1/350 HMCS Regina (Halifax Class Frigate) 2021

[Courageous]

2 hours ago, JohnWS said:

I’m really not too sure what I’m doing for the next part of this build

If it's any consolation John, I say that to myself every time I get to my Maru build. As for your boarding ladder(?), it looks as per photo, so that's a result in my book even if you're not sure what it is or how it works.

 

Stuart

[JohnWS]

48 minutes ago, Courageous said:

If it's any consolation John, I say that to myself every time I get to my Maru build. As for your boarding ladder(?), it looks as per photo, so that's a result in my book even if you're not sure what it is or how it works.

 

Stuart

 

1 hour ago, beefy66 said:

All starting to come together there John decks are starting to look busy.  

 

Stay Safe

beefy

Thanks guys!

 

Stuart, I guess I've always prided myself either having a good knowledge of what I'm modelling or having the opportunity to learn while modelling.  In this case, I was flying blind on the 'ladder'.  But like you said it looks the part & in the end that's really what counts in modelling.

 

Beefy, I'm almost finished the scratch building part of this build ... two more small parts to go.  Then, I'll be ready to start finish painting the ship's upper works & the bits & pieces prior to final assembly.  It'll be nice to see her come together.

 

John

[longshanks]

Certainly looks the part, I would say you've done a good job of interpretation /modelling and all this @ 1/350 

 

I think for your next model you should use a blindfold and wear boxing gloves 

 

Stay safe

 

Kev

[JohnWS]

1 hour ago, longshanks said:

Certainly looks the part, I would say you've done a good job of interpretation /modelling and all this @ 1/350 

 

I think for your next model you should use a blindfold and wear boxing gloves 

 

Stay safe

 

Kev

Thanks Kev!

 

Blindfold & boxing gloves, eh?   Sounds kind of kinky.  

[JohnWS]

One more milestone.  I've completed all the major scratch built parts & assemblies for this build.  

 

The last scratch built assemblies are two shipboard protection units called MASS - Multi Ammunition Soft-kill System. There are two of these units amidships on HMCS Regina, one on the starboard side & one on the port.  Manufactured by Rheinmetall, the MASS were added to the Halifax class frigates during their modernization refit.   The relatively small size of these units provided a challenge to scratch build at 1/350.  They will be good candidates for 3D printing in the future.

 

I made the MASS units using various thicknesses of Evergreen plastic sheet.  Here's some additional information about  MASS plus a photo of the scratch built assemblies;

 

 

And one more photo showing the location where the MASS units will be mounted on the model.

 

 

Next, I'll add a coat of primer to the two MASS.  After that, I need to start prepping the model & the scratch build parts for final paint.  Post WWII Canadian navy surface ships are painted a unique "Canada grey" semi-gloss colour (light grey with a green hue).  I found a mix recipe to make this colour, but I'm sure there will be some experimentation before I'll be ready to apply the final coat of paint to the model. 

 

Thanks again for looking.

 

Stay safe!

 

John

[Dmitriy1967]

I'll probably repeat myself, but every time I see the parts you made next to the ruler, I understand that such precision work is not for me. 

Great job!

Я, наверное, повторюсь, но каждый раз, когда я вижу сделанные вами детали рядом с линейкой, я понимаю, что такая точная работа не для меня .

Прекрасная работа!

[longshanks]

 

 

Kev

[beefy66]

👍  

 

Lost for words

 

 Stay Safe 

beefy 

[Courageous]

 

Stuart

[Silenoz]

Splendid work on these details...

[JonCanadian]

I'm an armour modeler but I stumbled onto this page because I have a kid on HMCS Montreal, a Halifax class frigate currently in the Med.  For those modelling this and other ships, you can often find interesting and useful photos on the ship's official Facebook page.  I've linked Montreal's below and if you check out the Dec 13 posting, you can get a pretty good idea of the true antifouling paint colour.  It's much brighter and bluer than reproduced in books. Happy modelling. 

 

https://www.facebook.com/HMCSMontreal/

[JohnWS]

Welcome aboard Jon.

 

Thanks for the Facebook link.  I've got the best reference photos for this build from each of the frigate's facebook pages.

 

And, thanks for your kid's service.

 

John 

[JohnWS]

Hello again!  It’s been a while since my last update.

 

I have been model building, but just not on a model ship.  While I’ve been prepping Regina for her final coat of paint, I went into scratch building withdrawal.   Then it hit me, why not scratch build the Regina’s helicopter.  Originally, I wanted to purchase, or make. a 3D printed model of the CH-148.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a 1/350 scale model of the Cyclone.   My Plan B was to design & print the model myself.  But, my current 3D modelling skills aren’t quite up to the task.  As a result, I turned to Plan C by building the helicopter old school from scratch.

