1/350 HMS PUMA

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday you're welcome. If memory serves, I remember one of the pre-firing procedures of the Mk VII was pumping up the pressure on a vertical cylinder on the extreme right side of the mounting. When operating a motor was running continually, regardless if the mounting was elevating, training or stationary. On the Mk IX the electric motor only ran while the mounting was actually moving. The cylinder I mentioned on the Mk VII looks visible on the two mountings above. A big metal box of some sort took it's place on the Mk IX. It's coming back to me a bit.

     Anyway, this is Chewy's thread, not mine so I've probably said enough. 🙂 HTH. Regards, Jeff.

[Chewbacca]

Crispin, Jeff, Terry,

 

Thanks for your input.  Having looked at the brass barrels, Starling Models will be getting an order from me later today.  Unfortunately Mike's out of stock of the Black Cat Bofors and the part-Scottish blood in me objects to paying 2 lots of postage so in the first instance I think I'm going to try the scratch built route, then realise that I shouldn't be so miserly and order the Bofors direct from Black Cat!  Oh and Jeff, always happy to have your thoughts on here.  It's always helpful 👍.

[socjo1]

On 25/11/2020 at 08:55, Chewbacca said:

  I must confess to being slightly disappointed with the 40 mm bofors in the top image.  Now don't get me wrong, it's not an Airfix blob and it does look like a single Bofors but I'm sure I can do better, especially noting the quality of the l'Arsenal ones I bought for BULOLO. 

 

 

 

You are very polite for these stuff. In my opinion heavy sanding and polishing is what all these white-metal parts need at least. But quicker, easier and more visually effective would be just replacing with Black Cat or another company items. You will like it 😉

 

 

On 25/11/2020 at 08:55, Chewbacca said:

1/350 HMS PUMA by Wookie350, on Flickr

 

 

 

If I can suggest something, maybe it is worth to replace these barrels too? These details will be very easy visible and eye-catching in finished model. Even easy replacing by injection tubes in two dimensions (or wrapped partly with self adhesive, aluminium foil) will look much better. Of course you always can look for silmilair subject in ready solutions, e.g. from Master Model: http://www.master-model.pl/

 

Anyway it is very interesting subject, and I follow you interesting.

Best regards,

Michal.

Edited November 28, 2020 by socjo1

[Chewbacca]

Little more progress.  I must be honest I still haven't fully worked out in my own mind what is the best order to tackle this kit.  I re-read @Ex-FAAWAFU's excellent WIP on HMS DIDO 

and looking at the way that was put together, a huge amount of the kit was built before primer went anywhere near it.  Yet I know that my masking skills simply aren't up to that.  For a standard injection kit, I get the hull and main deck together, perhaps add the main body of the superstructure and then start painting with all parts thereafter being painted before assembly.  Of course with a resin kit so much more is already moulded and the more I look at it, the more I am convincing myself that I am going to have to commit paint fairly soon and build up from painted 1/01 decks.  But there are still some parts that can fit first and spray in situ.

 

I drilled out the hawse pipes to take the PE anchors.  I was tempted to use a couple of spare resin anchors instead as I often feel that PE lack the bulk that a couple of tons of solid steel should offer had but they were WW2 vintage and clearly showed, so PE it was.  I don't think actually they look too bad.  I also drilled out the bullring but you can't really see it in any of the photos.  

 

 

 

Fitted the bridge - there was the tiniest of gaps so that was filled with some Vallejo filler - and then I noticed that there was a circular mount just abaft the bridge (the second photo below shows it best).  In the pre-AKE-1 ships, I think this was the location for a visual rangefinder and looking at photos I had of other modeller's examples of the earlier ship, there does indeed appear to be a pair of resin rangefinders in the kit.  But post the upgrade, at some point, that space was taken by a Corvus 3 in chaff launcher.  As far as I can tell, Corvus entered service around 1967/68 and so it is not unreasonable to assume, that at some point after probably1968 that Corvus would have been fitted to PUMA.  I have photographic evidence (mainly from the stuff that Terry sent me which I won't share publicly because they are taken from a book) they clearly shows LYNX, JAGUAR and LEOPARD with the Corvus, but all of my photos of PUMA  show a space there.  But I think they are all taken quite early post the AKE-1 refit because they all have the earlier style of liferaft rather than the modern 25 man liferafts supplied with the kit.  If I can believe the dates in the photo captions, all are dated to Jun 1969 or earlier bar one which is Jan 1971, which hsows the later liferafts but cuts off before it gets to the Corvus position!  So do I make the assumption that they probably did fit Corvus to PUMA some time around 1970/71, or do I retitle this entire thread and make one of the other ship's in the class?

