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1/600 Carley Floats


Ray S

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Hello all.

 

For my sins, I picked up a copy of the Mistercraft 1/600 Tribal Class Destroyer - HMS Eskimo - the other month. It had featured in a recent Airfix Magazine, and they had said it was an old Airfix re-issue. The runner layout looked to be quite different to the images I have seen of the old Airfix Cossack, so my opinion is that it may well be a copy.

 

Well, the moulding was terrible the scuttles actually PROTRUDED from the hull(!), there was flash in abundance, and the parts looked nothing like the instruction guide. The painting instructions look very professional (drawing-wise), and I think they copied verbatim the Colourcoats guide for HMS Eskimo on the Sovereign Hobbies website. I hope @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies is aware of that!

 

Anyway, after overcoming my shock/horror on seeing the kit, I thought it would be a good one to hone my 'repairing' skills. I drilled out the scuttles, opened the hawse-holes, replaced deck splinter shields, rebuilt the masts with brass rod, replaced the breakwater, and have used my White Ensign etch details (from three separate sets). But...

 

The Carley Floats are unusable! I have some spares from another Airfix 1/600 kit, but do not want to sell that one short (it is a MUCH better kit than this one), so I have been looking for some aftermarket. White Ensign have done some white metal ones, but there is an option or two on Shapeways:

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/G43H3MLSF/1-600-rn-ww2-10ft-x-5ft-carley-floats-84

 

There was another set of a different float size too, but you get the gist.

 

The thing is, I get rather confused with the various qualities of 3D print materials, and, basically, is the "3D printed in matte translucent plastic that showcases incredibly fine and intricate details." the decent type of material? I know it needs to be cleaned well, and needs to be exposed to U/V light to cure, and to have acrylic paint instead of enamel. 84 floats would be more than enough for me.

 

For the record, I am thoroughly enjoying amending this model and trying to get it looking presentable, and I will put in RFI when it is complete.

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

All the best everyone,

 

Ray

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To confuse things even more, Shapeways have recently changed the names of all their materials.

 

I've used the material now called "Fine Detail Plastic - Smooth" for many prints of my own designs, the last of these is featured in my 1/16th scale Firefly tank build - link below. I don't think any other materials would print a 1/600th scale Carley float as wall thicknesses would be too thin to print.

 

Link(The 3D prints are in post #6) -

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235039820-116th-sherman-vc-firefly/

 

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There are loads (20 or so, IIRC) of 1/600 floats in the Airfix Belfast kit, the best rendition Airfix ever did of them.  It'll probably turn out cheapest to pick up one of those, even an incomplete or started one, cheap somewhere and just write off the rest of the kit for spares (or you can donate it to my spares box!).  NB not sure of the condition of the moulds nowadays: mine all date from the 1970s when the moulds were young.

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2 hours ago, Niall said:

To confuse things even more, Shapeways have recently changed the names of all their materials.

 

I've used the material now called "Fine Detail Plastic - Smooth" for many prints of my own designs, the last of these is featured in my 1/16th scale Firefly tank build - link below. I don't think any other materials would print a 1/600th scale Carley float as wall thicknesses would be too thin to print.

 

Link(The 3D prints are in post #6) -

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235039820-116th-sherman-vc-firefly/

 

Thanks for that @Niall, the parts looked pretty good to me! I am certainly minded to get one of these sets. All I need to do is try and work out which size was used...

 

49 minutes ago, Seahawk said:

There are loads (20 or so, IIRC) of 1/600 floats in the Airfix Belfast kit, the best rendition Airfix ever did of them.  It'll probably turn out cheapest to pick up one of those, even an incomplete or started one, cheap somewhere and just write off the rest of the kit for spares (or you can donate it to my spares box!).  NB not sure of the condition of the moulds nowadays: mine all date from the 1970s when the moulds were young.

 

That is a thought @Seahawk, maybe I will try that as a last resort. I may well treat myself to a Belfast in the near future. That would give me 64 floats for other uses...

 

Thanks for the replies,

 

Ray

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello all!

 

Well, I ordered the Carley Floats from Shapeways, and found that they look pretty good to me! I ordered the 10ft x 5ft floats and ended up with 84 of them. I hope they are the right size, but even if they are not, they look a whole lot better than the ones Airfix/MisterCraft produced.

 

44483407840_6b6fa3dc7b_b.jpg

 

I also ordered a set of ship's boats for the Cossack while I was about it, and they look pretty neat too:

 

45576950714_2b94ab076a_b.jpg

 

They need to be exposed to U/V light, so I have put them on my windowsill and am hoping there is enough getting through the glass - my photochromic sunglasses darken off in there so hopefully it is enough. I have also washed the parts to get rid of 'waxy' residue that the manufacturers say may well be left.

 

I should have enough floats to last for quite a while now!

 

Cheers,

 

Ray

Edited by Ray S
tidy the post
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44 minutes ago, Ray S said:

ended up with 84 of them

A few builds worth then! They do look neat and would look even better under some primer I should imagine.

Can I take it that because all these 3D parts are digital, they could be scaled & printed as a custom order...just wondering :hmmm::shrug:

 

Stuart

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17 hours ago, Courageous said:

A few builds worth then! They do look neat and would look even better under some primer I should imagine.

Can I take it that because all these 3D parts are digital, they could be scaled & printed as a custom order...just wondering :hmmm::shrug:

 

Stuart

To a certain extent they can, but the designers I know of have commented that some things can require adjustment. E.g. when scaled down some things are too fine to print correctly and the model must be modified. When scaling up, some simplifications don't look too clever and/or things print excessively thick which greatly increases the cost.

 

E.g. the same model in 1/700 rescaled to 1/350 has 8 times the volume of material in it. The printing time and consumption of the material seem to be the dominating cost factors.

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