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I've always admired those huge salvage tugs ever since I saw them at work around the Elwood Mead when it ran aground off the west coast of Guernsey. bought Heller's kit planning to do a stormy sea diorama. Hey it's only 1/200th....but those Tugs are the Battleships of the tug world. It's rather larger than I was expecting...

smit_1.jpg

Anyway, It seems to be a nice kit but why mould the hull and decks in red? I gave the whole hull and the two red decks a coat of light grey

smit.jpg

So at this point I've made a start on painting the decks, there's a lot of moulded in detail which is interesting to paint after spraying in the decks. Masking all the bits would be a nightmare!

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Been toying with the idea of one of these instead of a steady diet of 1/35 armour and 1/350 scale ships, I see the tugs going about thier business when I am at work, so looking forward to seeing this progress nice start,

Steve

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Cheers, guys. A bit of progress then - gluing bits to the afterdeck. I do wish that Heller had made the two crane bases seperate, it's a bugger painting around them and pretty difficult to paint them! It's not a perfect world...

IMG_1281.jpg

Edited by seadog
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Got a chance to attack the Smit again today and have been sticking sub-assemblies together. Had avoidable(duuuh) problems with the prop shafts. In retrospect a bit of dry fitting, then painting them and sticking them to the unp+ainted hull would have saved a lot of arseing about with filler....

smit_3.jpg

But it ended OK.

smit_4-1.jpg

I've also painted the colourful strips on the Fo'c'sl and hopefully I'll be able to finish painting the hull tomorrw, if I've got enough matt black...

smit_5.jpg

Edited by seadog
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Onward!

smit_6.jpg

Onto the next deck. I added plastic strip inside the deck house to stop that total look thru... works well.

There is an amazing amount of fiddly painting of deck fittings on this model! steady hand, tiny brush and several hours....

Added the next deck and realised that I should really SOMETHING about the ejector marks around the bow. Something that should have been done when it was two hull halves. Oh well nothing like an unnecessary challenge, eh?

smit_7.jpg

With the upper deck on you really start to get an impression of how massive these things really are - one solid ship.

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smit_8.jpg

Well, almost there, there's just the little matter of railings. The kit items are horrible so I'm going to have a shot at doing them with soldered copper wire, this may take a while...

Oh, and that mast is only resting there!

Edited by seadog
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Very nice work so far. It is great to see something that is not Battleship Grey.....Cheers mark

Cheers, Certainly makes a fun change from all that grey!

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Thank you guys. I reckon a deep sea salvage tug has to be the ultimate big boys toy! Not a trace of femininity or elegance. Just form meets function. Handsome.

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I was lucky enough to see this ship in Capetown, it came in to bunker while dragging a semisubmersible rig from Korea to the North Sea, in Jan 1984. Most impressive. I had been lucky enough to get a look over the Wolraad Woltemade, Safmarines giant salvage tug just a few days previously. The term I used to describe them afterwards was commercial warships. As Seadog says form meeting function. Its no coincidence to my mind that several large salvage tugs of this era have been converted to luxury yachts. The ultimate expression of mine is bigger & more powerful than yours. :D

Must get mine out of my stash one day, when I see this I get a relapse of my tugnutitis. :)

Steve.

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I've made a start on fabricating the railings...eeeegad. Not so much difficult as fiddly and very time consuming! Painting them is a Guinea a minute as well. The paint wants to blob.....

smit_9.jpg

Perseverance and try not to think "Is it ever worth it?" Answer: Probably not, but it's another thing to learn.

Steve: One day...nah, dig it out, feel the plastic, smell the glue, er, maybe not. Build it......

F

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  • 2 weeks later...

Still plodding on with the railings...slow job. Especially as I'm also working on a wooden model as well which is a real problem solving exercise!

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I've never noticed this kit before Seadog, but you have me interested! Nice railings, a few hours work there! Would make an interesting diarama with an oil rig! I wonder if I still have the plans from one I built as a commercial job years ago!

Look forward to your next installment. Jockster.

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Cheers gennlemen, always fun to get peeps looking at building something that isn't grey or green - said he, awaiting a Trumpy Type 23... Next installment will probably be either the finished product or a report from a loony bin. I have extended modelling time coming up as my wife is off back to Blighty on Grandchild sitting duty.... So the whole place will probably go to wrack and ruin, but progress will be made on a couple of projects...

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