 

Bridge filler

 

Corvus mount position?

 

And finally, we come back to the Mk 6 turrets.  While I wait for the brass barrels to arrive, I filled out the gap either side of the trunnions with 20 thou plasticard shims and sanded them to fit because the brass replacements only provide the barrel.  I think this looks a fair bit better though I was taken by a pair of Micromaster 3D printed Mk 6 turrets which look stunning but I'm not sure I can justify the outlay, especially not in the run up to Christmas.

 

 

Thanks for watching

Edited December 1, 2020 by Chewbacca
corrected link

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Chewy, if I had my time again I’d have started painting Dido earlier in the process than I did, for all the reasons you say

[Chewbacca]

That's actually good to hear!

[Terry1954]

Glad the pictures have helped. I've had a further rummage through my various books but can find very little on HMS Puma herself, and any online searches mostly point us back to this thread! I thought there might be one or two confirming the Covus fit. According to most of the sources I have, it does seem that it is extremely likely that Puma was fitted with Covus at a similar time to the other Cats, so I reckon you are safe there.

 

Painting sequence is an interesting aspect that I am looking to you (and Crisp) to help give me some ideas when I get to my own models in this scale!

 

Terry

[Our Ned]

I can confirm that Puma was fitted with 3" Corvus rocket launchers by June 1971 - a publicity pamphlet published on that date shows F34 from the starboard bow, with the starboard launcher clearly visible.

[Chewbacca]

Thanks both.  Corvus it is.

[mick]

look forward to your build

[ERK]

Great work  love these resin kits  (not the dust though not good in a lounge build enviromant)    I am hanging out for Peters  excellent  "Fortress of the Seas"   HMS Edinburgh   - cant wait.

 

Erk.

[Chewbacca]

Know what you mean about the resin dust.  At the moment my bench is in part of the kitchen so I am very nervous of that dust getting anywhere.  Thus far I've taken the parts out to the garage whenever sanding has been required.  Fortunately up to now, apart from one short session in the garage tidying up some flash on the edges of the resin components and removing that excess trunking, sanding has been mostly confined to cleaning up the white metal parts,

 

Had a very helpful email exchange over the weekend with Peter at Atlantic Models.  He's got some spare 3 in Corvus chaff launchers so is going to send me a pair.  Also the replacement Master Model brass barrels arrived on Saturday.  Annoyingly, I didn't realise until after I'd ordered them that I could have got those from Atlantic as well and actually got the right 4.5 in barrels instead of the 4.7 in that I ordered.  In this scale, there's so little to choose between them though that I'd challenge anyone to tell the difference with the naked eye.  The 40 mm bofors barrels are ridiculously fine

 

Decision taken that I will get as much as possible prepped off the model and sprayed then assemble to reduce the amount of masking required.  All of the white metal has now been prepped bar the bofors - still in 2 minds what to do with that as the more I look at the white metal part, the more I think it could be cleaned up to work - and I've started putting together the PE where I can and where it won't get damaged by  being off the model.  Photos to follow.

 

One thing confuses me with the PE.  PE part 14, the emergency conning position, has a square hole cut in the middle of the deck with as far as I can tell, noting to go in there.  I would have thought that there should be either a pelorus or emergency magnetic compass binnacle and looking at some of the photos I've got there does appear to be something there.  Anyone any ideas?

 

As you may remember of you go back to one of the earliest posts, I want to represent PUMA in a Navy Days setting, alongside, dressed overall with visitors crawling all over her.  And that affords a challenge, because it means that I need 1/350 scale civilians.  I can get a passenger set for Titanic in that scale, but somehow I think that Edwardian dress might look a little out of place in 1970 even in this scale, and Eduard do do a set of airport passengers but most of those have luggage and there was always a tent near to the gangway for Navy Days or Ship Open to Visitors where guests had to leave their bags.  So at the moment I think I am going to resort to the Tamiya generic 1/350  warship crew set.  As far as I can tell from Tamiya's photos, they have almost no features so could be painted to represent both the ship's company who were on board and the visitors.  I do have some GMM 1/350 RN figures but being PE they are very flat and I wasn't overly happy with them for that reason when I used them for BULOLO.  I plan to order the Tamiya ones this week unless anyone has any better ideas of where I could get civilian figures from in this scale.  Thanks.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Chewbacca
spelling

[ERK]

Probably not much help  but I was at the Pompy Navy Days  in 1976  I remember my dad  paying to take us over HMS Devonshire, can't  remember if your ship was there,  but this is a pic at the event taken by someone (not my pic)  on Devonshire.

 

Erk.

