1/350 HMS Exeter (1939) - York class cruiser

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Tsk tsk - I just knew that would happen. I think I kinda knew it would be you as well 😂

[salmo G]

21 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

 

Time for a small update. I managed to be an illegal immigrant for just under a day this time last week. During a management meeting on the Thursday I let slip that I knew both the development and the client contact named on a communication that an important invitation to tender was coming in to our Stavanger office. There was a pre-tender engagement meeting with this individual scheduled for the Friday so I was asked to fly over. There were no flights on Friday morning so I had to get the last plane over the North Sea the same night. I already had a meeting with another client in Houston arranged for the afternoon and thought it would look back for them to walk in to work in the morning (for them) to find I'd cancelled so I asked my wife to bring my suit, passport and overnight stuff in to work as getting all the way home and back in time would be quite tight. I hadn't slept well the night before and was already tired. When I landed in Stavanger and walked up to the immigration kiosk the usual "Hei"-beep-smile-and-wave-you-on routine was "Hei"-beep-confused-look-and-call-the-Chief-Inspector-over. Somehow, Gill had found and brought me the passport I had lost, reported as such and replaced in 2016. Thus, at 11pm in Stavanger airport I was explaining to Norwegian police why I was travelling on a passport that their system told them was stolen. Norway is a great place though and they knew I actually had a valid passport - it came up on their system at the same time. The chief inspector asked me for my phone number, email address, home address and where I was staying that night and let me go. She kept my "stolen" passport and boarding pass for the return flight and asked me to come back to the police station within Sola airport the next day after my meeting, where I was given a certificate telling me and anyone else interested that I was rejected at the border. The Police both sides of the North Sea were great actually, and whilst I had Gill bring the valid passport to meet me at Aberdeen airport she was assured by the officer who took it that she probably needn't have worried.

 

Anyway, fiascos like that are why I haven't done much modelling lately.

 

In addition, there's the fire damage. If anyone is interested we reached an important milestone today. No, nothing has *actually* happened yet, but the cleaning/drying company has visited and reported back to the loss adjuster, and their proposal has been formally accepted. They have been instructed to proceed with gathering up our personal effects, trying to salvage what they can, taking a detailed inventory of the total-losses (probably most of it now since the insurance has farted about for 6 weeks - the guidance is to start within days if you want anything recovered from smoke damage) and storing what can be saved until the house is big enough to receive it back. In addition, my preferred architect, the man who built this place with his own hands almost 30 years ago as his family home for most of that time has written his proposal to act as Principle Designer and project manage the rebuild and that today was formally accepted by the loss adjuster on behalf of the insurance too. There is a mandate I, as the client, have to sign on paper in order for the loss adjuster to pay the invoices he'll be sending her directly, but we are now finally on the rails. Within a few weeks he should have written the scope, had his Quantity Surveyor draft a bill of quantities for the building contractors to bid against and will have had a structural engineer do some member sizing on those big beams which were original but are now charcoal and must be replaced. 

 

Today I sprayed all the fiddly plastic bits in Colourcoats NARN22 507C Light Grey, having masked over the dark deck grey (NARN23) I had sprayed hitherto but had not deemed worth telling the world about.

 

 

The big piece of Oroko is being edged on an industrial router by my step-father and the finished top is supposed to be coming back to me measuring 28" by 8". When I have verified that that is indeed what has been done I shall cut a chunk of pink styrofoam and begin the sea base. Nothing fragile is glued on to the hull yet - I want the sea base ready to receive the ship first to avoid any accidents in "robust" handling of the hull.

Hi Jamie

 

looking good, hope you dont mind me saying however think you have the catapult deck facing the wrong way...... hopefully its just resting there and not glued in place!

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

19 minutes ago, salmo G said:

Hi Jamie

 

looking good, hope you dont mind me saying however think you have the catapult deck facing the wrong way...... hopefully its just resting there and not glued in place!

 

You're right - it's backwards. It was just sat there - it all is. I didn't even glance at any pictures before plonking the bits on there.

[Geoff Bizley]

After a long delay for health reasons, I am just about to try adding my own Funnel platforms. Wish me luck.

