A sneaky pair - HMS Visby and HMS Härnösand

[Parrahs]

With the mail dragging its feet I felt like something quick to build while waiting, and luckily I had this in the stash.

 

 

 

I doubt I would have ever even thought about buying two if it was only one to the pack, but since it wasn't I didn't exactly get much choice. But now that I have them I may as well build both, one in everyday puttering about mode and the other one stripped down and buttoned up for stealth.

As for the specific ships K31 HMS Visby has a bit more potentially going on, so that'll be the "bells and whistles one", and for the sneaky one I'll go with K32 HMS Härnösand, large because that completes the pair that I happened to stumble on while out for a walk downtown back in '18.

 

[Torbjorn]

Hunting submarines in Nybroviken?

[Mjwomack]

You float my boat- look on it as returning the complement for the sneaky pun in the title😬.

Alarmingly small scale, but they look a decent enough size out of the box.

[Parrahs]

On 25/03/2021 at 17:46, Torbjorn said:

Hunting submarines in Nybroviken?

Nah, any such would just get bogged down with the concrete shoe brigade. This was apparently some "let's show people where the tax money went" event.

 

On 25/03/2021 at 19:53, Mjwomack said:

Alarmingly small scale, but they look a decent enough size out of the box.

Compensated for by them being some pretty small ships. Because that's how it works, I'm sure, probably...

I better not sneeze.

 

As for the kits a few bits of quite well cast resin (all of five per ships, plus one for the helo) and not a terrible lot of PE meant that everything went from unbuilt to ready for paint pretty much in one go.

 

 

Some railings, antennas and whatnot remain, but as there's just not way I'll get through masking the camo without knocking that stuff off it all gets to stay on the PE fret until the latter stages of the build.

Only real remarks about the parts is that the hulls wouldn't sit quite flat on the ground as they were, but a quick bit of wet sanding took care of that while releasing a distinct petrochemical smell from the resin. Maybe we can call that a home-brewed COVID check. Also the fit of the water jets to the hull was pretty dodgy, but you basically have to look from straight underneath to notice, and that's rarely the best side of a waterline model anyway so I think I can live with it. Then the manual suggested that the PE part that goes down the rear of the mast/tower and shows up again on the side should only really be half its current length, I simply guessed that the PE guy was more reliable than the instructions guy there. Probably experience/traumas form building Dragon kits showing through there... And as for the job itself I should probably just never put the camera all too close to the open gun barrel doors on the kit with the gun barrel out. Luckily those bits aren't just too tiny for me to get in place all that well, they're also too tiny for me to see just how poorly placed they are without some serious magnification to help.

 

...and having written that I just noticed in a photo that the doors actually go flush with the outside of the turret when open, which would make everything a lot easier to get in it's proper place. So there'll be some CA debonder and another disappointed glare at the instructions happening before primer.

[TonyW]

They look like they are from an episode of Captain Scarlett, an amazing looking pair.

Mind you, HMS Fearless looks modern and up to date to me. I must get out more.

[Parrahs]

On 28/03/2021 at 11:41, TonyW said:

They look like they are from an episode of Captain Scarlett

I guess the angular faceting would make things relatively easy for the prop makers.

 

Anyway, some paint happened.

 

Masking was at times rather fiddly...

but luckily I could just pull the entire pile of tape off and slap it onto the other ship as a single piece.

 

 

 

Main colours done. A bit much contrast between them, but that's rather easier to fix than the opposite.

[Parrahs]

Painting in the windows, slapping on the few decals, and a quick varnish coat to...

 

 

...right. Top one's been varnished, bottom hasn't. Let's not put Citadel spray can varnish on top of Mr Paint ever again.

 

Some quick repairs and a bit of Tamiya varnish later:

 

 

Then for a quick bit of weathering that also serves to tone down the contrast a notch (I may have overdone the weathering a bit, but let's call that future-proofing and hope the navy gets a bit relaxed with maintenance towards the end of their life), glue on the assorted bits of PE that weren't expected to survive painting on the model (the PE is really thin, quite soft, and often has negligible mating surfaces against the hull) and it's done.

 

 

 

The Kirishima gets to be the "model modern destroyer" for size here.

 

 

And the Bismarck for something on the large-ish side of surface combatants.

A pretty quick build (would have been a decent bit quicker of the painting instructions had been better and more in line with the real thing), which is good since the mail man has now gotten around to dropping off the kit I was waiting on.

[OutcastJoel]

Very lovely build of a pair of awesome looking ships