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HMS Griffin - G-class Destroyer, Atlantic Models 1/350


robgizlu

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10 hours ago, Modelholic said:

Who'd've believed it!

I seem to have a small, cheap pipe cutter on order.

Amazing!

Tom

You're not alone Tom - A Tamiya Diamond file as recommended by @Ex-FAAWAFU is winging it's way :lol:

Thanks Crisp!

Rob

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It occurred to me that perhaps some would not know that the tube cutter leaves a little curl of brass inside when cutting metal tubes. Frustrating when using sliding fit tubes, a small round or square file can be used to clean this...

 

Or if you need more tools in the magic box a set of cutting broaches are ideal being available in various sizes packs e.g.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/353199707958?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&itemid=353199707958&targetid=1002021776153&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=1007013&poi=&campaignid=10195651178&mkgroupid=107296207892&rlsatarget=pla-1002021776153&abcId=1145987&merchantid=7300134&gclid=CjwKCAiA_9r_BRBZEiwAHZ_v174nuFE1A2TEvxV6BkITJD-Ie0FeewpVE3cyuNQgVYTdipxCr9hWnRoCbm4QAvD_BwE

 

They are also invaluable for increasing the size of a hole when you haven't got the right size drill.

HTH

 

Stay safe

 

Kev

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Kev,

Stop it!

If this carry's on I'll need a bigger tool box (I've already got two).

I use an electric drill as a lathe (Son has to hold it in place and control the speed)  Can use the back of a scalpel blade to thin the plastic before cutting. But cutting to precise length can be a bit hit or miss.

Tom

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2 hours ago, Modelholic said:

Kev,

Stop it!

If this carry's on I'll need a bigger tool box (I've already got two).

I use an electric drill as a lathe (Son has to hold it in place and control the speed)  Can use the back of a scalpel blade to thin the plastic before cutting. But cutting to precise length can be a bit hit or miss.

Tom

I'm right there with Tom

 

7 hours ago, longshanks said:

It occurred to me that perhaps some would not know that the tube cutter leaves a little curl of brass inside when cutting metal tubes. Frustrating when using sliding fit tubes, a small round or square file can be used to clean this...

 

Or if you need more tools in the magic box a set of cutting broaches are ideal being available in various sizes packs e.g.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/353199707958?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&itemid=353199707958&targetid=1002021776153&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=1007013&poi=&campaignid=10195651178&mkgroupid=107296207892&rlsatarget=pla-1002021776153&abcId=1145987&merchantid=7300134&gclid=CjwKCAiA_9r_BRBZEiwAHZ_v174nuFE1A2TEvxV6BkITJD-Ie0FeewpVE3cyuNQgVYTdipxCr9hWnRoCbm4QAvD_BwE

 

They are also invaluable for increasing the size of a hole when you haven't got the right size drill.

HTH

 

Stay safe

 

Kev

 

Obi Wan - check these out I shall have to!

Rob

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Rob, many thanks for great archival footage form Normandy landing.

I do some research for one of the future builds (AFV Club LST/Landing ship, Tank from Normandy). As always I look for interesting camouflages. And there she is!

PS. I have some interesting (I hope) links too -with polish destroyers. Will show soon 🙂

Regards,

Michal.

Edited by socjo1
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  • 2 weeks later...

Work on the base continues alongside the model.  There are about 6 separate applications of "Gloss medium & varnish" "dabs" and it's painted Model Air 71.259Grey Violet RLM75

 

2021 01 12_1128

 

If you're wondering what the Sumpfmuster jacket is doing in the background I've been doing some figure painting over on the Figure section

 

2021 01 12_1147

 

Deck anti-slip is applied.  By 1940 Griffin would most likely have lost some?all of her corticene to be replaced by Semtex (Thanks Jamie).

Ahh - Semtex!!!

It still seems astonishing that we don't truly have an appreciation of the exact colours to this day and that photographic evidence is not available

There are certain givens..... There were several shades.  

Here's what Ough had to say oon the subject and he was clearly an interested observer and most importantly a modeller

 

"Large areas of the decks, when they are not planked are covered in "Semtex" which is a composition trowelled onto the plates and confined at the edges by small beadings of steel welded on.  When dry it presents a  matt surface, not very slippery and of almost the same appearance as dry asphalt.  It is usually given a coat of paint, either dark green or dark blue, which looks rather handsome, and often, round the base of the whole superstructure where it joins the deck, a wide band is painted about 9in high, of a different colour, dark grey or dark blue, called the "kicking strip", as shown in (16).  If the semtex is green, this is usually blue.  if blue it is usually grey.  In the Warspite in one commission it was dark red which looked very fine in contrast to the planking.  It appears thatthat the colour arrangements depend on the decision of the ships officers."

