Tamiya 1/350 HMS King George V – Early 1942

[PeterMachin]

On 26/03/2022 at 00:39, Adm Lord De Univers said:

Jeez, that's looking mighty fine. I'm sure I'm not the only one who double-checked the scale here as that's some incredible detailing (and research work) work.

 

David

 

9 hours ago, Micha_Pol said:

A master build if I may say so. The amount of detail, and the cleanliness, is truly a sight to behold. Bravo!

 

8 hours ago, Billy400 said:

Wow, some serious photo etch work going on there! Looks amazing!

 

Thank you all again for the comments.

 

12 hours ago, S-boat 55 said:

Good golly gosh you work fast, and with an output that is looking brilliant,  

 

Unfortunately I am not doing this "live", I have been working on this project for some time, so I am doing some catch-up here to get you up to speed 😁

[PeterMachin]

8 hours ago, dickrd said:

Hmm. Re IWM A8536, if there had been an Oerlikon immediately aft of that hatch at the time that photo was taken then I think that despite the "people" we would still have seen its barrel pointing vertically upwards like the others and also bits of its curved safety firing rail:

 

 

Do we know when Rear Admiral Brind left KGV ie can we date A 8536 within April?  I see now that KGV was at Rosyth 3-5 April so that is another occasion when the extra tub could have been removed after the March 1942 USN aerial photos at Scapa.  

 

But I'm beginning to wonder now if the second of the March 1942 USN images I originally posted (80-G-464698, the angle you had not seen before) has misled me and there were only ever 6 Oerlikons on the quarterdeck:

 

 

 

Thank you for your help with this @dickrd. I though I had this area sorted out, but you made me realise I hadn't given it as much thought as I should have done, and pointed out that I had missed the UP launcher shield and sixth Oerlikon. I think one of the problems with trying to uncover events of 80 years ago using just some potentially inaccurate logs and some fuzzy pictures, is that there are some things which are just unknowable.

 

Unless some better pictures emerge which we can definitively date, I think we are just going to have to speculate. I think what you have said makes sense, that there were 18 Oerlikons added during the December 1941 refit, but one was removed at the beginning of April 1942. However, I don't really want to build another tub as it was a pain building those five, so I will just go with 6 Oerlikons on the quarterdeck including one in the UP launcher shielding, which I now need to build. I will also need to change this topic to April 1942...

[Rich75]

I was wondering about posting a picture without permissions......anyone know if that's ok?🤔

[foeth]

13 hours ago, PeterMachin said:

 

Also, the common consensus seems to be that there was a quad barrelled pom-pom on Y turret, and later pictures back this up. D

Images from January to May 1943 show a quad pompom on Y-turret, so no consensus is needed

 

Incidentally, what generic mesh did you use for the boiler room vents? I ran out of fine mesh and am looking for a decent brand...

[PeterMachin]

4 hours ago, foeth said:

Images from January to May 1943 show a quad pompom on Y-turret, so no consensus is needed

 

Incidentally, what generic mesh did you use for the boiler room vents? I ran out of fine mesh and am looking for a decent brand...

Yeah, I was just a bit confused by the note in the service history about it being eight barrelled, but presumably that is a mistake.

 

The mesh is from Flyhawk listed as 1/700 net, the one I used is 0.3 x 0.3 part number FH700054, but they do other sizes as well

[foeth]

Ah thanks, a bit finer than than what I was able to find (Voyager). Ordered directly in China, few shops seem to carry this brand.

[PeterMachin]

On 27/03/2022 at 22:12, Rich75 said:

I was wondering about posting a picture without permissions......anyone know if that's ok?🤔

What is the source of the image? Is it from a book or website?

[Rich75]

It's on their website under the instructions for the 1/700 PE, they have AA plans for all the ships but only for certain periods, it might be what you need, hope so anyway 

[Dave Swindell]

2 hours ago, Rich75 said:

It's on their website under the instructions for the 1/700 PE, they have AA plans for all the ships but only for certain periods, it might be what you need, hope so anyway 

If the image is on their website there shouldn't be any problem posting a link to it

[Rich75]

2 hours ago, Dave Swindell said:

If the image is on their website there shouldn't be any problem posting a link to it

OK no worries just wanted someone to confirm

 

[PeterMachin]

14 hours ago, Rich75 said:

OK no worries just wanted someone to confirm

 

Hi Rich. Thanks for posting this. This plan does match quite a few other plans I have seen, but does not seem to match photos from the period. Specifically the two outboard mountings on the foredeck do not seem to appear until later. Also, we were speculating about the arrangement of mountings on the quarterdeck and if there was an additional position forward of the forward two. 

[Rich75]

4 hours ago, PeterMachin said:

Hi Rich. Thanks for posting this. This plan does match quite a few other plans I have seen, but does not seem to match photos from the period. Specifically the two outboard mountings on the foredeck do not seem to appear until later. Also, we were speculating about the arrangement of mountings on the quarterdeck and if there was an additional position forward of the forward two. 

No worries just thought it may be of use, I've been following your research with interest as I've been looking for some more info while I progress with my build, it seems as though a definitive answer may be hard to come by! Loving the work btw

[PeterMachin]

Next up is the hull, the part which has by far caused me the most headaches.