 

Edited February 20, 2019 by Geoff Bizley
poor english

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

3 hours ago, Geoff Bizley said:

After a long delay for health reasons, I am just about to try adding my own Funnel platforms. Wish me luck.

 

 

Good luck Geoff

 

I need to start the detailed assembly. I must chase my step father for that chunk of timber I need back for the base

[Geoff Bizley]

I am also looking for a photo sharing website so that I can post pickies of my feeble efforts. Could I enquire what sites you other guys use and how do you rate them?

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

I used to like Photobucket, but the two key things I liked were the good phone app(lication) since I use my phone camera, and also that the photographs were always listed in order of newness. Photobucket then had a change of management who suffered the genious idea of demanding hundreds annually to be able to display photographs on websites, and the digital world became very angry very quickly at them for ruining countless threads on countless fora going back years...

 

I now use Village Photos which is still free, but it lacks the phone app and the photograph listings within my albums seem to be at random which is annoying.

[Geoff Bizley]

On 20/02/2019 at 17:18, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

I used to like Photobucket, but the two key things I liked were the good phone app(lication) since I use my phone camera, and also that the photographs were always listed in order of newness. Photobucket then had a change of management who suffered the genious idea of demanding hundreds annually to be able to display photographs on websites, and the digital world became very angry very quickly at them for ruining countless threads on countless fora going back years...

 

I now use Village Photos which is still free, but it lacks the phone app and the photograph listings within my albums seem to be at random which is annoying.

Thanks Jamie. I use a DSLR so it sounds like Village Photos is the one for me.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

An important first step:

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Another minor update from me. The big ole chunk of timber is finished (but curiously whilst I was visited, the timber was not brought along with...???). In the mean time I have made a little progress with the sea itself.

 

It measures 28" long by 8" wide. It'll be trimmed down a little to tidy the edges up. This is it having just newly been sprayed, but no acrylic gloss gel or any white water effects have been applied due to it having only just been sprayed with enamel. The deceptively large surface area consumed an entire 14ml tin of glossy sea blue. I used ACUS35 for it, aiming for a South Atlantic ocean look, but on a relatively nice day. It's darker and greyer than that which I chose for HMS Imperial off Crete. I used the RN "B6" medium blue shade for the lighter bits. Apologies for the questionable artificial light - it's Scotland and I have a very-full-time day job to do!

 

 

One final point of note - the board is not curved as it appears here, and neither are the boards making up our kitchen area flooring!

[Courageous]

Nice base Jamie, how did you shape the wave structure...blowtorch or something similar?

I also use one of your dark blues for the sea.

 

Stuart

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

1 hour ago, Courageous said:

Nice base Jamie, how did you shape the wave structure...blowtorch or something similar?

I also use one of your dark blues for the sea.

 

Stuart

Hi Stuart,

 

I have tried heat only once so far and I simply melted a big hole in the foam. However the effects other have achieved do look good so I want to try it again with a smaller heat source (e.g. a soldering torch). This here was done with an electric drill and a flap wheel sander in its chuck.

 

I'm working from home today as we have our first formal meeting this afternoon about reinstatement of the fire damage so I have sneaked 5 minutes to take a couple of photos outdoors in natural light. The sun is low in the sky but I wanted to see how the base colours were working together before wasting time with any weathering or watery-stuff.

 

 

[beefy66]

Looking rather nice in the sunshine I would say  👍🏻

 

beefy 

[Stew Dapple]

37 minutes ago, beefy66 said:

Looking rather nice in the sunshine I would say  👍🏻

 

beefy 

 

Agreed - I still don't understand what alchemy was used on that block of polystyrene but it's very impressive  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[06/24]

3 minutes ago, Stew Dapple said:

 

Agreed - I still don't understand what alchemy was used on that block of polystyrene but it's very impressive  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

Seconded 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

3 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

 

Agreed - I still don't understand what alchemy was used on that block of polystyrene but it's very impressive  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

 

3 hours ago, 06/24 said:

Seconded 

 

It's somewhere between idiot proof and looking like an idiot did it

 

It's exactly the same as I did for Imperial in post #43 here :

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235037694-1350-hms-imperial-d09/&do=findComment&comment=3044737

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

The kit gun turrets are basically correct in size and general shape, but they are as though the 3D models were sent off for tooling during the designer's annual leave before he'd applied any of the detailing. They're really not very inspiring.