[Terry1954]

On 12/7/2020 at 8:28 AM, Chewbacca said:

One thing confuses me with the PE.  PE part 14, the emergency conning position, has a square hole cut in the middle of the deck with as far as I can tell, noting to go in there. 

Have emailed a couple more pictures of that area that might help. Not crystal clear but should be useful I hope.

 

Terry

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

On 12/7/2020 at 8:28 AM, Chewbacca said:

I need 1/350 scale civilians.  I can get a passenger set for Titanic in that scale, but somehow I think that Edwardian dress might look a little out of place in 1970 even in this scale...

 
To a man of your calibre... some milliput flares and a foil tank top or three and you’re there.

 
Joking apart, Tamiya probably your best bet - at that scale imaginative painting will do most of it, I expect

[bootneck]

At 1:350 scale, I find that just a touch up of paint in the right areas can build up the clothing to suit the theme or era I want.   A spot of paint on the head for a cap or beret.

Jackets and overcoats can be simulated by applying a couple of thickish brushings of paint to the torso or whole body etc.

 

Mike

[Chewbacca]

On 08/12/2020 at 01:00, ERK said:

Probably not much help  but I was at the Pompy Navy Days  in 1976  I remember my dad  paying to take us over HMS Devonshire, can't  remember if your ship was there,  but this is a pic at the event taken by someone (not my pic)  on Devonshire.

 

Great photo Erk.  If nothing else it shows just how many people I need to have milling about the upper deck!  PUMA certainly wasnlt at Portsmouth ND in 76; she'd been taken out of service some 4 years earlier and was scrapped in 76.

 

On 08/12/2020 at 18:50, Terry1954 said:

Have emailed a couple more pictures of that area that might help. Not crystal clear but should be useful I hope.

 

Terry

 

Thanks Terry.  The overhead shot of SALISBURY confirms that all the kit that I would expect to be in the ECP is in fact there.  Armed with knowledge of what should be there, it can just abut be made out in the images of LYNX showing that they did use the same design.

 

10 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

 
To a man of your calibre... some milliput flares and a foil tank top or three and you’re there.

 
Joking apart, Tamiya probably your best bet - at that scale imaginative painting will do most of it, I expect

 

You've been looking in my wardrobe! 😁

 

10 hours ago, bootneck said:

At 1:350 scale, I find that just a touch up of paint in the right areas can build up the clothing to suit the theme or era I want.   A spot of paint on the head for a cap or beret.

Jackets and overcoats can be simulated by applying a couple of thickish brushings of paint to the torso or whole body etc.

 

Mike

 

Thanks Mike.  That was exactly the way my mind was heading.  So Tamiya figures its going to be.  Only issue is, having looked at Erk's photo above, is will one pack (144) be enough?  I remember being onboard HMS DIDO at a later Navy Days when I overhead them saying they had to shut the gangway because they had over 3,000 people on board and most were crowded onto the port side watching the basin displays.  She had a distinct list!

 

 

 

[ERK]

On 09/12/2020 at 20:56, Chewbacca said:

Great photo Erk.  If nothing else it shows just how many people I need to have milling about the upper deck!  PUMA certainly wasnlt at Portsmouth ND in 76; she'd been taken out of service some 4 years earlier and was scrapped in 76.

 

 

Thanks Terry.  The overhead shot of SALISBURY confirms that all the kit that I would expect to be in the ECP is in fact there.  Armed with knowledge of what should be there, it can just abut be made out in the images of LYNX showing that they did use the same design.

 

 

You've been looking in my wardrobe! 😁

 

 

Thanks Mike.  That was exactly the way my mind was heading.  So Tamiya figures its going to be.  Only issue is, having looked at Erk's photo above, is will one pack (144) be enough?  I remember being onboard HMS DIDO at a later Navy Days when I overhead them saying they had to shut the gangway because they had over 3,000 people on board and most were crowded onto the port side watching the basin displays.  She had a distinct list!

 

 

 

I have been to Pompy a few times  for the Navy Days  when a kid  - loved them, also spent a week at Collingwood  for work experience with the school  - loved that - even tried to sign up but didn't quite make it.

 

Erk.

[Chewbacca]

So this is what arrived at the weekend from that very nice man at Atlantic Models:

 

 

Complementary set of Corvus chaff launchers - complete with a spare set of the white metal parts because Peter's obviously heard of my carpet monster!  I've started tidying them up and getting them ready for spraying.  Also started to add the extra bits that you always see around the base of these launchers - armament broadcast speaker, comms boxes etc - from scrap bits of evergreen  You can just see one of the loudspeakers from 40 mm rod in the second photo.  Unfortunately they're just a little bit too large to fit around the discs already moulded into the hull which meant that the port mounting would foul the two vertical lockers just aft of that position, so the only thing to do was to scrape away those mounting points from the deck so that the new launchers will sit flush.

