Chinese destroyer "Anshan"

[Will Vale]

Almost paint time...

At once, Cruel Overlord!

I broke the loop antenna just after getting it together, so decided to stop messing around and fit a single loop of brass wire. Then I got everything set up for primer and discovered that to my horror I'd managed to break the mast. I'm not sure how - I've dropped it on the floor several times and it's been fine, but maybe I swung my arm past it or something?

Anyway, the yard bracing kept the pieces together and I set it back in place with Extra Thin (as straight as I could get it) and reinforced the notches with CA and accelerant.

Then primer, paint, and deck painting followed. I sprayed the middle of the decks and brush painted the edges, then touched up overspray and mistakes in both colours.

It looks pretty nice at this level of zoom but the close-ups are upsettingly full of fluff and scruffy bits. I'll try and pick off the fluff but I don't think I'm going to sand and retouch anything which isn't blindingly obvious in daylight.

Superstructure is still just sitting there at the moment, the plan is to gloss and weather it and then get it on after that's all done. Then a big push on the armament and remaining fittings, plus I need to finish my changes to the bow (nearly done) and get that painted again.

Oh, and as you can see I masked and painted in-place the forward gun deck, which looks great, wish I'd filled and sanded the joints beside the funnel and at the back of the superstructure now, where the wall protrudes to deck level. Live and learn, plus it'll be less obvious with the railings on I think.

Incidentally I had some rough spots with bouncing primer where the overspray was contained by walls (behind the bridge, and between the cabinets on the rear gun deck - is there any way to get around this? I was airbrushing Alclad grey primer following the instructions, from memory this doesn't happen nearly as much with rattle can primer.

Cheers,

Will

[Jbbusybee]

Really enjoying your build, thanks for sharing.

[snapper_city]

At once, Cruel Overlord!

Quickly GB Minion.

[Deacon]

This is looking superb mate.

[AdrianMF]

I thought that shot from down below was the real thing for a moment!

Regards,

Adrian

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the nice comments, it's coming along slowly but surely. After big progress yesterday I did lots of consolidating today - painted some details on the superstructure (and relocated that big antenna once I realised it was supposed to be on the vee platform behind the mast - much better). Added some small parts, and then gloss-coated the upper levels ready for washing. Plus hopefully it'll protect the paint a bit - it's easy to chip the railings.

And as you can see I finally fixed the torn hull number (black paint) and stars (tail decals from a 1/350 Helix)! The touch up to the number is a bit ragged up close, I might try and have one more go at touching in the edge with grey. But I can live with it if I don't.

I also added all the painted details to the foredeck, and the mushroom ventilators to the whole ship. I ended up with four too few, and one extra pair of cleats, so I guessed Trumpeter might've got it wrong and fitted the cleats

The winches might need to come out and go back in as they're not quite flush with the deck.

I finished my changes to the hawse holes (is that right?) as well - they were rectangular openings in the kit which didn't quite match up to the chutes, and the real ship has bulged openings which are bits trimmed off some spare ducts from a 1/32 Stuka. It's all a bit messy but with a bit more tidying of the black paint, and a lot of rust, it should be good enough.

Not sure what to do next - I was thinking I should weather and fit the superstructure, but I might do the deck railings instead and get that out of the way. I also need to weather the hull now that the bow is all finished. I want to get it as close to done as possible so I can take it to club on Wednesday night, but I'm pretty sure that'll be sans armament and boats.

Oh, and I painted and weathered the inside of the other Silkworm launcher and glued it together. Lots of filler required, but if it comes out OK I can have the hatch open to show a missile in the tube

Cheers,

Will

[MikeR]

Thanks folks!

Uh-oh - someone who knows the type Feel free to point out details I've missed, although it's a bit late to deal with big shape issues

Will

No, your OK, Will - hardly an expert as trying to get any good information on them requires that you can read Russian, which I can't! I just appreciate a nice looking ship, which both classes are.

Your doing a really good job, it's going to turn out rather nice, methinks.

Mike.

Edited May 26, 2014 by MikeR

[Will Vale]

Let's hope so! I think it's a bit of a mishmash between in-service and as-preserved but it's hard to sort my photos into much of a chronology. Plus since most of them are naturally from Chinese sites I can't read the captions.

