Hobbyboss 1/350 Dunkerque

[Faraway]

@S-boat 55 THAT is quite the tower block, the PE looks immaculate. 👍

[S-boat 55]

There are odd little bits that sit on the 'corners' of the main turrets, not sure their purpose and the pe is simplistic as representations go, but they and the railings are on for each of the quad turrets.

A couple of them don't look great when you get in close, it turns out they are handed but the instructions don't tell you that, the etch is ready with depressions to aid bending but you have to work out as you go whether you bend in towards that marking and or bend it away from it, I ended up having to reverse what i had done with some of them. One tried to be taken by the carpet monster but i found the little blighter and got him on in the end. They do make the turrets more interesting along with the rails, it does go to show how the resin turret option would really make it sing but I just cannot justify the cost.

 

For those building one of these you'll notice the rafts under the barrels of B turret, they're wrong - should be three stacks of four (or more) not four stacks of three - there're aren't really enough in the kit 

decided on a shot to mark where I'm, still a good bit to do, always seems to be more each time I think about which bit to do next, 

 

 

 

 

More tomor.......at some point

 

Thanks for looking in, 

 

Sam

[Adm Lord De Univers]

Looking real nice. I can't imagine those rafts faired well during firing.

 

David

[Gisbod]

Looks very nice Sam!

 

Neat work. The long railings around the deck are my nemesis… 

 

Guy

[S-boat 55]

18 minutes ago, Adm Lord De Univers said:

Looking real nice. I can't imagine those rafts faired well during firing.

 

David

It does seem an odd place to keep them, 

7 minutes ago, Gisbod said:

Looks very nice Sam!

 

Neat work. The long railings around the deck are my nemesis… 

 

Guy

Thanks Guy, 

[Faraway]

33 minutes ago, Gisbod said:

Looks very nice Sam!

 

Neat work. The long railings around the deck are my nemesis… 

 

Guy

Guy. You and me both, the worst of it is when the deck slopes. I’ve taken to glue the start of the railing and when dry, do the next few mm, and then repeat.

Jon

[Faraway]

@S-boat 55 I’m enjoying this build of yours, and I’m learning a lot in preparation for when I start mine. Be a while yet though. I bought the Master main gun barrels and the practice guns (?) that go along side the turrets. I was going to get the twin and quad mounted guns. The twin isn’t so bad as there are only four and the Master set comes in fours. But then I looked at the quad mounts, once again the Master set come in fours, but it would appear there are ELEVEN on the ship. That’s three sets, at seven quid a set. Definitely a none starter.

Jon

[S-boat 55]

36 minutes ago, Faraway said:

@S-boat 55 I’m enjoying this build of yours, and I’m learning a lot in preparation for when I start mine. Be a while yet though. I bought the Master main gun barrels and the practice guns (?) that go along side the turrets. I was going to get the twin and quad mounted guns. The twin isn’t so bad as there are only four and the Master set comes in fours. But then I looked at the quad mounts, once again the Master set come in fours, but it would appear there are ELEVEN on the ship. That’s three sets, at seven quid a set. Definitely a none starter.

Jon

I know what you mean they quickly add up in cost, I went with them partially because my next serious build was supposed to be Graf Spee which will need after market AA guns and thought they'd be good practise, that said I'm unlikely to get her really started before Taiho arrives at the end of August. 

 

So one advantage of small children is late night hobby time - every cloud as they say, 

 

Stairs - these were a fiddle, largely because all of a sudden having been fairly happy all way through to go mainly by the box I got hung up on how these should be. So for those interested I'm about to nerd out about these. In essence what the instructions tell you to do is wrong - the steps likely shouldn't really be as they are shown certainly not with the aa guns as they are. The twin mount AA gun on the forward deck abreast turret B was fitted later than Strasbourg her sister ship. That places the kit towards the end of her life late 1942/1943. When she was launched and up until about 1941 she doesn't appear to have had any permanent stairs in place in this area, then in one photo she has them running as the kit suggests (maybe - its blurry and so they may run sideways) and the only other photos of her in 42/43 show the steps running adjacent the wall bulkhead between deck levels. (Strasbourg again seems to of had these much earlier). From a lot of searching the book I have and scrolling on tinternet I found that Dunkerque's stairs ran down towards the edge of the deck (odd) and strasbourgs ran mirrored so taking you towards the barbette base of turret B. So my solution was to repurpose the top third of the steps that are supposed to be for the side - (not sure what you call 'em) that i didn't plan to put in place anyway largely due to storage and their inevitably getting knocked off. 