 

Also continued with the PE.  Here's the foremast part complete.  The challenge is to recognise how much to put together before painting and then risking damaging it later when assembling.  I think with this this is almost there - I shall probably just add the top platform for the 993 aerial and fit the other yards afterwards.  Remembering of course that this has to be masked and sprayed 

three colours - ship's side grey at the bottom, black in the middle and white at the top.

 

 

Thanks for watching

[Chewbacca]

As Mr Blackadder was wont to say, we had a visit from Mr C*ckup last week.

 

I started on the mainmast because PE because I figured it would be easier to get that assembled before I painted, and so last week I fitted the supplied yardarms.  Initially I was  reasonably pleased with the result albeit I wasn't 100% happy with the positioning of the outer loops which were too far inboard but they were attached to the upper stays and that was about as far as I could get them out and still have the stays at the right angle.  I suspect that I cut the upper stays in the wrong position when I removed them from the fret.  I also noted that the kit only provides the thwartships yards and there is a third half yard fore and aft that is centrally located on the for'ard face of the mast.  That would have to be made from Albion Alloys.

 

And so yesterday I sat down to look at tackling that half yard but I looked again at the thwartships yards and realised that they were about as horizontal as a big dipper,  I put the mast on a flat surface and measured them - 18mm base to tip of the UHF aerial on the port side; 20 mm to the same point on the stbd side 🤯.  That's pretty shocking even by my lack of dexterity but what I didn't understand then, and still don't now, was why I hadn't noticed it before?  Sadly in my frustration with myself, I didn't take a photograph so you could all have a giggle.

 

But this did mean that I could rectify the loops that I wasn't happy with because having carefully removed all of the PE I put together last week, I took the decision to cut the loops from the stays and attach the loops separately.  I then replaced the stays with Albion Alloys 0.2 mm rod. with hindsight should probably have used 0.1 mm but it works.  I also made up the for'ard half yard from the same material and added the aerial from a tiny length of 10A fusewire.  As far as I can tell from all of the photos it should be a slightly flattened aerial  looking almost like a  flat rectangular cushion but the fusewire works at this scale.  I also added the access ladders to the three yards and a handrail around the mast but with hindsight I think it is too high and should be level with the top of the yards themselves.  I'm also not convinced that it should go all the way around.  Some photos seem to show that it does yet others show the aft face above the exhausts to be clean.

 

 

 

Macro photography is very unforgiving.  It wasn't until I pulled that second onto a 24 inch monitor that I realised quite how much CA glue is still on the for'ard yard.  You can barely see it with the naked eye but I will see if I can clean it up a little as I suspect it will be more prominent with a coat of primer.

 

Now I've always known that I would have to add a third exhaust to the back of the mainmast and I had been staring at this photo of HMS JAGUAR for quite a while sorting out the yardarms and handrail when it dawned on me that I couldn't simply add the third exhaust in the middle of the two moulded ones because they were too close together. 

 

 

The only option was to shave off the two already there (that I had already hollowed out) and replace all three with slivers of 60 thou Evergreen rod which when dry I drilled out with a 0.9mm drill. - I may go slightly higher as again the macro-photography shows the exhaust side walls to be still quite thick  I think the two outer ones should be still yet further spaced out and on the corners but I'm not convinced that without reshaping the whole mainmast to provide more rounded corners I would be able to get them in the right place.  So they're staying where they are for now.

 

 

The final issue I need to address on the mainmast concerns the UHF aerials on the end of the yardarms.  The PE only provides the upper aerials (which is correct for the early fit) whereas when the ships were modified to have the AKE-1 and plated in mainmast, twin aerials were fitted to each yardarm, one top and one bottom.  Ideally I'd like to  replace the kits singles with doubles but the photo of JAGUAR above shows that they are quite complex shapes and I'm not sure that I have the necessary skills to produce that in 1/350.  Watch this space!

 

Thanks for watching

[Terry1954]

Great progress Ralph. I did a bit of lateral thinking on the UHF aerials. Some years ago I indulged in some Railway modelling (for my one daughter, the boys weren't interested), and to my eye they look similar the ball and spike signal post caps used by some of the early railway companies. So a bit of googling produced this:

 

https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/?s=Ball+and+spike&post_type=product&title=1&excerpt=1&content=1&categories=1&attributes=1&tags=0&sku=1&orderby=date-DESC&ixwps=1 ........ there are two pages to check there.