 

The initial plan was to keep it simple. I filled in the existing portholes and drilled out new ones according to the locations in the Top Drawings plans. I added PE portholes from f-star models (FS351041). These are supposed to be IJN portholes, but as they don’t have any attachment points to the fret on them, they are significantly easier to use than other brands and I think they look fine.

 

 

 

 

I also installed the degaussing cable and scratch built some ladders.

 

 

I had eight of these to do, with 5 steps each, so I needed them to be as consistent as possible. I made a small jig which I could just tape in place, level with the top of the hull. I used a scriber to mark the positions of the holes before drilling them out with a 0.3mm drill bit. The steps themselves are just short lengths of 0.25mm wire.

 

 

Once the building on the hull was complete, I glued the hangar, catapult and rear secondary gun mounts in place so it would be easier to blend these into the hull. I added some scratch-built detail to the Pontos catapult, including rebuilding the ends.

 

 

I added a few more details including the rubbish chutes from the Pontos set. These are not mentioned in the instructions but are PE part 140. The whole thing was then given a coat of primer, which I believe was Mr Finishing Surfacer thinned with Mr Levelling Thinner.

 

 

I added some pre-shading

 

 

And the main colours, which were AK acrylics. RN Hull Red (AK5031) for the bottom, and a mixture of 507A (AK5033) and 507B (AK5034) for the top.

 

 

This was where things started to go a bit wrong. I know that a lot of people really enjoy the weathering stage of modelling, but I am not one of them. I tend to overthink it and then try to rush it as I get frustrated. Anyway, I did some lighter post-shading on the red, to give it a more faded look, I then used some AK013 rust streaks and AK304 brown streaking grime for red hulls. I thought the rust looked ok, but I wasn’t particularly happy with the red hull.

 

 

I then tried to replicate the salt staining around the water line, however I really wasn’t happy with how it was looking.

 

 

As the top of the hull didn’t look to bad, I masked over it and repainted the bottom, starting with a black base, and adding some white using splatter stencils

 

 

I still wasn’t happy with it, so in a final act of desperation, I started stripping off the paint. I got this far before I ran out of IPA.

 

 

At this point I was completely demotivated, and I put the whole lot in a box and forgot about it for the best part of a year…

[PeterMachin]

After building a couple of Tamiya 1/48 aircraft, I had got my mojo back sufficiently to take another crack at the ship. At this point the hull was in a pretty sorry state, so rather than trying to strip the remaining paint off, for the sake of my sanity, I found another kit on Ebay for a reasonable price and started the hull again with a blank slate.

 

Luckily I was able to detach the hangar and catapult from the old hull without doing too much damage. I stripped these and fixed what had been broken.

 

I did try to remove the degaussing cables from the old hull, but they didn’t come off particularly cleanly. I contacted Pontos though and they were able to send me a replacement PE fret.

 

For the new hull, I basically repeated what I had done on the first one. One thing I didn’t mention in the previous post is that I opened up the hawsepipes and replaced the hawse holes, which were far too small on the kit.

 

I started by filling the area inside the hull with Tamiya epoxy putty. While this was still soft, I pushed the deck into place to mould the putty to the correct shape and then removed it again to allow the putty to dry. I believe I used cling film to stop the putty from sticking to the deck. Once the deck was installed permanently, drilling upwards, I made a pilot hole. Once I was happy it was in the correct place, I gradually increased the drill size until I got to the required diameter, roughly 2.2mm.

 

For the hawse holes, I used a length of sprue, which was roughly the correct diameter and drilled a 2.2mm hole through the centre. I cut some slices off at an angle and glued these in place, using a drill bit through the hawsepipe to line them up. It was then just a case of sanding them to the correct shape and smoothing them with Tamiya extra thin. I also used sprue goo inside to blend it with the hawsepipe. Here, the one on the left is finished, the one on the right still needs to be sanded down.

 

 

You can also see here that I started on the degaussing cable, but using styrene sheet for the flat sections, rather than PE.

 

I did have some issues attaching the PE the first-time round, so I wanted to do as much as possible with styrene as I find it much easier to work with. The other problem I discovered is that the Pontos set is not completely accurate, particularly above the armour belt.

These are the Pontos instructions

 

 

And the parts

 

 

They supply double cables with evenly spaced “junction boxes” along the entire length.

 

The below picture is looking along the port side of the ship, from the aft end of the armour belt. The blue arrows point to double cables, the green to single cables, and the red arrows to the junction boxes, or whatever they are. As you can see, at the aft there are two short lengths of double cable, with junction boxes, then it switches to a single cable, with one more box, then there are no more boxes for the majority of the remaining length of the armour belt.

 

© IWM A 4716

 

The above picture is the most detailed I have seen for the armour belt. For the remainder of it I referred to the well-researched 3D model by PR Dobson (http://www.prdobson.com/). He posted these side profile pictures on another site and I hope it is ok to re-post them here.

