HMS King George V - Tamiya 1/350

[Boydie]

 My first post here so I'll just go onto tell you this is my HMS King George V build with WEM photo etch along with other extras, but I'll show them off further into the build. 

 

So first off I started masking the hull to create hull plating/ armour as the Tamiya hull is rather bare of detail. It's not 100% accurate but I'm happy with the extra detail it will bring.

 

 

I used Halfords primer from a can and sprayed a few layers to build up the hull plates, sanded also to smooth the edges and reduce the chance of damaging the primer when I peel off the mask. Happy with the results. (Very satisfying that.)

 

 

 

 

Finally I added some photo etch, excess glue will be cleaned up. 

 

 

 

So that's it so far, I actually started a few months ago but in that time I bought my first house and spent a lot of time decorating it. But I thought I'd treat myself after all that hard work and restart her. Any advice welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Boydie

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Welcome Boydie. You're off to a nice start. I assume you're aiming for the late 1944 appearance?

[Boydie]

3 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Welcome Boydie. You're off to a nice start. I assume you're aiming for the late 1944 appearance?

 

Thanks for the welcome. Yeah that's correct, end of war anyway so I can do a bit of heavy weathering, from the pictures I've seen she looks pretty tired anyway.

[Planebuilder62]

Dear Boydie

Where did you get the brass bosses from the fix the hull to the base?
regards Toby

[Boydie]

6 hours ago, Planebuilder62 said:

Dear Boydie

Where did you get the brass bosses from the fix the hull to the base?
regards Toby

 

Hello Toby, I bought them on Amazon, the link is to the same ones I've bought, but they are currently unavailable.

 

1: 200/350 Model Ship Display Pedestals 35×20mm - Brass https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0882PMTKH/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_K034CFFY3GFWRYBA434G?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

 

But if you type in brass pedestal into eBay you'll find similar.

[Micha_Pol]

Nice start, the hull plating looks cool. Wish you all the best in this build, will be following it with interest.

[Boydie]

3 hours ago, Micha_Pol said:

Nice start, the hull plating looks cool. Wish you all the best in this build, will be following it with interest.

Thanks for the kind words, seen a few YouTubers build the hull plating with mask and primer at 1/700 so I thought I'd give it a go at 1/350. Happy with the results even though it's not 100% accurate to the real thing. I'll be working on the model these next few days so we'll see how far I get.

[Boydie]

After the Christmas madness I found some time in the aftermath to sit down and kicked on with the model. Today the aim was to finish the porthole caps and rigol photo etch. The both sets for the caps and rigol are for IJN ships but who's really gonna notice the difference when it's this tiny? The MK1 set is for RN watertight doors and hatches and seem to be perfect for the square hatches aft of the vessel.

 

 

 

I found this gorilla glue with a brush and nozzle today in Tesco and thought I'd give it a shot, turns out the wee brush is quite handy accurately applying the glue to where I need it to go and is less fiddly and time consuming than when I used to apply the glue with a copper wire.

 

 

 

Hull photo etch is done I think? I'll double check the White Ensign Model photo etch sheet tomorrow and look over some reference photos. I want it semi accurate to the eye anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

So that's it for today, had to add those porthole caps as they were added to the real thing after she was built, from what I know from lessons learned from the Prince of Wales sinking. I'll give glue a night to properly harden before I use my super glue remover to remove a few blobs and excess.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Boydie

[Ravens]

The last time I used superglue remover it melted the plastic that it came into contact with, but that was twenty years ago and perhaps modern products don't have that characteristic?

 

Regards,

Ross.

[Boydie]

5 hours ago, Ravens said:

The last time I used superglue remover it melted the plastic that it came into contact with, but that was twenty years ago and perhaps modern products don't have that characteristic?

 

Regards,

Ross.

 

I use a product called VMS glue remove, super glue debonder. They make some great products as it's all designed for modeling. This stuff is plastic friendly and after it's been applied to the affected area for 10 minutes you can remove the glue with a old brush or wipe it away with a cloth.

