). I've spent a little time starting to fettle the tail feathers ready to fit, it's all going pretty well so far I think Jen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonymousDFB1 Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 Wow, taking shape Jen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romeo Alpha Yankee Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 I missed this one when it started, Looks like a nice kit, if it was not for the price I would grab one. The cockpit detailing you have done is excellent, I wish I could make mine look as nice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seanrgb Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 Bloody hell Jen ..thats looking great so far Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nev Posted October 2, 2008 Share Posted October 2, 2008 Impressive as always Jen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desmojen Posted October 23, 2008 Author Share Posted October 23, 2008 I've decided to go for an in flight pose as suggested by Grant. I don't think flying boats look nice on beaching gear, and a dio is out of the question time wise (and cost wise tbh). This raised a need for at least a pair of pilots. PJ productions didn't seem to have anything suitable so I dug out a pair of Matchbox dudes from the spares box. They had WWII style goggles so I fashioned some peaked caps for them out of two part putty. Not brilliant I know, but the canopy glazing is frankly awful so they won't be ever so visible anyway. I had already added glazing for the purposes of keeping crap out of the interior, it also keeps any crap that is already in there from blowing onto your paint The windows were made from Kristal Klear. Then today, I masked the flight deck and wing joint areas off and put an initial primer coat on. This one is pretty much sacrificial and the majority of it will doubtless get rubbed off again. It does show me where I'm at with the seams and scribing though. It's actually pretty good, only a little bit more work needed at the extreme nose and a few small bits along the top. These bits will be remedied and all the scribing sorted before a second primer coat. Hopefully that coat will be good enough to start becoming the base for the Alclad work to come. Jen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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