Tamiya HMAS Vampire 1/700

[Ray S]

Hello all, I have just finished this delightful kit of the Vampire. It is not a big model to say the least, but that is not an issue for me! Out of the box, it would look great. There was no flash or mould blemishes, detail was good, although having said that, as I do not have an abundant reference library, I cannot vouch for accuracy. I used the White Ensign etch set for this, but I was taken aback by the number of variations supplied in that set. For those with good references, it is a gold mine, so I kept to the basics. There is sufficient for at least 2 good builds in the etch, so I will revisit sometime in the future. Anyway, enough waffle, so some pics!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am still trying to improve my 'water' bases. I used a precut base and fixed a heavyweight textured piece of card to that with strong double sided tape, after having cut out a section for the Vampire to sit in. I then covered the card with thin CA glue (I must remember to get better ventilation next time, it stung my eyes and caused breathing trouble!), and then put on a layer of Winsor and Newton Galeria Heavy Carvable Modelling Paste and painted the result with a mixture of blues, grey and white acrylics that had been water thinned. I painted on a 'wake' then decided it was rubbish, so I got more of the paste, dabbled it on with a spatula again, and used one of my old stiffer brushes to break up the texture a bit, then re-painted the base. (I still need to tidy up the main plinth).

This is also the first time I have tried to rig a ship with something other than copper speaker cable. I used EZ-Line (fine) for this. It has a great advantage in that CA sticks to it like glue (sorry!) and bonded really quickly, but I also found that if I brushed on some accelerator to the line it helped even more! It does look overscale I must admit. I have got some Caenis line that is highly recommended, but to me it is also highly invisible in the lighting conditions I have, so I need to try to improve that!

I had one 'Doh!' moment when I was adding the pennant numbers, guess who picked up the model in the wrong place while the tranfers were still wet and setting? Well, that explains why there is a contraption on the starboard side where one poor sailor is going to be put instead of doing KP and peeling spuds! There is a huge paint pot on the platform too, but the sailor is absent just at the moment.

I had fun doing this, it is going to be quite different in size and scale to my next build.

Hope you like it, and any advice will be gratefully recieved.

Kind regards, Ray

Edited January 19 by Ray S
Replaced photographs

[tigerjet]

very cool

[MikeR]

Very nice indeed!

Mike.

[jimbuna]

Stunning and such a small scale.

[Forlornhope]

Very nicely done, I've just finished her myself after spending the last couple of years looking at the etched fret with fear. You may want to stay away from Surfsup though and his build of the Zuikaku considering her airgroup was part of the team that sank Vampire.

Cheers Callum

[surfsup]

Very nice work on the Vampy and as Callum said, you have been warned......