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Trumpeter 1/200 USS Iowa


johndon

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1 hour ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

Five years and over four feet long? Rather a large project then. 😀

 

I like your approach to the idea of accuracy. I’m sure it makes for a healthy building experience. 

 

Hopefully it'll be finished quicker as I currently have another 2 1/200 ships to do 😀

 

I'd rather have a clean build than a 100% accurate one (especially if that 100% takes a huge amount of work like correcting the hull) when the vast majority of people who will ever see the model at my house won't know what an Iowa class battleship is let alone what shape the hull should be...

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On 11/12/2016 at 11:21 PM, johndon said:

having decided to get back in to ship modelling, I've decided to go large:

 

IMG_0018_zpsfoourfzt.jpg

 

And, as I've got the Pontos detail set, first up to be built is the Iowa.  A little reference material:

 

IMG_0019_zpskpavujfu.jpg

 

 

That's exactly how I fling myself into ridiculously large projects. 😄 What a Brilliant start! I'll now have to read the whole darned thread. 🤣

 

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54 minutes ago, johndon said:

I'd rather have a clean build than a 100% accurate one (especially if that 100% takes a huge amount of work like correcting the hull) when the vast majority of people who will ever see the model at my house won't know what an Iowa class battleship is let alone what shape the hull should be...

Yeah, I think most of us want our models to be accurate and I'll try to correct known inaccuracies where I can but I think a time comes when we have to say "Enough is enough!" Of course that time's different for each of us. When in doubt go back to my three rules of modeling :-

     1  Have fun

     2  Build to your own standard, not others'

     3  Repeat rules 1 & 2               🙂                              I don't think ANY of my ships are 100% accurate but I still enjoy doing them.     Regards, Jeff.

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I caught up. 

 

Blimey!

 

I'm really rather glad that I'm not interested in building one of these things for myself. The PE is amazingly difficult and I wouldn't be capable of working as neatly as you. Your build so far is exemplary and I'm really enjoying your writing too. One thing that would improve the thread for me would be the inclusion of more photographs that give me an idea of scale. I've never worked in 1/200 or walked on a battleship so I don't quite 'get it' much of the time.

 

Good luck with the rest of the fleet and I hope you get them all finished while I'm still alive to see it. (That gives you plenty of time 😁)

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8 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

One thing that would improve the thread for me would be the inclusion of more photographs that give me an idea of scale. I've never worked in 1/200 or walked on a battleship so I don't quite 'get it' much of the time.

 

Hopefully these may give an idea, Tamiya paint pot on the aft barbette and that's a 12" rule on the superstructure.  It also rather shows up where the aft deck is starting to lift!

 

IMG_3646.jpg

 

Compared to the 1/350 Enterprise (a big girl herself):

 

IMG_3647.jpg

 

One of the turrets compared to a 1/350 Fletcher and Liberty Ship:

 

IMG_3648.jpg

 

and, at the other extreme, one of the PE parts that I'm about to add:

 

IMG_3649.jpg

 

 

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Paradoxically, a model that big really needs details that small if it isn't to look toy-like. Any viewer in the room with it will be seeing the ship in 'macro-vision'. 

 

It will take an awful lot of 30 centimeter wheels to fill up 270 meters of battleship. And you have three of them! Good luck (and good looking for those pinged away pieces).

 

 

 

Also, isn't the Enterprise an ugly machine? Ew!

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  • 2 weeks later...

While I decide on the best solution to fix the bubbling deck, I've started to add some of the PE detail to the bottom deck of the superstructure.

 

Round the turret 2 barbette:

 

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One of the aft 5" mounts:

 

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and a VERY cruel close up of the first eight of what are hundreds of individual rung ladders that need to be fitted.  Easy enough to do as Pontos do provide jigs for the drilling (I broke two .3mm drill just doing these rungs) but tedious in the extreme. It is also rather difficult to get them all lined up and the same distance away from the hull, definitely a job to do a few at a time.  A little tidying up to do but the drilled holes are no where near as obvious in reality as they appear in the photo...

 

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50 minutes ago, johndon said:

While I decide on the best solution to fix the bubbling deck, I've started to add some of the PE detail to the bottom deck of the superstructure.

 

Round the turret 2 barbette:

 

spacer.png

 

One of the aft 5" mounts:

 

spacer.png

 

and a VERY cruel close up of the first eight of what are hundreds of individual rung ladders that need to be fitted.  Easy enough to do as Pontos do provide jigs for the drilling (I broke two .3mm drill just doing these rungs) but tedious in the extreme. It is also rather difficult to get them all lined up and the same distance away from the hull, definitely a job to do a few at a time.  A little tidying up to do but the drilled holes are no where near as obvious in reality as they appear in the photo...

 

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My current build had rungs but in 1/350.....no thanks said I to that!

