HMS Rodney Build Log - 1/200

[andyelbac]

10 hours ago, robgizlu said:

Andy - good work all round - you are too quick to beat yourself up.  Or too honest 

 

This might have been the other solution....

 

 

Keep it going - I think your PE work is tremendous

Rob

Thanks Rob, and nice work yourself! Thanks for the tip as well. Will go get some of Ebay.

[andyelbac]

I decided to hold off on rebuilding the star platform. I will rebuild it later in the week. I turned my attention to the superstructure. I drilled out all the scuttles:

Then I cast my eye over the Pontos instructions and settled on the Director Control Tower Platform. Here's the kit platform. The areas circled and arrowed need removing before I can fit the etched deck. The tubs hold what look like small range finders and the raised platforms (circled)....something!:

 Having removed the plastic I glued the etched deck down with CA, and made another mistake. The raised tubs each have a locating pin for the range finders. I failed to remove them. In fact I failed to notice them even as I glued the etch deck down. I'm having a run of bad decision making. More speed, less haste Andy. The question now was; how to remove the etched deck without ruining it? I made a cuppa and grabbed a choccy biscuit and sat back to contemplate my latest disaster. There's no problem that can't be solved with a nice cup of tea and a Chocolate Digestive! Want to crack cold fusion or ion drives? Put the kettle on and grab the biscuits. Having given it some thought, I dropped the whole platform in a bath of surgical spirit and waited for 30 minutes. Then I gently prised at the etched deck with a scalpel. To my great relief it came away without deforming. I played a hot flame gently over the etch to remove any CA residue, removed the offending plastic locating pins and then re-attached the etched deck:

 

 Nect up were two raised platforms which replace the kit platform circled in the photo earlier in this post. These sit on three small legs bent at 90 degs. You can see the etched platforms added at the top of the photo below, just above the gangway openings:

 The two railings around the gangway openings and the gangways themselves are shown below:

 The gangways will go in a bag marked with their part number and be added near the end of the build. That's enough excitement today. Time I think for another cuppa and a few more biscuits!

 

[andyelbac]

11 hours ago, andyelbac said:

I decided to hold off on rebuilding the star platform. I will rebuild it later in the week. I turned my attention to the superstructure. I drilled out all the scuttles:

Then I cast my eye over the Pontos instructions and settled on the Director Control Tower Platform. Here's the kit platform. The areas circled and arrowed need removing before I can fit the etched deck. The tubs hold what look like small range finders and the raised platforms (circled)....something!:

 Having removed the plastic I glued the etched deck down with CA, and made another mistake. The raised tubs each have a locating pin for the range finders. I failed to remove them. In fact I failed to notice them even as I glued the etch deck down. I'm having a run of bad decision making. More speed, less haste Andy. The question now was; how to remove the etched deck without ruining it? I made a cuppa and grabbed a choccy biscuit and sat back to contemplate my latest disaster. There's no problem that can't be solved with a nice cup of tea and a Chocolate Digestive! Want to crack cold fusion or ion drives? Put the kettle on and grab the biscuits. Having given it some thought, I dropped the whole platform in a bath of surgical spirit and waited for 30 minutes. Then I gently prised at the etched deck with a scalpel. To my great relief it came away without deforming. I played a hot flame gently over the etch to remove any CA residue, removed the offending plastic locating pins and then re-attached the etched deck:

 

 Nect up were two raised platforms which replace the kit platform circled in the photo earlier in this post. These sit on three small legs bent at 90 degs. You can see the etched platforms added at the top of the photo below, just above the gangway openings:

 The two railings around the gangway openings and the gangways themselves are shown below:

 The gangways will go in a bag marked with their part number and be added near the end of the build. That's enough excitement today. Time I think for another cuppa and a few more biscuits!

 

What I meant to say was 'more speed, less haste'. No wonder I'm making mistakes! 😁

Just now, andyelbac said:

What I meant to say was 'more speed, less haste'. No wonder I'm making mistakes! 😁

No! I meant 'more haste, less speed'. I'm losing it.