 

To sum it up a couple of photo's will likely show better what I am rabbiting about;

 

So above became below;

 

 

The original lacked a cross bar to stop you just walking off the platform into the sea so I had to add that, 

 

Thanks

 

Sam

Edited July 16, 2021 by S-boat 55

[Faraway]

17 minutes ago, S-boat 55 said:

Stairs - these were a fiddle,

Sam.

Stairs !!!!!!!!!! Argh, don’t remind me. The worst, so far, were on The Zara. Trumpeter has you bending them just about every which way at the same time. I took them to bits, those that didn’t fall to bits that is, and assembled them in sections.

Jon

Edited July 16, 2021 by Faraway

[S-boat 55]

2 minutes ago, Faraway said:

Sam.

Stairs !!!!!!!!!! Argh, don’t remind me. The worst, so far, were on The Zara. Trumpeter has you bending them just about every which way at the same time. I took them to bits, those that didn’t fall to bits that is, and assembled them in sections.

Jon

yeah as you said the other day they really dont think about how things are actually put together, 

[S-boat 55]

Well then, not a lot of noticeable progress, spent 2 and a half hours last night sticking tiny bits on that really don't show much but its one more bit done, 

 

Also found an issue in the instructions missing part numbers, fairly simple but for clarity here's the amended version....

 

Some of the bits are very very delicate, I'm not sure how but I manged to knock the bottom plate off of both these parts, managed to stick it all together first but word to the wise, be gentle with them, only down side is that as a result and my mistake it means that those bits that should be upright are now leaning in a bit but its not the end of the world and were I to try and correct it I think I would do more damage that good. 

 

 

I thought she looked good in the evening sun the other day;

As you can tell I've not finished the boats yet, I think with my next one I'm going to have to do those first to get them out of the way, I just find them dull to do, 

 

This area is nearing completion, there's two small parts to add to the catapult and the crane and plane, crane will go on very much last thing.

Aside that is just the main rails for the rear now. I've been chopping up some for HMS Repulse to repurpose (I'll get a proper set for her later), but they have this odd feature that I'm not sure how to represent. You can see in these two shots of her and Strasbourg that there is a wide almost ledge that runs on top of the railing. 

Thoughts on if it would be wood or metal? And given its flat, any ideas how I could fashion something to use to represent it?

 

Thanks

 

Sam

 

 

[Faraway]

6 minutes ago, S-boat 55 said:

Thoughts on if it would be wood or metal?

My guess would be the top rail would be wood. 
Jon

[Gisbod]

Looking good Sam!

 

All very neat and tidy.

 

Guy

[Adm Lord De Univers]

I'm also going to guess wood, I can't tell though. You could draw the deck outline/perimeter on a piece of paper, infuse that paper with super glue, then cut out the shape, paint and glue on top. 'Should' be thin enough, but sturdy and not put too much weight on the pe railings below?

 

David

[S-boat 55]

1 hour ago, Adm Lord De Univers said:

I'm also going to guess wood, I can't tell though. You could draw the deck outline/perimeter on a piece of paper, infuse that paper with super glue, then cut out the shape, paint and glue on top. 'Should' be thin enough, but sturdy and not put too much weight on the pe railings below?

 

David

That sounds very involved but would work, food for thought, thanks for rhe suggestion 

[S-boat 55]

Great dimensional coordination from Hobbyboss/Trumpeter here;

 

 

Little more i could do that just ease the top part of the railing out, frustrating but there we are, 

[beefy66]

Very neat work love that catapult.  👍

 

Stay Safe

beefy

[S-boat 55]

And so the tiny stuff begins.....