I clipped out, formed, primed and painted all the remaining railings today. The first bit was a lot more work than it sounds since they're more like three-bar fence than railing. So I have to separate them from the sheet (which has nothing so nice as half-etched tags, basically everything joins to everything else) and then trim off the bottom end of each post to make it into a stanchion. Plus remove various sticky-out bits which I suspect are blots on the etch artwork...

I bought a new diamond file a week or two ago and it's been getting quite a workout - very handy tool.

I've also clipped out the middle bar where the bitts will go, following pictures, but I haven't attempted to do the same for boarding ladder spots since I don't really know where they'll be.

Lastly I painted the Silkworm bases, mini-launcher things and skylights and have started on the canvas covers for same. And cleaned up a load more parts, there are half-a-dozen searchlights and a couple of small cylindrical things to do, the prop guards, and after that it's all guns guns guns.

Not sure if much will happen tomorrow since it's club night, but maybe I can get some railings on, or the davits fitted to level the deck overhangs. Amazingly nice of Trumpeter to put ejector pins in the middle of the goosenecks

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

So here's the thrilling picture of railings from yesterday:

and here's a box full of bits ready to stick on, plus the armament and boats which still need cleaning and painting:

I also lost patience with the naff deck edges (where the walls contain the deck rather than lying under it) so I did this:

Ulp! Turned out OK though, as you can see:

I need to darken the repainted bits, and I wish I'd filled the deck a bit more at the back - the datum should've been the walls but I was sanding down to the deck. The result is it's a little bit slopey, but I think it still looks better. Hopefully railings will disguise the slope.

Lastly I added some bits of wire and antennae to the funnel, and some detail to the flat top to give more depth inside the funnel cap.

The tubes inside might not be correct (they probably aren't) but I couldn't find any pictures so I had to make something up. The end result is looking more and more like a ship:

More gloss, weathering, details and armament to go. I think there are only a couple of bits left on the sprues now.

Cheers,

Will

[Bengalensis]

Impressive correction work. I always find it difficult to get good results if I have to start this kind of work when I have started to paint and assemble. I like your balance between adding detail and keeping it simple.

[Will Vale]

Thanks Jörgen! Striking a balance has been really important since the basic kit isn't *that* detailed, and I'm trying to keep it all to the same level of finish. I guess the masts still end up as focal points at the moment but I think when the turrets etc. are done that will shift attention a bit.

Will

[Wolwe82]

nicely done so far

[AdrianMF]

That's starting to look mighty busy, and it has a nice scale feel to it too.

Regards,

Adrian

[prowler0000]

I'm really enjoying this build, Will!

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad my suffering at the hands of this kit (which I'm secretly enjoying a lot - oo er) is providing entertainment.

Been out/busy with work today but I did get to do some modelling for a couple of hours this evening. I installed the davits, which I've been relying on to level the deck overhangs and it worked!

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I also installed half a ship's worth of railings. I did the forward gun deck first and had a bit of a mare - I fitted the two pieces I have and then knocked one and it broke away instantly. I was surprised because the railing on the upper decks has been really solid.

It turned out that the paint bond with the brass had broken so there was a perfect railing-sized slice of paint stuck to the deck with CA. I cleaned this up and reattached the piece, and everything else since has been sanded on the bottom to get a metal-to-paint join rather than a paint-to-paint one. I did clean the last sheet of etch with lacquer thinner and it's only that one piece of railing which has been really flaky: Perhaps it was left over from the previous sheet, which I didn't clean.

The end result (for the port side) looks like this - OK I think. There are a couple of joins which could be better but I didn't want to try and butt-join the pieces or have a double stanchion. Maybe I could kink the overlap slightly on the other side? I suppose I could put something on the railing to hide it - life rings?

It's starting to look quite nautical!

Now I need to go and press that skylight down since it's sitting off the deck. And gently bend the wonky rail (if it's not lens distortion) closer to upright.

Cheers,

Will

[snapper_city]

It's looking wicked..

[Will Vale]

Thanks Mark!

I got the rest of the railings on today, and also fitted the small decks and the funnel permanently:

They aren't touched up here but I did that too, mostly. Need daylight to spot the remaining issues I think.