[robgizlu]

Sensational colours on that deck - sheer shame to paint it 

Rob

[andyelbac]

In my earlier post I said that the two tubs either side of the Director Control Tower Platform held small range finders. Actually, the small range finders sit on the raised etched platforms that you saw in an earlier photo (Pontos actually have you move these from their location on the kit deck). The two tubs hold Oerlikon's, although Trumpeter's instructions show an odd bit of kit that looks like it has four small seats placed around it? Anyway, moving on to additional work on the superstructure. Here you can see the etched blast screens that sit around what I think is the bridge, facing forward. You have to cut the equivalent plastic blast screen off the kit bridge. I built the etch screen first to ensure I was happy with it before taking the knife to the plastic:

There are still two support braces to add here, which I fitted after I glued the above to the face of the bridge. According to my Man O'War War 3, the initial firing of the main battery shattered the bridge windows, injuring some crew, hence the need to install the screens. Also added were a couple of etched pieces to the deck that sits sandwiched between the bridge and the Director Control Tower Platform. One of these looks like a raised platform for lookouts to stand on:

Also added to this platform were four brass and etched binoculars on mounts (Trumpeter have you add six to this platform):

 

 Pontos supply eight of these binoculars, so I presume there are others placed elsewhere somewhere in the instructions. In case you can't see them properly, here's how they look in the Pontos instructions:

 As always, they look really easy to do on the instructions; in reality they were fiddly and irritating to assemble. Whilst the instructions look like they utilise part of the kit plastic (the grey upright shown and binoculars themselves), these are in fact machined brass and etch supplied by Pontos. I doubt they will be particularly noticable once all the deck selections are glued together. The next photo shows etched clearview windows added to the front of the superstructure:

 Back to the blast screens. Here we have them fitted to the bridge area. The two missing support struts have been fitted:

 

 Here I have fitted an etched window frame and sliding door to the front of the platform that sits between the bridge and the Director Control Tower Platform:

 Below the bridge on the starboard side is this strange cutout. It's one of the few differences between Rodney and Nelson (Nelson didn't have this recess fitted). Trumpeter supply it as a curved recess where it should be angled as supplied by Pontos. The Pontos part is made of four etched pieces, including the watertight door. I've fitted a piece of glass from an old microscope slide behind the scuttle (I mentioned this in an earlier post). I will add a small ball of Blue-Tak to the glass before painting (it's a technique that has worked well for me before). I'm still debating whether to add an etched scuttle to the surround. Here is the Pontos recess fitted:

Talking of watertight doors; like the scuttles, Pontos provide a good quantity but never refer to them on their instructions. You can see here that they provide a selection of both closed and open doors. I'm never going to be cutting plastic openings to fit the open doors, so will likely be giving these away to whoever might find them useful at the end of the build:

 I also fitted the two Pontos supplied resin tubs that sit port and starboard on the main superstructure, including their etched support braces. Each one will eventually host an Oerlikon. Here we have the decks mounted, just not glued, giving a good impression of how it will look when completed (still with additional part to add of course):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Faraway]

Once again, you’ve raised the bar on PE.

Jon

[andyelbac]

19 hours ago, robgizlu said:

Sensational colours on that deck - sheer shame to paint it 

Rob

I agree. A miniature Jackson Pollock!

[andyelbac]

8 hours ago, Faraway said:

Once again, you’ve raised the bar on PE.

Jon

Thanks Jon. I might be lowering it again though when I attempt the crane!

[andyelbac]

Some work last night on rebuilding the star platform. My higgest concern was lining the two halves up accurately (you may recall from an earlier post that Pontos supply the platform as top and bottom that needs to be folded over to make a sandwich). Although I was going to use MIG Ultra to glue the support braces, I thought it best to stick with CA for the two halves. To ensure I had them lined up when I placed them together, I used the two locating holes as a guide and made a makeshift jig using a couple of drill bits and two 1" box sections of aluminium:

 It worked really well. I then proceeded to fix the support braces using the Ultra. Here it is with the braces added:

 Thee are a few etched pieces to be added to the other side before I try to re-atrach the resin mast cap and then fit the radar lantern and housing. The bent support brace in the photo above will be replaced. I'm likely to use some old etch 'sprue' as a substitute. Hopefully I can find something to the same width but won't be too anal if it's slightly over scale. I also noticed that when looking at the resin Oerlikon tubs fitted to the sides of the main superstructure tower (below), you could see straight through to the other side, giving the impression of a cavernous, empty space:

 It's not evident from this picture, but I thought I could knock up two backdrops, just to give the impression of there being some sort of corridor beyond. This is what I came up with:

 Not shown in this photo are a couple of pieces of small dia. polystyrene rod attached to the back wall to indicate piping, just to add a little extra detail. Here's how the backdrops will fit in. The little tab attached to them are to help me hold them in place whilst I glue them in. They don't need to be a perfect fit and I will obviously paint them in RN Grey before attaching them:

 

[TallBlondJohn]

The small rangefinders are probably air defence sights, or maybe searchlight sights (probably both). Beautiful work.

[andyelbac]

6 hours ago, TallBlondJohn said:

The small rangefinders are probably air defence sights, or maybe searchlight sights (probably both). Beautiful work.