[Boydie]

A few small jobs done today, I'm not happy with a few bits of the hull plates, needed to be sanded down a touch to look in scale, must of missed this earlier. Used the debonder on some excess super glue on the hull. 

 

 

Dry fitted the deck and seems like they'll only be a small gap to be filled on the bow, which is a nice change. Thought about fitting the scaledeck I've bought but realized I've got a decision to make.

 

Finish off the plaque first, tighten down the hull to the brass pedestals then glue down the plastic deck then wooden deck. Then paint and weather the hull while it's on the plaque. Or paint the hull and weather the hull now then fit it to the plaque and then fitting the rest of the deck.

 

Would be interested in peoples opinions?

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Boydie

[S-boat 55]

43 minutes ago, Boydie said:

 

Would be interested in peoples opinions?

 

Personally I would paint the hull then fix to the pedestals, purely for access to the base of the hull, 

 

The other option could be to paint the antifouling, then fix to the pedestals, then mask off and do the rest in situ, that way you have access to the lower hull when you need it and can also resolve any joins between hull and deck pre painting those areas, 

 

Sam

Edited December 29, 2021 by S-boat 55

[robgizlu]

?Spray hull and finish deck before fixing to the pedestals ........

Either way I like the hull plating - more successful than my recent efforts

Rob

[Adm Lord De Univers]

 

1 hour ago, S-boat 55 said:

Personally I would paint the hull the fix to the pedestals, purely for access to the base of the hull, 

 

The other option could be to paint the antifouling, then fix to the pedestals, then mask off and do the rest in situ, that way you have access to the lower hull when you need it and can also resolve any joins between hull and deck pre painting those areas, 

 

Sam

I second Sam's suggestion (esp the second option, and as it gives you somewhere non-model to hold during the build), last thing you need is to be presented with a hull-deck gap after painting. Otherwise with a wood deck that nice, you'll probably have to religiously mask it and then pray to the masking gods you don't get any bleed.

 

Other option is to secure the inside of the hull nuts so that you can mount it afterwards (I.e. so the pedestal bolts are removable) and/or to mount it to a scrap piece of wood during the build.

 

David

[Boydie]

Cheers guys. I was leaning towards that way anyway, just wondering if I had missed another way of doing it. Looks like I'm gonna have to look out the airbrush.

[Boydie]

Does anyone know what the purpose of these objects on the hull I've highlighted are for? 

 

 

 

 

[beefy66]

They are what is known as Gash chutes for throwing rubbish over the side not very Eco friendly in those days.

 

Like what you are doing with this so far.  👍

 

Stay Safe and Best Wishes for 2022

 

beefy

[Boydie]

Just now, beefy66 said:

They are what is known as Gash chutes for throwing rubbish over the side not very Eco friendly in those days.

 

Like what you are doing with this so far.  👍

 

Stay Safe and Best Wishes for 2022

 

beefy

 

Thanks for the quick reply and happy new year.

[Faraway]

3 minutes ago, beefy66 said:

They are what is known as Gash chutes for throwing rubbish over the side not very Eco friendly in those days.

 

Like what you are doing with this so far.  👍

 

Stay Safe and Best Wishes for 2022

 

beefy

At least the fish got fed.

Happy New Year.

Jon

[Adm Lord De Univers]

2 hours ago, Faraway said:

At least the fish got fed.

Had a walk in the park earlier today, sign said: "Don't feed the ducks bread, it makes them ill and kills the fish." (apparently ducks prefer peas, but might be a London duck thing). Either way, doubt those fishies would be too keen on what a battleship is throwing over the sides...

 

David

 

Not quite the same ship, but I can recommend Ian Buxton and Johnston's 'Battleship Duke of York: an Anatomy' book, currently on sale on Amazon (thank you Santa for vouchers), although really more detail on the innards than outtards, but interesting nonetheless.

[Boydie]

46 minutes ago, Adm Lord De Univers said:

Had a walk in the park earlier today, sign said: "Don't feed the ducks bread, it makes them ill and kills the fish." (apparently ducks prefer peas, but might be a London duck thing). Either way, doubt those fishies would be too keen on what a battleship is throwing over the sides...

