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Sink the Bismarck! HMS Ark Royal, 26 May 1941


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Seconded! Amazing work on the tiny parts Crisp… adding those steps / handles would have driven me potty.

 

BTW, unless your cutting mat is very old I can see the 1cm squares so no need to include objects for scale.

Don't worry, I've done that before too :) 

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21 minutes ago, CedB said:

...unless your cutting mat is very old I can see the 1cm squares so no need to include objects for scale.

Good point.  Same cutting mat as always.  

 

 

 

 

 

[However, that hasn’t stopped (other) people occasionally asking me to include something to provide a visual size reference in the past...]

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3 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

[However, that hasn’t stopped (other) people occasionally asking me to include something to provide a visual size reference in the past...]

Someone asked me, for the Vignette GB, to prove that I wasn't using a fake (oversized) ruler to show that my vignette was fitting into the required max size... :shrug:  Strange world.... :D

 

Ciao

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On 12/18/2019 at 9:15 AM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I shamelessly copy @foeth’s superb flag locker idea from his Hood build.  [He even researched the correct place for each flag]. 

1) "research" was simply googling "flag locker" or flipping through my manual of seamanship 😁 (forgot which one)

2) copy away! I think Flyhawk also copied the idea into on of their sets as well.... I think it's fun to see ideas ending up in so many builds and etch sets. Including *cough* errors... and I steal many ideas back...

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Occasionally get this odd feeling of incompleteness after a browse on the forum and realize 'Aah, I haven't been back to the Ark in a few days.'

 

As in all the best threads on here I really feel I'm learning as much about the historical  subject of the build as of the actual process of building itself - naval architecture never ceases to amaze me in the seemingly infinite array of purposes superimposed upon one another within a single hull. To the point where I have to say I'm going to have to build one of HM ships one day.

 

This continues to grip the mind Crisp. 👏

 

On 12/12/2019 at 10:02 AM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

like saying it’s the fault of Her Majesty’s Crustacea that so many aircraft parts (aileron, nacelle, fuselage...) are in French

No small mercy I guess that the Cockneys didn't get to name them first...

 

 

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Tomorrow evening I am knocking it on the head for Christmas and going home.  Ark will be staying in London, so this will be the last update in the ship for a couple of weeks.  I hope I’ll get the time to do some modelling, and if so there will be updates - but they’ll be on the Swordfish, which are at home. 
 

After yesterday’s flirtation with insanity working in the unfeasibly tiny brass for the HA Director, I decided to do something different this evening - that’s one of the beauties of building ships; you always have about twenty options as to what to tackle next.

 

A consignment of Albion Alloys’ finest arrived this morning - 1.3mm brass tube, to be precise - which allowed me to construct a brass mast.  I always replace styrene masts with brass if possible, because they make rigging the ship so much less stressful at the end because of their strength.  Here is the Merit original alongside my brass replacement; slightly more complicated than cutting a piece of the correct length, since it has a stud on the top (onto which fits the Homing Beacon platform with its in-built yardarms, so I want max strength) - so this is actually 3 tubes of Albion’s “slide-fit”, with the outer tube 1.3mm.

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After that I did some work on the funnel, and then decided to take stock and take a few shots of the state of Ark’s island as work stops for about 10 days.  

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That’s all for now, but I’m very happy with how this is coming along.

 

More in due course

 

Crisp

 

P.S. The apparent misalignment of the aft-most funnel cover support rail is an optical illusion: I’ve just checked! 

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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4 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

That’s all for now, but I’m very happy with how this is coming along.

…and so you should be Crisp. That's looking marvellous.

 

Have a safe trip matey :) 

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2 hours ago, giemme said:

There's more brass in that island alone than in all my builds during the last 5 years...

This is where we’re going, Giorgio (fairly obviously, extracts from the instructions for the Tetra detail-up set).  Note the original Merit HA Director front and centre here; now you know why I went to the North Star Models version, even if it is tiny and fiddly! Merit’s version looks like a High Angle... coffee table; did they ever look at a drawing?  See also their pom-pom directors (which are not shown in these pictures because Tetra replace them - the things in the brass tubs on the back of the funnel, for example).  Merit’s look like giant lollipops.

 

Those gorgeous pom-poms are a world of precision pain that I have yet to address, but cannot put off for much longer [though there’s always the port side of the hull; that should eat up a few weeks!]. At least she didn’t have the two port side ones in May 1941, so I “only”have to build 4.

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Tetra’s set ain’t cheap, but it utterly transforms the Merit offering.