Thanks Jon. I'm guessing they were removed prior to or during Rodney's 1942 refit; unless we know they were moved to elsewhere on the ship?

[Brandy]

She's looking rather good with all that extra pe detail, although I'm not sure I'd trust MIG Ultra, or any other glue, to hold pe together. Solder is the only certain method to ensure the separate parts don't end up that way again sometime in the future.

 

Ian

[andyelbac]

1 hour ago, Brandy said:

She's looking rather good with all that extra pe detail, although I'm not sure I'd trust MIG Ultra, or any other glue, to hold pe together. Solder is the only certain method to ensure the separate parts don't end up that way again sometime in the future.

 

Ian

Ian, I'm really hoping your wrong! I agree that soldering is the best way to go when assembling PE, but I just don't have the requisite skill level with solder to do the level of assembly the Pontos parts require. I'm betting on a combination of CA and Ultra bring just good enough.😎

[johndon]

7 minutes ago, andyelbac said:

Ian, I'm really hoping your wrong! I agree that soldering is the best way to go when assembling PE, but I just don't have the requisite skill level with solder to do the level of assembly the Pontos parts require. I'm betting on a combination of CA and Ultra bring just good enough.😎

 

I wouldn't worry too much as long as the PE parts are under no stress (which they typically are not on a static ship), the glue should be more than sufficient, I've got a couple of ships where I used dilute PVA to glue the railings on and they've never moved in 10 years...

[andyelbac]

First up, my current build time. With the hours last weekend and evening's this week, I've logged another 18.5 hours. PE is painfully slow! That brings me to 113 hours total. Now for some more progress. Here we have the underside of the platform that hosts the twin aft facing Pom Pom's. It sits on top of the Shelter Deck, at the rear. Pontos have you add this etched ring with what look like hand rails and then add six support braces:

Next up was to fit three support braces to the underside of the tub that sits at the end of the Shelter Deck, facing aft. This tub holds a Pom Pom Director. The hole is for the locating pin for the Director. Pontos provide this in brass and etch, and yes I did check that the brass stand would not clash with the centre bracing strut when it's fitted (this old dog does learn from some of his mistakes!):

Finally, more work on the Star Platform. Here I have added the brass 'mast' pin that sits underneath and fits into the top of the resin mast cap (not yet refitted). I've also added the Radar Lantern and associated railings including the wind director which you can see fixed to one of the pointy bits:

If you zoom in on the photo above and look at the railing around the top of the box structure that supports the lantern, you will see that there is a gap where the railing didn't meet up. I'm not sure what happened here. I couldn't find any decent close ups of the real thing and the Pontos instructions seemed to show the railing stuck around the outside of the lantern platform and not on top of the platform. Possibly, if I had added it to the top, reducing the diameter, it may have joined up. Oh well, I can live with the gap. I'm not sure if there would have been a ladder going up the outside or not. Possibly the walkway around the lantern was accessed from inside the lantern as there is a door in the support?

 

 

 

 You can see in this photo that I also managed to replace the bent support strut. I'm very happy with how that turned out. 🙂

[andyelbac]

A few more hours very early this morning. I'm suffering from an allergy at the moment and getting a good night's sleep is proving difficult. It doesn't take too long lying in bed staring at the ceiling before the decision to get up and do some more work on Rodney kicks in. Here I've started on the platform that sits pretty much on top of the Bridge superstructure, with just a mast and type 281 Antenna above it. I think it may be the later aircraft detector platform but as always, corrections welcome. To make sure you don't become complacent with their PE, Pontos have you assemble this structure completely from etch and brass from just 52 separate pieces! Have some of that! First up is the main platform base plate:

Let's get this bent to shape. I'm just using CA here. This probably would really benefit from soldering and at some point in the near future I really need to break open the soldering iron and practice on some scrap etch. I've been open about my poor soldering skills, but the solution is in my own hands. Practice, practice, practice. I recall an anecdote some years ago of a famous golfer (I forget who) at a big competition. He'd just hit a fantastic shot and a big mouth in the crowd shouted out 'lucky strike!'. The golfer retorted "Yeah, the more I practice the luckier I get". Anyway, back to the etch. Here I have formed the bends. It needs a little clean up to remove some excess CA but otherwise all good:

 Next up; the blast shield around the sides. As with the previous blast shield, I've left off the supporting braces that fit into the corner recesses until after the shield has been fitted. It proved to be easier ths way on the first shield and see no reason to change the process now. Here we have the front face of the shield taped down to prevent movement whilst I apply the support braces:

 This close up shows how I am using the edge of the metal rule as a backstop to ensure the support braces all line up evenly:

 A final shot showing all the braces added, with the exception of the four pieces that fit into the corner recesses. If you look closely you can see the guide grooves for where they fit:

 

[andyelbac]

On 08/06/2022 at 18:41, andyelbac said:

Some work last night on rebuilding the star platform. My higgest concern was lining the two halves up accurately (you may recall from an earlier post that Pontos supply the platform as top and bottom that needs to be folded over to make a sandwich). Although I was going to use MIG Ultra to glue the support braces, I thought it best to stick with CA for the two halves. To ensure I had them lined up when I placed them together, I used the two locating holes as a guide and made a makeshift jig using a couple of drill bits and two 1" box sections of aluminium:

 It worked really well. I then proceeded to fix the support braces using the Ultra. Here it is with the braces added:

 Thee are a few etched pieces to be added to the other side before I try to re-atrach the resin mast cap and then fit the radar lantern and housing. The bent support brace in the photo above will be replaced. I'm likely to use some old etch 'sprue' as a substitute. Hopefully I can find something to the same width but won't be too anal if it's slightly over scale. I also noticed that when looking at the resin Oerlikon tubs fitted to the sides of the main superstructure tower (below), you could see straight through to the other side, giving the impression of a cavernous, empty space:

 It's not evident from this picture, but I thought I could knock up two backdrops, just to give the impression of there being some sort of corridor beyond. This is what I came up with:

 Not shown in this photo are a couple of pieces of small dia. polystyrene rod attached to the back wall to indicate piping, just to add a little extra detail. Here's how the backdrops will fit in. The little tab attached to them are to help me hold them in place whilst I glue them in. They don't need to be a perfect fit and I will obviously paint them in RN Grey before attaching them:

 

A couple of corrections here. The resin tubs supplied by Pontos actually host Pom Pom Directors and not Oerlikon's and Trumpeter actually provide infills to sit behind the tubs, although looking at them, I think my solution will look better.

[andyelbac]

On 08/06/2022 at 18:41, andyelbac said:

Some work last night on rebuilding the star platform. My higgest concern was lining the two halves up accurately (you may recall from an earlier post that Pontos supply the platform as top and bottom that needs to be folded over to make a sandwich). Although I was going to use MIG Ultra to glue the support braces, I thought it best to stick with CA for the two halves. To ensure I had them lined up when I placed them together, I used the two locating holes as a guide and made a makeshift jig using a couple of drill bits and two 1" box sections of aluminium:

 It worked really well. I then proceeded to fix the support braces using the Ultra. Here it is with the braces added:

 Thee are a few etched pieces to be added to the other side before I try to re-atrach the resin mast cap and then fit the radar lantern and housing. The bent support brace in the photo above will be replaced. I'm likely to use some old etch 'sprue' as a substitute. Hopefully I can find something to the same width but won't be too anal if it's slightly over scale. I also noticed that when looking at the resin Oerlikon tubs fitted to the sides of the main superstructure tower (below), you could see straight through to the other side, giving the impression of a cavernous, empty space:

 It's not evident from this picture, but I thought I could knock up two backdrops, just to give the impression of there being some sort of corridor beyond. This is what I came up with:

 Not shown in this photo are a couple of pieces of small dia. polystyrene rod attached to the back wall to indicate piping, just to add a little extra detail. Here's how the backdrops will fit in. The little tab attached to them are to help me hold them in place whilst I glue them in. They don't need to be a perfect fit and I will obviously paint them in RN Grey before attaching them:

 

A couple of corrections here. The resin tubs supplied by Pontos actually host Pom Pom Directors and not Oerlikon's and Trumpeter actually provide infills to sit behind the tubs, although looking at them, I think my solution will look better.

[andyelbac]

Continuing on with the 52 piece etched platform: This proved to be quite challenging. The first issue was the blast shield. Assembly was quite straightforward. The issue came fitting it to the folded sides of the platform. Unless the fit is absolutely spit on, the shield was subject to pressure points which meant it kept pulling away from the platform side walls. This happened two or three times and every time I had to apply heat to the parts to remove the old CA. With all the handling the sides also came away from the platform base, requiring more heat to remove more CA. The result was a badly warped platform. I tried clamping it to a metal plate and heating, but it still refused to straighten out. I even tried to roll it out but to no avail. I was starting to consider having to revert to the kit part, which would have been a real disappointment, when my eye rested on the Pontos instructions and I realised that there was a separate plate that glued to the bottom of the platform. I took this piece, unannealed, and glued it to the bottom of the platform. Amazingly, it straightened out the warp in the platform; not perfectly, but perfect enough for my needs. This let me move on to fixing the support braces to the bottom of the platform. Here's a few photos of the platform. There are still some etch pieces to add but it's looking good:

 

 Whilst I was still in the PE mood, I also added a small antenna and support to the front of the superstructure:

 

[andyelbac]

Apologies for the gratuitous use of the word 'platform' in the above post.  There is absolutely no excuse for it!😁

[robgizlu]

We will be awarding points for writing style 

Your PE work is a joy to behold.