 

David

 

Not quite the same ship, but I can recommend Ian Buxton and Johnston's 'Battleship Duke of York: an Anatomy' book, currently on sale on Amazon (thank you Santa for vouchers), although really more detail on the innards than outtards, but interesting nonetheless.

 

Thanks for the recommendation, I've heard of the book but had forgotten about it. It's at a good price like you said. I've actually got a Pontos Duke of York detail up set for the Tamiya Prince of Wales kit to convert it over, it will be very handy for that too. 👌

[Rich75]

Like your work on the plating and scuttles top job, its really interesting to me as I'm about to start the same kit so I'll follow along if that's ok, I'd like to do the same with the scuttles/portholes but I dont know if I could manage it mind if I ask where you got the hatches and other bits to do them?

[Boydie]

On 03/01/2022 at 20:05, Rich75 said:

Like your work on the plating and scuttles top job, its really interesting to me as I'm about to start the same kit so I'll follow along if that's ok, I'd like to do the same with the scuttles/portholes but I dont know if I could manage it mind if I ask where you got the hatches and other bits to do them?

 

The plating was a new thing for me, I usually aim to build newer kits with nicer molds; better detail, thats me being lazy and not wanting to modify the kits too much. 😁 

 

But these Tamiya KGV's kits I've always wanted to build since I was a kid. I dunno how much detail I want to add to it just yet. But anything that is easily noticeable I aim to add it in. This kit I'm building is more a test run for another Tamiya KGV I've got but with the Duke of York Pontos upgrade set.

 

The plating is easy to do if you take your time and careful with the masking off. The plastic hull isn't 100% true to the real thing so I've masked up the plating to roughly how it should look, I've made sure that the lines looks natural to the ship and straight, I think I got that anyway. 

 

To build up the plating I've used a spray can primer from Halfords, I dunno if you're from the UK but it's primer for a car's plastic bodywork panels. It's actually quite good primer for models too. Since the hull is quite big the spray can makes it easier for me personally to apply even coats to the hull quickly compared to an airbrush. From what I remember I gave the hull five coats of primer, each coat getting a few hours to dry before the next was added. 

 

Before I peeled off the mask I lightly wet sanded the whole hull, this helps reduce damaging the armour plating when removing the masking tape.

 

As for the PE on the hull you'll find this easy too. Most of the PE for the hull such as the rigol and porthole caps only needs cut off cleanly and then applied to the model. A tiny dap of slow drying super glue and I lift the PE with a china pencil (a great tool to have, PE sticks to it nicely) onto the hull, then finish moving it about to the correct position with my hobby knife. The hatches only need one or two simple folds with a straight edge, so those are no bother at all.

 

These ones I haven't used yet are from White Ensign Models, I bought them recently from their website. 

 

 

 

 

These other brands I bought on eBay, from what I remember they came quite quickly from China and South Korea. You'll notice some of them say IJN, but for porthole caps and rigol does it really matter? 🤨

 

 

 

Anyway that's the wee collection I have for that sort of stuff. Looking forward to seeing you start your build. 👌

Edited January 5, 2022 by Boydie

[Boydie]

A wee bit of work done today, aim was to get the turrets assembled and ready for PE. 

 

First was to clean the cuts from the sprue and remove the molded ladders for PE ladders. Cut most of the plastic off with the knife and finished with some fine files.

 

 

 

Master barrels I bought from eBay a while ago, always use this brand for my armour barrels too, never had any problems. So I cut the plastic barrels off at the correct length, filed flat the cut and drilled a hole with a 1mm micro drill bit. 

 

 

 

 

After dry fitting the barrels to make sure they were all the same length, CA glue was applied and the barrels fitted, paying attention to making sure they would shoot straight and weren't squint.

 

Finally the details for range finder molds were removed with a file, ready for the PE when it arrives through the post.

 

 

 

That's it for today. Waiting on a few things to come so we'll see what I start next.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Boydie

[robgizlu]

Those metal barrels always make a huge difference.  Nice work

Rob