 

Training guns first, all four done and read to paint, these were pretty straight forward really, the one issue I found was that Model master recommend a 0.3mm drill bit to open out the resin for the barrel - that's far too large as its wider than the barrels themselves. I ended up carefully using the point of a new no1 knife blade, 

 

 

Double mount, much like the training guns, but the resin is so thin you cant really open the hole much so I took off the nib on the end of the barrel, 

 

First of the 3 batches of the quads, oddly these were the hardest even though they just sit on a ready grooved bit of resin, Model master give you two spare barrels on these (and one of the other sets), I ended up loosing three, just pinged off into oblivion, luckily I have the other two sets and only need 11 not 12 guns so there is extra spare, I'm going to fit the others using low tack tape and tweezers to hopefully stop the rate of loss. Otherwise knowing my luck I'll end up with 1 mount with three barrels,  (the one of the far left wants a bit of touch up/might be the one in reserve), 

 

There's phot etch parts to add to both types of AA guns which want a pre-paint before fitting - at this point I ran into an issue, opened up the paint and its gone 'off' lumps and with a film that no amount of mixing/thinning is having any affect on, its like lumpy custard for some reason. I ordered a new tin off evil bay only to find its an early batch with a painted lid and so the colour is just plain different, given I need it for touch up and the aa guns I will have to head into to town to try and get one from Antics - hopefully they have a later batch with the stickered top ..... hopefully, 

 

 

Thanks

 

Sam

Edited July 28, 2021 by S-boat 55

[Faraway]

Sam.
I’m so glad you’re doing this build, I will be using it as a guide when I do mine. Although the more I read of yours, the more I’m thinking of delaying my attempt. 
Jon

[S-boat 55]

2 hours ago, Faraway said:

Sam.
I’m so glad you’re doing this build, I will be using it as a guide when I do mine. Although the more I read of yours, the more I’m thinking of delaying my attempt. 
Jon

Hi Jon, 

 

It honestly has been largely an easy build, i suspect the issues ive had have been largely down to my inexperience/kack handidness, I'm sure...and fully expect yours to come up a treat, when do you think you'll start her? 

[Faraway]

1 hour ago, S-boat 55 said:

Hi Jon, 

 

It honestly has been largely an easy build, i suspect the issues ive had have been largely down to my inexperience/kack handidness, I'm sure...and fully expect yours to come up a treat, when do you think you'll start her? 

Sam.

I have no idea when I'll start. There are others waiting in the stash, I honestly never know which I'll start next, until I sit down at my bench. I will take a couple of days break when I finish Jeremiah. Then decide.

Jon

[steve5]

just caught up with this buils , your doing some nice work . 

[S-boat 55]

Well well well, look what happened to appear in the post;

 

I must say they package it very well, 

 

Its not huge but i think its going to work a treat, feels like a quality bit of kit and got it direct from China for £30 or so, took six weeks but I saved £20,

 

Also already tired of tweezers that bend every time you use them so invested in these, you can see from the thickness difference that they should be a good improvement, 

 

So granted this isnt really a progress update but I was excited about my new 'toys' as the wife would call them, 

 

Thanks

 

Sam

 

[Faraway]

I’ve got one of those. Very good piece of kit.

Jon

[S-boat 55]

So small update, a second one coming today as well - well kind of

 

Did some work on her 'crown' which is one of her standout features, there are issues with how the 4 'pointy bits' are represented, they're technically supposed to be like an I Beam in section rather than an inverted U section but they look good to me and are surprisingly rigid for thin etch brass, the top tow range finders are still dry fit as there's a bit more to do to bring out the detail and i'll do that at the same time as the rest of that sort of thing

 

 

One of the things that im proudest of oddly is the small steps leading down into the bridge from the top of the s/structure, i did them ages ago bit i just find it very satisfying that you can just see them through the bridge windows,

 

 

Lastly I've been trying to sort the boats out, getting a decent colour is proving frustrating, they need toning right down as they are borderline florescent at the moment, if that doesn't work, I'll cheat and cover them, 

 

She's kind of hit a point where its a case of do something and wait for it to dry and do something and wait for it to set largely because i've tried to be clever and sequence things together and not quite hit the mark, so you may have noticed some potential tinkering with something behind her in one or two photos......I'll see if you can guess what it is, 

 

thanks

 

Sam

Edited August 13, 2021 by S-boat 55