 

The Canadian frigates were designed to carry the versatile CH-124 Sea King helicopter.  The Sea Kings served with the Canadian Armed Forces for 55 years until 2018.  Initially, the shipboard Sea Kings were flown by RCN pilots & crew.  After the Canadian Forces were unified in the mid 1960’s, all shipboard aircraft were crewed & maintained by Royal Canadian Air Force personnel.  RCAF personnel continue to fly & maintain the Canadian shipboard aircraft today.

 

The Sea Kings were replaced on the RCN frigates with the Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone helicopter.  The CH-148 Cyclone’s operational capability was initially approved in June, 2018.   Part of the RCN frigates’ modernization refit included modifying the shipboard hangers to accept the larger CH-148 aircraft.

 

The following is a summary of my CH-148 helicopter build.  (I’m posting it here, instead of the aircraft forum, as I consider this an integral part of my HMCS Regina build.)

 

Not knowing much about the CH-148 helicopter, my first step was to accumulate as much information and photographs about the helicopter as possible.  This included finding a 3-view line dimensional drawing of the ‘copter, as well as dimensional specifications & a lot (a very big lot) of photographs.

 

 

 

I decided to use the Trumpeter 1/350 scale EH-101 helicopter model kit as the basis for this build.

 

 

The EH-101 helicopter is larger than the CH-148, so I could only use bits & pieces from the Trumpeter kit.   These included the forward portion of the fuselage (sanded & filed down to size), 4 of the kit's 5 main rotor blades, the tail rotor, and 3 dual wheel nose landing gear (the Trumpeter kit includes 3 aircraft, each including one dual wheel nose gear & two larger main gear single wheels.  All three of the CH-148 landing gear have dual wheels, so I used the three nose gear dual wheels from the EH-101 kit.)  I made the balance of the required CH-148 parts from plastic sheet & rod, plus copper & brass wire … and lots of putty & sanding.  Needless to say, the small size of the model resulted in a number of challenges making the parts & details.

 

Here’s a photo of the finished assembly prior to paint.

 

 

And a photo of the helicopter after priming, & more puttying & sanding.

 

 

,,, and a photo of the helicopter model test fit on Regina’s flight deck.

 

 

Next up, I need to add windows & low vis markings, plus paint some of the details.   This will include making decals for the low vis markings.  They’re very small, so it’ll be interesting to see if my printer can handle them. 

 

Thanks for taking the time to follow along.

 

Stay safe!

 

John

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday John, that's very well done with the Cyclone. And not my decision but I agree that this is part of your naval build. But where ever it goes you've done a very good job of it. I take it you'll be going the entire air wing for a Nimitz class next? 😁     Regards, Jeff.

[longshanks]

There I was thinking you'd been building snowmen 

 

Lovely work John, don't go sharing it with those airheads 😉

 

Looking forward to the next episode

 

Stay safe

 

Kev

[Dancona]

Blimey John, that is absolutely superb !!!

[S-boat 55]

Very impressive remodeling of the helicopter,  I'd not have the patience or skill to do that,  well done,  

[beefy66]

 Amazing details there John just gob smacked at it.

 

Stay Safe

beefy

[Courageous]

Lovely bit work, she looks fantastic.

 

Stuart

[robgizlu]

Just what we've come to expect .........

Blooming marvellous 

Rob

[Chewbacca]

Only just caught up with this for the first time in 3/4 months.  The masterclass continues.  This is seriously impressive.

[JohnWS]

Thanks everyone for the Likes & supportive comments.

 

I've completed the scratch built Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone helicopter.  Fortunately, I was able to successfully design & print the tiny decals, as well as do some fiddly micro masking & painting on the helicopter fuselage & props. 

 

The fuselage was spray painted. The cockpit windscreen, the jet engine inlets, & tips of the propellers were masked & brush painted. Once the masking tape was applied, I sprayed the taped areas with matt clear lacquer to seal the tape edges, and to prevent the final coat of black paint from bleeding under the tape. The wheels, struts, and small details were brush painted, as well.  I made inkjet printed waterslide decals for the side windows & the low-vis fuselage markings.  Once the decals were applied & allowed to dry, I sprayed a thin coat of matt clear lacquer over the entire fuselage to seal the decals.

 

Here's a couple of photos of the end result.

 

 

 

As the helicopter will be on display on the flight deck of the Regina model, so I'm really happy that it turned out as well as it did.

 

Another photo showing the helicopter onboard the Regina model.

 

 

This was a fun detour from the ship build.  I learned a lot about the CH-148 helicopter (both good & bad) was able to practice painting  piddly parts before painting the Regina model.

 

So, now it's back to the Regina build.  Next up, painting the hull.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Stay safe!

 

John

[Courageous]

That's a smart looking helo .

 

Stuart

[longshanks]

Is there no end to this mans skills...............................No!

 

Stay safe

 

 

Kev

[Brad-M]

Very very nice work so far. I commissioned this ship, so I look forward to seeing her done.

 

Cheers