 

 

[Courageous]

1 hour ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

They're really not very inspiring.

...they need sprucing up then 

 

Stuart

[Geoff Bizley]

2 hours ago, Courageous said:

...they need sprucing up then 

 

Stuart

Just don't fix them in place. Then you can replace them when you've saved up the money for a set from Shapeways. By the way, the barrels of the Shapeways set are produced individually with the "business end" bored out and can be separately elevated if you so wish. They really are a worthwhile upgrade.

[Nick C]

On 2/27/2019 at 9:31 AM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Hi Stuart,

 

I have tried heat only once so far and I simply melted a big hole in the foam. However the effects other have achieved do look good so I want to try it again with a smaller heat source (e.g. a soldering torch). This here was done with an electric drill and a flap wheel sander in its chuck.

 

I'm working from home today as we have our first formal meeting this afternoon about reinstatement of the fire damage so I have sneaked 5 minutes to take a couple of photos outdoors in natural light. The sun is low in the sky but I wanted to see how the base colours were working together before wasting time with any weathering or watery-stuff.

 

 

The colour's look great in daylight Jamie, she's coming together nicely mate. The bridge equipment in the pic with the turrets looks really good - is it the kit supplied parts or someone else's? 

 

Cheers

 

Nick

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

2 hours ago, Nick Charnock said:

The colour's look great in daylight Jamie, she's coming together nicely mate. The bridge equipment in the pic with the turrets looks really good - is it the kit supplied parts or someone else's? 

 

Cheers

 

Nick

 

That's all straight out of the box Nick. It's a step forward from the empty bridges of some earlier kits I think

[Nick C]

2 minutes ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

That's all straight out of the box Nick. It's a step forward from the empty bridges of some earlier kits I think

Agreed, looks nice, I had to get AM parts for HMS Hood.

Cheers

 

Nick

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

I'm working on the water still, but am trying a different product to see how it goes.

 

This is Windsor & Newton's Heavy Structure Gel. It's another of their acrylics so does not harrass the enamel colour below. It goes on thick and white by dries clear on the test samples I made earlier. It's supposed to be good for holding its shape when applied. Firstly, I want to somewhat smooth out the wrinkles in the tissue paper but not lose them entirely.

 

 

I'm finding it a bit too good at holding its shape, but it thins nicely with the UV gloss acrylic varnish.

 

 

It needs some time to dry through now, but I think it will benefit from another round. I must experiment with the thickness of the stuff.

 

[Jerry L]

Jamie,

I don't know which is the more impressive, the model building or the sea scape work. Just ....WOW.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

3 hours ago, Jerry L said:

Jamie,

I don't know which is the more impressive, the model building or the sea scape work. Just ....WOW.

You're very kind to say so, but this isn't quite going my way yet!

 

I think I need a more regular pattern to the surface, a smaller, shorter period secondary wave type effect going with the swell.

 

The heavy gel has dried nice and clear and mixed with the gloss varnish it has given a nice reflective look. I'm just not happy with the texture on the surface. I will have another go at this, but tomorrow is back to the office so I shall give some thought to how to apply the gel as I want it. This is rather new to me.

 

 

 

The eagle-eyed might spot that Exeter now has catapults and a crane, although the latter is not yet painted. They may also spot the conning tower and forward superstructure of my 1/200 HMS Hood. This was nicely moulded as one big piece, but unfortunately was over simplified and had bulkheads under the Vickers 0.5" quad machine gun positions whereas this was open to walk underneath on the real ship. Hacking that out was as awkward as it was scary on such an expensive kit. After the butchery came the need to extend the deck and blend it it without destroying all the surroundings. It has been a challenge, but is now in the process of final tidy-up. I have been chipping away at that for a while between other stuff.