 

Another first hand account has been recorded on the web and is available and I've copied this from a thread on "The Miniatures page" which I'll very happily remove if anyone protests

 

Seaman Gunner George Mack
Personal recollection
HMS INTREPID 1937

As soon as we arrived in Chatham our chums began to arrive aboard to see what the new ship looked like, and to renew old acquaintances.
From the jetty we looked very smart in our gleaming light grey Med Fleet colours, against the dark grey of the Home Fleet ships that were in the yard with us, but when they stepped aboard things were not so smart. We had managed to sweep up, but the decks looked filthy as they were covered in a new paste-like surface, instead of the brown corticene, held down with shiny brass strips, as on other ships.
By Sunday the POs and leading seaman had gone round other ships to borrow a supply of cleaning materials and we set to with a will to clean the upper deck. To our disgust, nothing had the slightest effect, in spite of all the skills that years of hard-won experience lavished on it! When we eventually met the rest of the flotilla we found they had been equally unsuccessful; the only real difference between the ships was that three had dirty brown decks, three dirty blue decks and three had dirty grey decks!

This curse held over us for about six months, until suddenly we noticed that the IMPULSIVE had cleaner decks than the rest of us. In spite of her trying to keep the secret formula to herself, we soon noticed that she was washing her decks with a salt water hose, and the problem was solved. Salt water and nothing else. We now had the problem of a dirty ship's side! In all fairness however this was one of the best things that happened to destroyers. For it meant there was a really safe foothold in all weathers. Before this the decks were very slippery, and to give extra grip at sea, coconut matting was laid round the guns and along the iron deck, but the first seas coming aboard would rip the lashings, and it was a constant battle to keep it securely lashed down. Another snag about 'Semtex' was that it wore through the soles of shoes at an alarming rate, as it was like walking on sandpaper.

 

I think the fact that Norman Ough asserts it was painted rather deflates extended discusson about the true colours available.  I'm conscious that Jamie has a compelling pic showing a light "duck-egg" green which is yet a further contender.

 

It's likely that in the absence of high quality colour photographs we shall never know, so "Dry asphalt" and dark green remain safe options.  Which begs the question....what colour Exactly is "dry ashphalt"?    Doh!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Stop it:banghead:

 

I've opted for Dry asphalt with some Vallejo mixes

 

 

2021 01 17_1156

 

2021 01 17_1172

 

2021 01 17_1154

 

2021 01 17_1158

 

More soon 

Thanks for looking

Rob

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6 minutes ago, longshanks said:

Will there be double yellow lines on the dry asphalt :wicked:

 

Kev

 

A Young modeller trying to take his craft seriously and what happens...........

There's always one :doh:

;)

 

 

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I think what you've done there is very credible Rob, and it's likely to be impossible for anyone to claim they know better!

 

Whereas Norman Ough does clearly state that it was painted, most primary sources are silent on the matter, although C.B.3098(R) of May 1943 paragraph 145 states "Decks laid with Semtex or similar composition should not be painted". "Should not" does not mean "Must not" and in no way disputes that some people did paint it - especially 3 years earlier.

 

What we do know however is that Semtex was not one product. Semtex was a Dunlop invention from 1934, and there are numerous different Semtex sub-products named in various documents, although SX135 is the weatherdecks product early in the war using either wood chips or asbestos as filler for the latex. Interior walkways, washrooms, heads etc had different Semtex products named. On top of this, there were competing brands Supertex and Aranbee also approved to supply their spectrum of equivalent products. By 1943 the brand name "Paratex" is also discussed in AFOs, but the Semtex SX.135 appears to have been replaced by a new Semtex product which no longer relies upon latex rubber, a drive alluded to in 1942 documents due to shortages and the need to economise on application of these coverings.

 

Even that photograph I gave you of the light green colour in a gun tub was likely a later Semtex product e.g. L.H.G. 405, which according to AFO4105 in September 1943 had passed its trials and was superior to the latex based SX.135.

 

What does all this mean? Ultimately that we haven't got a clue what these all really looked like and anyone who tells you what colour "Semtex" was as a blanket statement for use on models of ships with such deck coatings probably has little idea how many possibilities there are and what little is known about the majority of them!

