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1/72 HMS Brave Borderer


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Over the last few years, my model building has focused on 1/72 WWII 70 foot & 80 foot Motor Torpedo boats.  I thought it would be fun to see how the 90 foot Brave-Class boats compare in size.  The Brave-Class are big boats by comparison.  

 

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I found it interesting to see how MTB design & performance changed from the 1940's to the late 1950's.

 

 

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Yeah, really obvious when you look at the little 70 footers, and what they managed to carry in the way of weaponry.  In the case of MTBs bigger was definitely better .

Really enjoying watching this conversion happening. By the way, could you tell me who does your name plates?

Cheers

F

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3 hours ago, seadog said:

... could you tell me who does your name plates? ...

The nameplates are homemade (something to do with my Scottish ancestors & money :rolleyes: )

 

I use a combination of Photoshop & MS Powerpoint, starting with images of a brass nameplate, flags, etc. downloaded from the Internet.  Powerpoint has nice shadow techniques & engraving fonts to give a 3D appearance.  I print the image on glossy photo paper to give it a shiny appearance.

 

e.g.

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John

Edited by JohnWS
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:)  Been having a go at doing one for my Scottish maid as the actual engraved plaque I had down is really hard to read. Seems to be going well, so far ...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Remember the 1964/5 P.F.Sloan/Barry McGuire song - "Eve of Destruction"?  Well, I've been doing a little more destruction on the Perkasa model to salvage as many parts as possible.

 

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Once I had the parts removed & bagged, I turned my attention to seeing what Perkasa parts could be used for the Brave Borderer build.  I was surprised to find that many of the parts were a larger scale than 1/72, e.g. the round deck vents :doh:.  There are 12 of these little guys required for the BB build, & I was hoping I could use the Perkasa vents to save time & effort.  Unfortunately, being a stickler for detail, I found the Perkasa vents were larger in diameter than shown in the BB detailed drawings.  They also looked different than shown in photos of the actual vent.   I decided that I would try to scratch build the vents from plastic tube & rod, & make decals for added detail.

 

Here's a photo showing my first attempt at making a round deck vent.  It shows a new (unpainted) vent with the detail decal applied.  A photo of the actual vent and the larger scale Perkasa model's vent are also included for comparison.

 

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I wanted to use the Perkasa model's deck hatch covers, as they look great & include some very nice detail.  The Perkasa hatches were molded into the plastic deck, so I needed to cut them out & rebuild the round hatch frames using plastic card to obtain the proper height.  The diameter of the hatch covers is a little oversize for the BB build, but I'm going to use them as-is so the molded detail can be retained.

 

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Brave Borderer has 17 deck vents, including four different types/shapes of vents.  I plan on scratch building all the vents.

 

Thanks for looking in.

 

John

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3 hours ago, robgizlu said:

Always lovely to see the detail you lavish on the model - keep it coming John

I was also hugely impressed by that plaque!!!

Rob

 

I'm afraid that I totally unashamedly copied his beautiful plaque idea for the HMS Zinnia build.     😊

 

 

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3 hours ago, JohnWS said:

& Brave Borderer would be nothing more than a dream.

 

:hmmm: Just sitting here thinking as you do ................... sorry nodded off.

 

Brave Borderer was one of those boats I always wanted to build. After years of searching I got the Tamiya Perkasa at Telford last year at a reasonable price. Got a set of plans and ................................................

 

 

along came John.

 

 

 

 

Now I can sit here and watch John do all the hard work leaving me free to pursue other improbable dreams.

 

Keep up the great work John, really enjoying your build

kev

 

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2 hours ago, longshanks said:

... Now I can sit here and watch John do all the hard work leaving me free to pursue other improbable dreams.

So, let me get this straight Kev ... you're the thinker & I'm the doer ... at least on this build. :rofl:

 

I really do appreciate your support & that of the others on BM who are following this build.  

 

We're supposed to get our first ground frost tonight, & that's usually a good motivator to start my winter modelling season in earnest.   Hopefully, I'll have a lot more to show in the upcoming weeks.

 

John

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Hello again!

 

A tiny update for tiny parts.

 

I mentioned in a previous post that Brave Borderer had four different deck vent configurations.  I've completed constructing all 17 of these vents from plastic tube & sheet, as shown in the photo below.

 

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I also completed drawing & printing the vent detail decals using Photoshop.

 

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Next up will be priming & painting vents & then applying the decals.  But this will have to wait for a few days, as I've lost my basement modelling area while we have a new furnace & duct work installed.

 

Thanks again for looking.

 

John

 

 

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