I didn't have much railing left over - this is all of it:

This evening I did some work on the hull, starting by making it look ghastly:

And then gradually clearing most of it off to leave grime and such:

It turned out OK:

I'll reserve final judgement for tomorrow - I might want to clean along the waterline a bit more, and chip the cutwater on the bow. I also need to add rust from the mine rails on the transom.

I've tried to be restrained with the rust which is a shame as rust on grey looks yummy.

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

More weathering today. According to my one good in-service pic, the true waterline can be a bit below the anti-fouling demarcation. So I added a broken line of MIG dark wash to provide an oily grimy waterline, and spent some time blending it. I also added more of the "salt streaks" stuff to the sides of the bow and again blended it in and streaked it a bit.

I've been out with the family today so not much modelling time, but this evening I spent 4h or so applying washes to the remaining decks and superstructure and cleaning them up. I thought I'd differentiate the weapons and masts by using "Cold Grey" rather than the brownish stuff but I think I don't like it and will go back and add some pin washes of the other colour tomorrow.

I also need to clean up the funnel some more since I was going a bit square-eyed and the photo's show some stains and blotches and brush marks etc. which I could live without.

I'm not sure how visible some of the things I'm unhappy about are in these but you can click on them to go to Flickr and "View All Sizes" to see the details. Overall it's still plenty of forward progress, it's just that enamel washing/weathering is a very painstaking task and time consuming to get right.

Not quite ready to throw in the towel yet, but given that I need to make/fill/prime/paint/varnish/weather/varnish things tomorrow it's going to be a long day. One big problem I discovered is that the AA gun tubs are overscale. I knew this and was going to modify them, but they're so overscale that they won't fit

Perhaps I can stick the AA guns on basic platforms, or leave them off for the GB finish?

Tot volgende keer!

Will

[Jockster]

Very nice indeed Will, I do like floaty things. Incredible amount of work in such a short time! Powerful with the force are you! :-)

[AdrianMF]

It looks (even more) terrific with the weathering! I can appreciate that the snagging list to get to really finished must look a little daunting with so much detail.

Regards,

Adrian

[Will Vale]

Thanks Adrian!

I've been working on this pretty much all day today and have fitted small parts, re-washed the bits which were cold grey, and finally got the masts attached. This was prompted by my dropping the main mast again (four times so far, or five?) and breaking it again. Some CA later, and it's back to being straight-ish although I may need to tweak the radar platform since it's interfering with the director and I don't recall it doing that before.

Then I gave everything a couple of coats of Alclad Flat and and sprayed some Light Sheen along the outside and centreline of the hull below the waterline. I saw this in a magazine article and thought it sounded like a good idea - and it is but the reflection does pick up the stand rather as you can see:

The flat varnish hides nearly all the glue marks but also picks up dust so I need to do a final clean and then be careful what work I do when the ship is in the same room.

Then I set down to clean up the last few parts and get them ready. I added detail to the main guns since they were rather lacking, and puttied and assembled the second launcher with the open hatch.

The big searchlights came out really well with a touch of mithril silver and a blob of 5 minute epoxy - well done Trumpeter for moulding them concave! The little ones are convex and rather less good, I need to touch up the paint.

And that's where we stand at midnight local time, so I suspect I'm out of the running - I reckon there's three or more days left if I don't rush too much. I did a prototype scratchbuilt gun tub using the kit part as a base and it'll work but it'll take a while to get all four the same, plus I still need to prime/fix/paint/weather/fit all the turrets etc. and scratchbuild a depth charge frame or whatever it is on the rear ramp.

So close! But I have a filthy cold setting in and need to take it easy for a bit. Hopefully have it done this week though!

Cheers,

Will

[Wolwe82]

Looking very nice, its sad you wont make it to the midnight, but i see there is loads of work yet so it does not worth to rush. I love the weathering, mainly the step by steps on the streaking gave me some more of "how to.." knowledge, thanks

[snapper_city]

Shame but don't rush it. Look forward to seeing this finished soon.

[Dave A]

Smashing build! Looking forward to the final reveal!

[AdrianMF]

There are an awful lot of little bits! It's been a joy to follow and look forward to see it in WIP/RFI eventually. I will have to start following "Work in Progress - Maritime". And if that fails, there's a KUTA later this year!

Regards,

Adrian