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Always something interesting to read through with all this information going on in your builds Rob  :book:

 

7 hours ago, longshanks said:

Will there be double yellow lines on the dry asphalt :wicked:

OK I just could not stop when I read that one Eric is on the ball again  :rofl2:

 

Stay Safe

beefy

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I confess that I am a bit puzzled by what Ough wrote. He was writing 15 or so years after WW2 and I have a niggling suspicion he may have been influenced by what he saw of RN practice at the time he wrote. I’d be interested to know what the non-slip surface used on RN decks in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s was. It may well have been referred to as Semtex, a bit like every vacuum cleaner was called a Hoover. It may even have been be a Dunlop Semtex product, but I have a genuine sample of whatever it was and it does not have the 3/16 inch thickness of the WW2 era latex compound SX 135. It is about 1/32 inch thick and I would describe it as Brunswick green in colour (BS381C No. 225).

 

It is interesting to note that despite what he wrote about Semtex normally being painted green or blue, Ough chose to model the non-slip deck surfaces on his model of HMS Barfleur in grey! (See the colour centerspread pages XIV-XV in The Life and Models of Norman Ough by Alistair Roach.) This is the same colour they are on the Hawthorn Leslie builder’s model of her sister ship(s) HMS Armada/Alamein.

 

Painting Semtex would have seriously compromised it’s non-slip properties. I have copies of various pre-WW2 and WW2 era orders and documents (other than CB3098R/43 that Jamie mentions) which make it quite clear that Semtex should not be painted (and indeed that it should be protected from paint when painting adjacent surfaces) but that it could (pre-war) be supplied in a range of colours. That said the Admiralty had certainly settled on grey by early WW2 (1940) and quite possibly a bit pre-war (but after 1937 - I cannot yet narrow it down any further). Jamie is right to highlight that we cannot be sure of the colour of the various non-Latex substitutes introduced mid-war (late summer 1942), when the rubber supply ran out. These were ultimately found to be unsatisfactory and in the summer of 1944 were replaced with compositions using reclaimed rubber and we cannot be sure of their colour either, but the models of Barfleur and Armada/Alamein may be a guide to this. This remained the situation until the end of the war. (I have not researched what happened after that.)   

Edited by dickrd
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Thank you Fellows, for very interesting discussion and very helpful for rest of us. 🍻

I must admit I looked at Mr Ough's models the same way as dird did just to know how Ough painted decks 😉

 

One more remark if you please:

8 hours ago, dickrd said:

I confess that I am a bit puzzled by what Ough wrote. He was writing 15 or so years after WW2

 

Recently we discussed with Keith  @beefy66 about appropriate doors for his Portchester Castle model. He wanted use nr 2 pattern, while I found some photos of Castles with nr 1 doors - and no with nr 2 variant. After our nice conversation I recalled that Ough wrote quite a lot about doors (drawning below is from his book, p. 95). Let's read his explanations:

YWmOvq0.jpg

 

Quote

(p.93)

The drawning shows in (1) the elevation and section of a watertight door of the common to all HM Ships from the eighteen nineties down to 1914. (...) Doors this type continued to be fitted in HM ships up to the last of the "County" class cruisers of 1929. In the "Leander" class cruisers of after 1929 and in the later "Sothampton" and "Dido" classes, and in all since, watertight doors of the later type shown in (2) were fitted.

 

 

"And in all since..." OK, but Castle was mid-war (more or less) project. So Ough was wrong here. I don't why: maybe "chip" corvettes and frigates, built in civil shipyards had different (older? civil?) specifications and fittings? Maybe author was more focused on "serious" warships, not these "tin cans for reservists"(sorry)? Yet, most of his models are destroyers and bigger ladies. Who nows?... Anyway, sorry for (kind of) off-topis, I want only say, that sometimes even such expert and authority like Norman Ough can be somewhat inexact or inaccurate. That's why reality is so interesting, however sometimes somewhat frustrating... And that's why it is worth to compare different kinds of sources - like you do here.

 

PS.  Have we chipped semtex here? (ORP Piorun, ex-Nerissa)

x0IO1CT.jpg

 

Best regards,

Michal.

 

 

Edited by socjo1
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8 hours ago, dickrd said:

 

It is interesting to note that despite what he wrote about Semtex normally being painted green or blue, Ough chose to model the non-slip deck surfaces on his model of HMS Barfleur in grey! (See the colour centerspread pages XIV-XV in The Life and Models of Norman Ough by Alistair Roach.) This is the same colour they are on the Hawthorn Leslie builder’s model of her sister ship(s) HMS Armada/Alamein.

 

Dick, that wasn't lost on me.  Interestingly the colours are reversed from what one might expect;  the foc'sle and "normal" plated areas that are more commonly shown in Dark non slip are the colour of "dry asphalt and the main decks that one might expect to be Semtex-covered are the (far) darker colour.