 

Crisp

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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4 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

This is where we’re going, Giorgio

And that's far more brass than I will ever use in my entire modelling life... :frantic:

 

KUDOS for going through all of this, Crisp - it's gonna look splendid once painted :worthy: 

 

Ciao

Edited by giemme
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1 hour ago, Kirk said:

I have visions of a workbench surrounded by metres of sticky tape in an effort to deny the carpet monster an inevitable meal of irreplaceable brass micro-parts.

Not far from the truth - though Lesson 1 in use of PE (long before this build) is NEVER cut it from the runner until you are 100% ready to glue it in place.

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2 hours ago, giemme said:

 

KUDOS for going through all of this, Crisp - it's gonna look splendid one painted :worthy: 

 

Ciao

Grazie mille.  
 

There are only 2 1/350 models of Brit carriers: Airfix’s Illustrious and this Ark, and that doesn’t seem likely to change any time soon, alas.  Both require a fair amount of work and/or enhancement (after market, scratch, or both) to bring them up to a decent level (even more so with Lusty if you opt to turn her into one of her sisters, like me) but since it appears unlikely that we’re going to get the chance to build very many RN aircraft carriers, I reckon I might as well really do it properly.  

 

If my stash were packed with 1/350 kits of Ark 4, WW2 Illustrious / Victorious / Formidable, Hermes (inter-War, Cold War or both), Eagle (ditto), Furious etc, then there would be more incentive to rush.  But that’s not going to happen, because what the market apparently needs is yet another kit of Bismarck, Yamato and the other ‘usual suspects’.  Yes, I know, market forces and all that... but it p*sses me off that there are mainstream injected kits of Nazi carriers that were never built (including Peter Strasser, which was barely even started and where even the name is speculative), but not of the ship that single-handedly changed the Mediterranean war (sorry to mention this to an Italian!) in November 1940.  [I may have mentioned this before not more than 50 times].
 

Even in 1/700 RN carriers aren’t exactly prolific (& I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that 1/350 is plenty small enough for me, thanks!).  
 

 

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13 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Even in 1/700 RN carriers aren’t exactly prolific

Gidday Ex, nor in 1/600. I'm toying with the idea of converting an Airfix HMS Warspite into HMS Eagle and HMS Repulse into HMS Glorious. I know there will be some inaccuracies in the conversions but I think I can live with them. I also have a whiff carrier in mind. These are down the list a bit at present. Further to that I have a post WW2 HMS Victorious, but with the angled flight deck I don't know if it can be converted back to WW2. These certainly won't have the detail you've got on your superb model here. Your brass work, and attention to detail and accuracy I think is phenomenal and very skillful. Regards, Jeff.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Happy New Year, everyone.  I am back up to London tomorrow, so will only really pick things up again then - but I have managed a tiny bit of work today.
 

I’ve already paid tribute to @foeth’s stunning work on his scratch built flag lockers [mind you, if you really want your mind blown, take a look at his latest efforts: soldering 1/350 anchor cable link by link is beautifully insane!].  I suspect that Flyhawk also had their interest piqued by his efforts, because they included a number of flag lockers in their FH350107 “WWII British Navy Sundry Box” PE set (which also has useful upper deck ammo lockers of 2 different sizes)... and it has to be said that they look remarkably like Evert Jan’s - though to be fair that could be purely because they accurately depict a flag locker of that era.

 

E-J added his ‘flags’ by using 0.3mm square styrene rod, and it is possible that I might end up doing the same.  But first I am trying a slightly different method, namely adding a sheet of styrene inside the locker (visible below, but since we are looking from underneath in this photo, it won’t be a problem once fitted).  The aim is to see whether I can paint the ‘flags’ through the brass grid pattern and then clean up and reinstate the grey.  I don’t see why it shouldn’t work, but we are talking very small dots of paint here- we shall see once I am re-united with my Optivisor!  If it fails, there’s always the rod Plan B.  

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Swann Morton No 11 blade for scale.  Not huge. 
 

Eventually I need 6 lockers like this, so worth getting it right using the simplest method if possible!

 

More tomorrow

 

Crisp

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1 hour ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

The aim is to see whether I can paint the ‘flags’ through the brass grid pattern and then clean up and reinstate the grey.

Are you under the influence of New Years Pusser's Rum or just bonkers! It'll be very interesting see this how this works Crisp and best of luck...you'll need it.

All the best for 2020 Mr Crisp.

 

Stuart

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I'm kind of agreeing with Stuart on the bonkers front, but then that's what we are surely? Amazing and admirable stuff.

 

Btw, third row down, fourth flag in from the left looks like it may be in the wrong place?

 

Just saying .................😂

 

Terry

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