 

Not really sure how they scale out but there are certainly one or two on those pages that look very similar to what you need, and they are more 3D than the flat etch. I'm sure more googling will find more examples. The 4mm ones (in scale terms) are possibly close to the size you need, but It may be that say N gauge (2mm in railway speak I think), are better scaled. Just an idea?

 

Terry

 

Since posting this I've had a chance to check my HMS Leopard kit, which actually has the Puma etch set. I realise the UHF aerials are very small, so suspect the 4mm gauge idea is a no no, but 2mm (N gauge still might work if you can find any - I had a quick look and found nothing so far!

[Chewbacca]

I think you could be onto something there Terry - thanks 👍.  The OO gauge are too large - the Wizard site describes the size of one of the OO gauge at 10 mm from base to tip - but N gauge might work.  If I assume that Peter's PE is the right size, though I haven't looked at any scale plans yet, I need about 3 mm base to tip for one aerial, 6 mm tip to tip for the pair. which if I assume N gauge finials are exactly half the size of OO gauge would still make them too large.  Of course the PE ones could be too small - I think somewhere in my archive I have a PDF of RN radar and radio aerials produced by the internal museum at HMS COLLINGWOOD so hopefully that has something I can use.  If not I have the Jecobin plans for BRAVE which has largely the same UHF aerials so can check the measurements there.

 

Interestingly, when I googled N gauge ball and spike finials, the first webpage to come up was this one: https://www.modelu3d.co.uk/product/2040/ which are 3D printed.  At that stage, my mind crossed to 3D printing my own.  If Mrs Chewbacca has taken the hint, a resin 3D printer should be on it's way in Santa's sleigh this week and it's not a complicated shape to generate in CAD.  So I'm going to wait until Saturday before deciding how to proceed with this (yes Saturday - unfortunately my daughter has to work on Christmas Day so we'll celebrate on Boxing Day).

 

Whatever happens, it has to be better than this which was my first attempt at making it from Evergreen and Albion Alloys rods.  With hindsight I should have put a ruler in there to show the scale - that's 6 mm long.

 

 

While waiting, I thought I'd make a start on the 965 aerial.  I've made one of these in PE previously, but that was a double bedstead AKE(2) (965P) in 1/600 scale and though smaller was less complex.  the issue with this is that each of the dipoles has two vertical "mesh screens" as Peter describes them.  Now that in itself wouldn't be a problem other than they are narrower at the back than at the front but with no definitive way of knowing just how wide they need to be at the back until the back plate is fixed.  So there's lots of trial fitting and hoping that the CA doesn't set too quickly.  This was after about an hour and a half yesterday:

 

 

You'll also note the strip of Evergreen 40 thou box cross section on the back of the front face.  The PE provides a 2D representation of the integrated IFF aerial whereas in reality it should of course be 3D so this was a simple enhancement.

 

Thanks for watching

Edited December 22, 2020 by Chewbacca

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Nice 965!

[robgizlu]

I'll be really interested to know how you get on with the printer.

The aerial is looking good

Rob

[Chewbacca]

Thanks both.

 

The 965 is complete.  Bit of a fiddle to get all of the dipoles to line up on the rear screen but by taking it methodically it wasn't too difficult and most are lined up as the second photo shows.  

 

 

 

 

What was a little challenging was trying to work out how what Peter describes as "bottom stays" (parts 24) were supposed to fit as the instructions are less than clear.  Fortunately, I found this photo of a similar aerial (albeit fitted to the Leander class HMS EURYALUS) on the Haze Gray website which shows the bottom of the array quite clearly and shows how it should fit.  You can just about make it out in the second photo above. 

 

 

You'll also note that the Haze Gray image shows a ladder going through the middle of the array between the two central dipoles, so  I added that from vertical ladder supplied with the kit.  Unfortunately disaster struck when fitting this as I was holding it in place while the CA set when I lost grip on the tweezers which sprung open and trashed one of the upper horizontal stays leaving it attached at one end but very bent.  I did managed to get it off and mostly straightened - it shows up in the macro photographs but difficult to spot with the naked eye - it's the third photo and its the stay nearest to the rear of the array.  The observant of you will also notice a tiny length of Albion Alloys rod enhancing one of the bottom stays on the right hand side.  That's because I looked at the image in the instructions (I know, that was the fundamental error!) which seemed to show the outer ends of that stay to be the same length and so I cut the first one accordingly.  The Haze Gray photo above clearly shows one end to protrude beyond the side of the array.

 

I think I'm getting pretty close to taking everything out for a coat of primer.

 

Thanks for watching.

Edited December 23, 2020 by Chewbacca
spelling