 

Rob

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15 hours ago, robgizlu said:

 

Dick, that wasn't lost on me.  Interestingly the colours are reversed from what one might expect;  the foc'sle and "normal" plated areas that are more commonly shown in Dark non slip are the colour of "dry asphalt and the main decks that one might expect to be Semtex-covered are the (far) darker colour.

 

Rob

 

Ah, now we are into the question of how dark each of us thinks was the tone of dry asphalt back then! In the various photos of the Barfleur model that I can access, the tone of the composition-covered areas of the decks looks the sort of medium/semi-dark tone that I would expect. It is the painted areas of the deck, especially forward of the forecastle breakwater, that have flipped from the very dark tone I think you may be thinking of as "normal" to a light tone, lighter than the medium/semi-dark tone of the composition areas (and lighter than I think of the tone of dry asphalt as having been).

 

The AFO’s in force at the time the Battles were completing simply said that the non-composition areas of the decks of destroyers were to be painted with non-slip paint. We know that non-slip paint came in a range of colours including light grey. For whatever reason it appears that a light grey was indeed used as I have an aerial photo of Barfleur taken from directly overhead and the non-composition areas of her decks are the lighter tone.

 

Edited by dickrd
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16 hours ago, socjo1 said:

 

"And in all since..." OK, but Castle was mid-war (more or less) project. So Ough was wrong here. I don't why: maybe "chip" corvettes and frigates, built in civil shipyards had different (older? civil?) specifications and fittings? Maybe author was more focused on "serious" warships, not these "tin cans for reservists"(sorry)? Yet, most of his models are destroyers and bigger ladies. Who nows?... Anyway, sorry for (kind of) off-topis, I want only say, that sometimes even such expert and authority like Norman Ough can be somewhat inexact or inaccurate. That's why reality is so interesting, however sometimes somewhat frustrating... And that's why it is worth to compare different kinds of sources - like you do here.

.

 

 

 

I think Ough was trying to cover a lot of ground and probably did make the odd error here and there. For example he says “In destroyers prior to the Tribal Class ‘Corticene’ was used instead of ‘Semtex’." This is untrue. The preceding I class were the first whole destroyer Class to use ‘Semtex’ and prior to that it was trialled on Grenville. It was only specified for the Tribals because it had been found satisfactory on the I Class.  He would not have had the sort of access to official documents and photos that we now have.

 

I like that image of Piorun’s deck. It does indeed look very much like an area of composition-covered deck has fractured and scabbed off.

Edited by dickrd
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I've gone for a mixed picture of Semetex on the decks and Corticene remaining on superstructure floors

 

2021 01 22_1202

 

I used hawk decals fro the stern as The Atlantic models Decals don't contain 3 x "H"s.  Miinimal silvering - so far, so good

I then used the Atlantic decals on a well prepared and fully "Kleared" surface forward Port hull side

Massive silvering  :rant:   Despite my usual Mr Hobby Softener - Irrecoverable, so I scraped them off before they truly set, nd off course took the paint off right down to the resin :wall:

 

2021 01 25_1243

 

I have since tried the Atlantic decals on a test surface - same result.  Either my set is dud or they are poor decals.

I've sanded the area back and tried to fill in which is not easy - any imperfections will be magnified by any new decals - in many respects - letter masks are an altogether safer option.

 

2021 01 25_1237

 

The remedial work needs layer upon layer of primer and sand down - tedious!!

 In contrast the Modeldecal roundel sat beautifully

 

2021 01 25_1236

 

I have @Michael M to thank for this tip shown in his Fuyuzuki, Rainbow build - 

 

 

 

2021 01 25_1238

 

Corticene brass tie-down strips - it adds visual interest

 

The guns and Splinter bags have received a grey wash

 

2021 01 25_1239

 

The Control Director tower is crude and Black Cat Models have just released a replacement - just ordered - we'll see how it compares.

 

The torpedo tubes look even more impressive after a wash

 

2021 01 25_1240

 

2021 01 25_1242

 

More soon

Thanks for looking

Rob

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1 hour ago, robgizlu said:

I've gone for a mixed picture of Semetex on the decks and Corticene remaining on superstructure floors

Floors? FLOORS? 😲 Don't you mean 'decks'? Despite your ignorance of naval terminology the ship is looking very good. It is a shame about the decal issues. The detail on the guns and torpedo tubes is very impressive. It's going to be a very good model, I think. 👍 Regards, Jeff.

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Nightmare with the decals Rob I have just added the Atlantic hull numbers to my build and had no issues I use Micro sol and set for my decals with a base of klear and top coat followed by a satin varnish.

The rest of the build looks great will have to make sure I remember that tip on the Corticene deck fittings.  :book:

 

Stay Safe

beefy

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