113 hours!!  It does make you think - I've thought of doing this but never been disciplioned enough.  Valuable evidence when you come to that conversation...."and how much have you spent?"

 

As to the lantern platform (sorry!), there's got to have been a ladder there.  There certainly were on most of the corvette lanterns (as well as I presume - internal access)

Rob

[andyelbac]

8 hours ago, robgizlu said:

We will be awarding points for writing style 

Your PE work is a joy to behold.

113 hours!!  It does make you think - I've thought of doing this but never been disciplioned enough.  Valuable evidence when you come to that conversation...."and how much have you spent?"

 

As to the lantern platform (sorry!), there's got to have been a ladder there.  There certainly were on most of the corvette lanterns (as well as I presume - internal access)

Rob

Thanks Rob, although I would rather earn points for my modelling proficiency! As to the lantern; I have spare ladders available. It's more a question of whether I can now fit one in between the lantern platform and the railing on the platform below so it looks possible to climb. 

[Bertie McBoatface]

Do you think the basic kit, without the PE would be worth the building?

 

I could never handle the PE and was just wondering...

[andyelbac]

1 hour ago, Bertie Psmith said:

Do you think the basic kit, without the PE would be worth the building?

 

I could never handle the PE and was just wondering...

I would say, if you really have a hankering for a 1/200 scale, then yes. Trumpeter provide a good few etch sprues as well. You could also invest in just the brass barrels to add that little more sharpness. A full etch kit is great, but I'm conscious that I still have to tackle the crane, catapult and masts. If I screw that up I might have areas that look really detailed and others that look, by comparison, a bit basic, which may make the model look a bit uneven. It's a real concern to be honest; not least the masts, because they are so delicate. It's a lot of money to invest and then feel as if it's been flushed down the toilet if it all goes wrong. I would add though that I'm not an expert on Rodney and have no idea if the Trumpeter kit is particularly accurate. 

[andyelbac]

More work completed on the superstructure and associated pieces.

Here is the platform that sits just below the HACS (High Altitude Control System) and has the Fore Mast running through the back. This was the platform that I managed to deform in my earlier post. Here's a few shots of it fixed to a small tower that sits on top of the superstructure:

 

 

 In this shot you can see how I haven't been able to straighten out the platform entirely. It will have to do:

 If you look closely, you can just see a side light (that's what Pontos call it) sitting at the end of each of the flying spurs. Next up were more blast screens around the main superstructure tower:

 

 I had a little problem here. Not all the support braces made contact with the face of the superstructure. I'm not sure if Pontos made a mistake numbering the parts or whether I failed to fit it exactly, causing a slight tolerance issue. My money is on me! You can see here how some braces fall a little short:

 However, I'm not too concerned as I don't think it will be particularly noticeable in the finished kit. In the photo below you can see where I have added Pontos etched window frames on the superstructure tower:

 Here's an idea, just a hint of an idea, of what the finished superstructure tower will look like:

 Still of course with many more parts still to add. Next up a few support braces to the underside of one of the tower platforms:

 Next up was a HACS; one of three I have to build. This first one sits in a tub on the platform that I managed to deform. First of all, here's a few photos of the Pontos instructions:

 

 The antenna array you can see below was relatively easy to do, although I had a few issues fitting it to the tub. The actual HACS itself (above) was a bit of a pig. No matter how many times I looked at the diagram above I just couldn't quite work out how it went together. Eventually I assembled it the way I thought it was meant to go (and extremely fiddly it was) but after, I realised I had made a mistake. I don't think it will be noticable, but something I can only correct on the next two. 

Anyway, a few photos to show the finished item. The HACS will be painted separately before I glue it into the tub:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The HACS by the way, was by all accounts absolutely useless and probably contributed to the deaths of many seamen. Finally, a few shots of the kit Shelter Deck. There are quite a few watertight doors that will need to be sanded off (a real pain) and replaced with etch. Trumpeter have some with moulded scuttles. I can't find any photos confirming if this is correct and as Pontos don't supply any etched doors with scuttles, I'm going to assume they are a figment of Trumpeter's imagination and replace them: