Blitzenboat

[Angus Tura]

Ahoy there me shivering mateys. Like Valkyrie...I can't wait.

 

Looking for a 1/72 Chaffee for the Vietnam GB took me to OKB Grigorov's website where I found this ideal blitzbuild candidate:

 

 

It's a 1/700 model of an experimental stealth ship and, yes! There's only one part!

 

I found this very helpful reference: www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/history/sea-shadow.html 

According to this there should be a funnel underneath the boat and the middle of the three hatches on the top should be a vent and not a hatch. So, there is a tiny bit of construction to do in spite of the fact that there's only one part. The windows are etched into the front end and are very overscale. So, I was going to do something with that.

 

Really, I want to do this to try a seascape. So, these are the other "parts":

 

 

The book is David Griffith's "Ship Dioramas". He makes beautiful seascapes with a bit of plywood, heavy watercolour paper, acrylic modelling paste and acrylic gloss gel. The good doctor says one should paint the sea with very cheap poster paints but I think I'll spray it with lacquers to be sure it'll dry fast enough for blitzbuild purposes. It will only be about 7cm square. The only problem I see is that the modelling gel takes a day to dry. So, I'll do that right at the beginning of the build and hopefully it'll work out OK.

 

I'm going to practise some wave-making and will see you Saturday with a wholly misplaced sense of optimism and a braid in my hair.

 

Alan

[Valkyrie]

Blitzenboat....great title, It sounds like something Kriegsmarine 46 ....

Good entry 

[Hockeyboy76]

This could be a first in BlitzBuild history!!! A kit with only one part , hope you have enough glue. 

 

Good luck with the sea scape. 

[Angus Tura]

Good morning. Merry Christmas.

 

Woke up with the cold: runny nose; sore throat.

 

 

 

No cough, loss of taste or fever, before you ask.

 

I've been practising making the sea:

 

 

The colour is a bit dicey but this works well. This is acrylic modelling paste, followed by acrylic blue and finished with acrylic gloss gel. The paste dries pretty quickly, in fact, especially with a bit of central heating help. I have used some old acrylic paints and they dry very quickly also.

 

As there's only one part, I thought removing it from the mold block would be a bit previous:

 

 

As you can see its a bit flared out towards the waterline but should have completely straight sides, I think. So, the first job is going to be cleaning it up and then flattening out the sides.

 

See you after breakfast.

 

Alan

[Angus Tura]

So, breakfast: tomato juice and decongestant.

 

 

followed by pot of Lavazza Italiano Classico Espresso with Manchestero Classico Duerr's marmalade toast.

 

 

and a starting pic:

 

 

The Lockheed website reference is in the background. You can just about see that I dropped the boat, before fortification with marmalade, obviously, and cracked the port rear. So, first job is now, "repair boat"!

 

Alan

[Dave Swindell]

2 hours ago, Angus Tura said:

 

Commiserations on the festive flu and requirement for the illustrated remedy

Excellent choice of drinking vessel though, having worked in the dock where it was built (ship, not mug!) it gains my full seal of approval.

The modelling vessel however, one piece in a blitzbuild? that's cheating!

[Angus Tura]

1 hour ago, Dave Swindell said:

The modelling vessel however, one piece in a blitzbuild? that's cheating!

 

There may be something in what you say but I have put it to the committee and no gain sayers so far...other than you, obviously.

 

The first job stayed the first job because each time I stuck the chip off the port rear (stern?) back on, it kept breaking off. So I fixed up the flare in the sides. Here is a mug of boiling water, small mug of cold water with pipette, and coaster. Ship being held in near-boiling water for some extreme-modelling thrills.

 

 

Here is the boat being held down on the coaster and cold water applied,

 

 

and here's the, now, flat side of the boat:

 

 

I was pretty chuffed with that but less chuffed to find that I had lost the chipped off bit! So, that has been reformed with tape,

 

 

Thick superglue and Zip-kicker,

 

 

and a great deal of very tedious carving and sanding:

 

 

I'm pretty happy with this too, but would you look at the time for crying out loud?

 

 

"I am not afraid of storms, for I'm learning to sail my ship": Aeschylus c.500 b.c. (Google: "ridiculous nautical sayings.")

 

Alan

 

 

[Angus Tura]

The next bit I actually did at ~10 this morning.

 

 

This is the watercolour paper sticking to the base which has a very thin layer of 5" epoxy on it, and all weighed down with acrylic paint.

 

After a few hours I've cut the paper back to the base edge,

 

 

I'm quite impressed with this technique. The sea is quite ripply already. Then a coat of the modelling paste to increase rippliness,

 

 

and then the boat clamped on and all left to dry. I've protected the boat with clingfilm and put it all on a radiator. The board warps a bit when its wet but is still gradually losing that as it dries out more. The paste only takes an hour or two to dry with a little heat. Maybe because its so thin.

 

 

Then more paste to make the wake. The wake is pretty forgiving. The contact between the boat and the water surface is tiny, presumably for stealth reasons, so there is very little wake. I've based it on the Lockheed website photo.

 

 

Now for some more boat fettling. I couldn't really say building with only one part.

 

Alan

[JeroenS]

What you're actually building is a small diorama, so why not call it building. 

 

And, we're all learning something about water colour paper and acrylic paste, might come in handy some day.

[Angus Tura]

Thanks Jeroen. If only everyone was as reasonable as you and filled with good will to all men at Christmas (Dave!)

 

So, a bit of boat building, after tea:

 

 

Mrs.Tura's turkey bonne femme. 

 

 

Here's the exhaust...really makes it come alive! I've seen one picture which makes it clear that the exhaust is on the port side of the midline, but I don't know how far back it should be. As it will never be seen again, I don't suppose it much matters.

 

 

 

These are the windows filled and sanded smooth. They look untouched because I've used superglue and zip-kicker.

 

 

This is the central vent carved off and the vent that should be there drilled and carved out. There seems to be some sort of divider/splitter in the vent in the Lockheed photos and hence the little brass rod.

 

 

Here is the boat primed (Tamiya fine grey), and the sea ready to paint.

 

 

and the same with the time of stopping. Sorry I didn't post this earlier. I thought I had.

 

Mañana,

 

Alan

[Valkyrie]

Waffles with a Christmas dinner, what a great idea. Good build too

[AdrianMF]

Nice to see a diorama, and I think what with superglue repairs and straightening bits in boiling water, you’ve paid your construction dues! I’ve only used crumpled silver foil for sea effects before so it will be interesting to see how the acrylic gel turns out.

But now I’ve got “Birds Eye potato waffles” playing in my head!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Angus Tura]

Adrian and Herr Walküre, I know what you mean. My daughter's idea. I think you'll find that they're waffly versatile.

 

Bit of a lie in this morning:

 

 

So, I think that means I still only have till 9 p.m.

 

The usual pharmaclogically boosted brekkers.

 

 

Is phenylephrine performance enhancing in re blitz building? Should we start random testing? What blood-Lavazza concentration is legal? I think we should be told.

 

Angus: not bitter, but outraged. 

Edited December 28, 2020 by Angus Tura
grammar

[Angus Tura]

I am a big fan of Gunze Mr.Color paint, but I'm not sure why I persist with their gloss white. It's awful. After an hour of grief I've painted this white patch on the boat side to be the background for a nameplate decal.

 

 

Agony!

 

Alan

[Dave Swindell]

1 hour ago, Angus Tura said:

Is phenylephrine performance enhancing in re blitz building?

Use of performance enhancing drugs in blitzbuilds isn't to be sneezed at!

The only doping permitted is various permutations of nitrocellulose, cellulose acetate and cellulose acetate butrate, which may if desired be used to cut talcum powder (other white powders are available but should under no circumstances be used!)

[Angus Tura]

Sorry about the lack of updates. I was having some problem last night with my e-mail such that I couldn't transfer photos.

 

Here's a mask a bit smaller than a name plate decal I've made.

 

 

and here is some real food at last.

 

 

I do love a pot noodle but who can resist this branding? Note cow about to be submerged in a noodle-tsunmani, after Hokusai. The noodles are made in Hungary!

 

Here's the boat sprayed Mr.Colour C.333 EDSG, and masked to spray a fractionally lighter edge it seems to have had.

 

  

I had planned to spray it gunship grey C301 but couldn't find any. The EDSG is pretty good for my main reference photo. I've seen some photos where the boat looks completely black but scale-effect and all that.

 

Here's the sea painted with reference to my main picture:

 

 

Dr.Griffiths suggests painting along the sides of the ship paler and greener where the water is more agitated. Because of the weird shape of the hull of the Sea Shadow, I think, the water looks darker by the sides of the boat than elsewhere. So, I've tried to paint it like that. I'm not sure this works awfully well.

 

Here are the boat basically painted and the sea with a layer of the acrylic gloss gel.

 

 

The gel does look rather brilliantly wet! It goes on whitish and translucent and then dries clear but it takes a little while for it to clear even after it's touch-dry. So, the colour here has darkened down subsequently. The boat edges are Mr.Color C.331 Dark Sea Grey. I managed to get a bit of overspray between masks on the stern. So, that's been resprayed EDSG which was a bit of a waste of time.

 

Here is the boat with decalled windows and finished on time,

 

 

The windows are cut from Fantasy Printshop black lines...but the homemade decals would not separate from the backing paper in time! 30" later they're on:

 

 

I hope I can be forgiven the 30". I did start late on day two, but that did mean there was more than 12 hours between 12 hour blocks.

 

The homemade decals are laser-printed "SEA SHADOW" in Arial Round Bold italic bold, 2 point, on a black background on Hannants clear film. They're a bit overscale but I did want them legible. They did eventually behave OK but they needed about 30" to come off the backing paper. They've been blobbed with Mr.Decal Softener here but it hasn't dried entirely.

 

The boat needs a bit of detail painting and some varnish, and the boat and sea need to be blended together with more acrylic gloss gel.  

 

Thanks very much for company, comments and looking. See you in April. I have enjoyed this a lot, and learnt a lot, and can definitely feel a Starlings Models HMS Porpoise coming on.

 

Alan.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2020 by Angus Tura
rushed job