1/200 L Class Destroyer HMS LANCE

[russ]

On with a new build, this is 1/200 scale kit of the L Class Destroyer HMS LANCE as she was in 1942 just before being bombed in Dry dock in Malta which caused her to be written off and taken apart.

The kit is a Paper Model rather than plastic, I have purchased laser cut frames for the hull formers and some of the upperdeck constructions, as well as set of turned barrels.

The kit is produced by WAK one of the Polish companies which specialise in these types of kits and has some elements of english in the instructions which can be helpful.

A few pictures of the kit below:

This will be my 3rd attempt, the 1st being HMS Sheffield which tunred into an absolute disaster, but I learnt alot about hull construction and importance of alignment etc, so I tried again with HMS HESPERUS, which was nearly completed, but has a number of severe errors, however it proved the successful hull construction, and I will follow that approach with this build.

Step 1 is to assemble all the laser cut parts using UHU or PVA glue ensuring they are aligned as well as possible, this is a good kit as the parts are separated to allow a waterline or full hull version to be built.

Photos below show progress to date, first few are the waterline parts then with the full hull option added afterwards. This is all glued together and dring out, and provides a surprisingly strong construction.

The photos have been taken on an A3 cutting mat which gives a good impression of the size, its about 54cm long 5.5cm in the beam and 5.5cm high at its highest point so far.

Work will move onto fill up the gaps with scrap corrugated card ready for filling, I found on Hesperus that this provided a really solid base to work with for the hull side placement, and a lot of strength in the ship as a whole. More photos on progress to follow once complete.

Thanks for looking in.

Russ

[Darby]

Certainly different from normal plastic. What sort of price do they come in at? If you need spare cardboard I'll have loads in a few weeks. House move and all it entails.

[longshanks]

I shall be watching with interest

Saw some impressive card models at Telford

Kev

[russ]

Certainly different from normal plastic. What sort of price do they come in at? If you need spare cardboard I'll have loads in a few weeks. House move and all it entails.

Hi Darby, this one was about £8 for the kit, and another £8 for the barrels and laser cut parts, then probably another £8 or so for postage. But you can go way up from there, some of the big kits which have lots of accesories you can blow £50 + on or the biggest like IJN Akagi you could probably spend £100 on depends how much you want to buy vs how much you want to build for yourself. It's only filling the gaps in the hull that needs the cardboard so I use amazon boxes etc, but thanks for the offer.

I shall be watching with interest

Saw some impressive card models at Telford

Kev

Hi Kev there are some really impressive card models out there, as a beginner in the field I definitely would be happy with an acceptable card model or even a finished one at this stage.

Bit more progress tonight, I have managed to fill most of the gaps between the formers with corrugated card, bit more trimming to ensure they don't poke over the ribs and a couple more pieces before doing the same thing on the other side. Then I can break out the filler.

Thanks for watching

Russ

[Doctorgaz]

good work, but very small photo......it is visible nothing

[russ]

Have managed to make some progress over the last day or 2. I have continued to fill the spaces between the hull formers with corrugated card cut to rought shapes and glued in the spaces.

After this fill and cover the entire hull with filler, for this I use a lighweight houshold filler, it fills well, sands well, dries fairly quickly and doesn't add a load of weight to the model. Here you can see how some the card was proud of the formers and will need trimming back again.

This was then sanded back, all the high points were shaved off with a sharp knife and a new thinner coat of filler applied, which has been sanded back again So the hull now has just a few blemishes, which I will sand a bit more, but essentially is ready for laminating with the printed card elements

Untitled by Russell Kellett, on Flickr

Untitled by Russell Kellett, on Flickr

Meanwhile I started on the rear superstructure. Heres a picture of the parts, the instructions and a few images of construction so far. The cut edges of the card and coloured with pencil, felt tip or paint and all parts have been glued with PVA.

Untitled by Russell Kellett, on Flickr

Untitled by Russell Kellett, on Flickr

Untitled by Russell Kellett, on Flickr

Untitled by Russell Kellett, on Flickr

Untitled by Russell

Kellett, on Flickr

Thats about it for now. Thanks for looking.

Russ

[russ]

Bit more progress made over the last few days.

1st up I got th elower hull plates on, followed by the upper hull plates and the deck parts. This is the most stressful part for me as any inaccuracies in cutting or alignment, or preparation work in the hull formers really shows up in these parts.

Forutnately there was only some slight misalingment on the lower hull, and 2 areas on the upper hull parts where additional or remidial work is required.

I have also been round the whole hull and touched up the cut edges with watercolout paint, whilst this leaves a striped sensation on the lower hull, I am planning to use various tones of the water colour to try an create a patchy tonal effect on the hull, which will blend in the various parts and cut edges.

Untitled by [/url], on Flickr

Untitled by , on Flickr

Untitled by , on Flickr

In the last photo you can see the misaligned parts. Hopefully this will not end up too much a job as there is a seprate set of hull sides to enable you to model the ribbed effect, and this should cover the worst of this error.

Finally I also managed to add a few more parts to the rear superstructure.

Untitled by , on Flickr

Next jobs are to add the ribbing effect to the hull sides with the duplicated parts, carry out the water colour weathering of the lower hull and fiish off adding the Ammo lockers to the superstructure.

Thats all for now thanks for looking.

Russ