 

I've learned to not worry too much about close ups as they often show things not discernable to the human eye,  I think you've done a really good job so far and are brave to even attempt them,  id chicken out,  

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I mentioned a few posts ago that I was considering going the 3d printed route for the 20mm guns rather than build the Pontos versions as I though the chances of me building 50+ of them without any errors were slim.

A couple of years ago I got some from Shapeways which I thought were very good but, last month, I ordered some from Micro Master in New Zealand which, after coming half way round the world, arrived this afternoon.

I've removed the print supports from one (but done no other clean up) and, within seconds, I'd made my mind up that printed was the way to go, there is absolutely no way I could make the Ponto ones up to look as good as these, I think they are stunning...

 

IMG_3659.jpeg

 

IMG_3658.jpeg

 

IMG_3657.jpeg

 

and with a ruler for scale:

 

IMG_3660.jpeg

 

John

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  • 2 months later...

Having done some other modelling for a couple of months, I returned to the Iowa last night and found that the aft deck looks like this.  I'm really disappointed as I was scrupulous in making sure that the plastic deck was completely clean free of any dust.  I'm sure it can be fixed albeit I'm concerned that once I start gluing parts down with super glue all that will happen is that the blisters will move elsewhere...

 

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That's pretty annoying,I've had mine lift a little too but not as bad, I kept pressing it back and it seems to have stayed down now, I thought about slicing in between the planks to get some thin glue in, maybe that could work for you? Hope you can sort it🤞🏻

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1 hour ago, Rich75 said:

 I thought about slicing in between the planks to get some thin glue in, maybe that could work for you? Hope you can sort it🤞🏻

 

Thanks, that's what I'm going to end up doing, just hope I can save it...

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  • 6 months later...

Well, after some time away building 1/48 scale aircraft, it's time to get back to the Iowa.  Unfortunately the lifting on the deck has got worse since that last photo so the first job, which I'm really not looking forward to is to sort that out...

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I know it isn't much fun hearing this now , but quite a few modelers on utube , stress to use wood glue , as well to attach the wood to the decking . I have been out of modeling for a few months myself , only just caught up on this thread now . you could try syringing some super glue under the wood a bit at a time .

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4 hours ago, steve5 said:

I know it isn't much fun hearing this now , but quite a few modelers on utube , stress to use wood glue , as well to attach the wood to the decking . I have been out of modeling for a few months myself , only just caught up on this thread now . you could try syringing some super glue under the wood a bit at a time .

 

I know although at least one modeller who I've been in touch with uses no glue and he's had no problems at all.  Never mind, it is what it is...

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Oh dear, what a disappointment. I don't think it's a glue failure so much as a problem with the wood warping and overcoming the glue. Perhaps, over the years, it spent some time in a damp environment without the protection of a sealing coat? Maybe it will even out a little over the summer, if we have one.

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3 hours ago, Bertie McBoatface said:

Perhaps, over the years, it spent some time in a damp environment without the protection of a sealing coat? Maybe it will even out a little over the summer, if we have one.

 

Can't even blame that, since the deck was fitted the ship has spent it's entire life in my office, it has been nowhere near anything damp.

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I had a similar issue the first time I used a deck, I think part of it is they don't quite fit and rub up against edges in some.olaces and not others and that kind of push back against it causes different parts to distort and lift. 

 

I've not had any issue (yet....and hopefully won't ever) on my carrier builds with decks from Veryfire and Chan Yu. For those I followed suggestions I've seen to apply a generous gloss coat to the plastic deck first as the adhesive doesn't bind well to anything other than very smooth surfaces. I tested it out by using spare peices on a Matt painted area, a plain plastic area and a heavily glossed area and sure enough the Matt painted area didn't stick great the plastic deck as alright but not convincing but the gloss one was noticeably better..I can't comment to longevity as the oldest is only about a year but that's my experience for what it's worth. The one caveat is.im very aware that as I did about 4 coats of gloss by brush were they to ever come off the deck isn't going to look great. Being a carrier though I'd hope I could come up with something,

 

Hope you manage to get it solved, she's a beautiful beast your building, 

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Cheers for that. The deck had 3 coats of gloss before I put the deck down. 
 

She’s back on the bench now, needs a good dusting off and I’ll make a start on sorting the deck out. 

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I've made a start and it looks like the good news is that the deck can be saved.  I've made a number of cuts along the plank lines and, even without any glue, it has made a huge difference.  Comparing the last photo I took of the deck a few posts ago to this one, there is a huge improvement, I suspect that there is still a lot of work to be done to get it all back down where it should be but it looks promising...

 

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2 hours ago, johndon said:

I've made a start and it looks like the good news is that the deck can be saved.  I've made a number of cuts along the plank lines and, even without any glue, it has made a huge difference.  Comparing the last photo I took of the deck a few posts ago to this one, there is a huge improvement, I suspect that there is still a lot of work to be done to get it all back down where it should be but it looks promising...

 

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Surprised it's lifted if you glossed it previous, looks like you're saving it though 🙂

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