 

 

 

I also used these profiles to give me the correct placement of the portholes, as I believe them to be more accurate than the Top Drawings plans

 

I think that one of the main issues I had with the hull the first time round, was that it was a smooth, monolithic surface, so any weathering had to be done with paint effects. I started thinking about how I could create some sort of surface texture. I came across the pictures of the launch of POW on @foeth site (https://ontheslipway.com/the-launch-of-hms-prince-of-wales/) and noticed the quite distinctive overlapping panelling visible on the bow. I decided to try and recreate it. 

 

I started by mounting the hull to the base and drawing evenly spaced horizontal lines using a homemade waterline marker. Then using Dymo tape as a guide, I started scraping away with a Master Tools micro chisel.

 

 

 

Over the course of a few weeks, I completed the horizontal panelling on the sides before moving onto the vertical panel lines and the bottom of the hull, which I did with a normal panel line scriber.

 

 

 

 

I gave the hull a coat of primer to check for any issues, which I subsequently fixed.

 

I then added the PE part of the degaussing cable

 

 

 

And scratch built a more accurate fairlead arrangement for the bow

 

 

And then added everything else, ready for painting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before gluing it in place, I opened up the hatches on the quarterdeck and installed stairs and a short length of corridor inside, although that is barely visible now.

 

 

Cheers

 

Peter

[dickrd]

Just checking: you are going to paint that bottom grey (not red) this time I hope! 

[Whitewolf]

To say this build is exemplary is an understatement. Never have I seen such attention to detail one one of these kits!!

[PeterMachin]

4 hours ago, dickrd said:

Just checking: you are going to paint that bottom grey (not red) this time I hope! 

Yes, luckily I became aware Richard Dennis's research just before I started painting 

 

3 hours ago, Whitewolf said:

To say this build is exemplary is an understatement. Never have I seen such attention to detail one one of these kits!!

Thanks for the kind comments

 

[dickrd]

2 hours ago, PeterMachin said:

Yes, luckily I became aware Richard Dennis's research just before I started painting 

 

 

 

I am that Richard Dennis!

[PeterMachin]

24 minutes ago, dickrd said:

 

I am that Richard Dennis!

Of course, I should have been able to guess that 🙂 Thank you for your research into this. I will try and post the next part later this evening with my attempt at the colour scheme. I have not seen anybody else try the grey on grey paint scheme, so I was just going from @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies 's profiles.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Peter, thanks to these gentlemen I was given the heads up on camo scheme in time for my model of HMS Hood as at May 1941. It is a much simpler model than yours, an Airfix model in 1/600 scale but I did the hull in two greys. They may not be the correct shades of grey (I'm using up paint I have in stock) but it might give you an idea of what the model could look like if you wish.

 

As this is your thread and not mine please feel free to delete this if you wish. HTH. Regards, Jeff.

[dickrd]

Just to highlight that the shade of the grey anti fouling (AF) compositions for ships’ bottoms of the different manufacturers was almost certainly different.

 

Hood had Peacock & Buchan’s AF and from the very few photos available their product seems to have had quite a dark tone, probably slightly darker than Home Fleet Grey (HFG). KGV had Moravia and the tone of their grey AF appears to have been slightly lighter than HFG.  Jamie @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies has faithfully tried to show this in the illustrations on the Sovereign Hobbies website and has suggestions for possible model paints to use to replicate them.

 

In time I hope to be able to form an opinion re the other manufacturers' greys.

 

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by dickrd

[Boydie]

That's really good so far! I'm really impressed with your hull plating. Any chance you could go into more detail in how you done it please?

[PeterMachin]

10 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Peter, thanks to these gentlemen I was given the heads up on camo scheme in time for my model of HMS Hood as at May 1941. It is a much simpler model than yours, an Airfix model in 1/600 scale but I did the hull in two greys. They may not be the correct shades of grey (I'm using up paint I have in stock) but it might give you an idea of what the model could look like if you wish.

 

As this is your thread and not mine please feel free to delete this if you wish. HTH. Regards, Jeff.

 

Thanks for posting this. It is a really nice model with some great scratch building. Your choice of colours actually looks very similar to mine

[PeterMachin]

Onto the painting of the hull.

 

Thanks to the research done by @dickrd, we now know, or can be pretty certain, that the KGV had grey antifouling paint throughout her wartime career. This is as opposed to the red lower hull colour that she has typically been depicted with.

 

The new paint scheme requires 507A above the waterline and Moravia anti-fouling grey below the waterline, with the steel decks in a darker grey.

 

@Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies has produced some updated profiles of the ship with this new colour scheme which are on his website (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0730/0927/files/HMS_King_George_V_d30f2632-6959-4556-a404-df33fd36fcb0.pdf?v=1626514863).

 

Over the last couple of years, I have switched from acrylic to lacquer paints as I find them much easier to apply and much tougher, which makes handling easier. I did consider using Colourcoats as they seem to be the most accurate colour wise, however I have had some issues with enamels in the past and didn’t fancy switching from my tried and tested MRPs for this model.

 

After testing various colours I have in my collection, I decided to use MRP-115 RAF Ocean Grey as a substitute for 507A, and MRP-039 Haze Grey as a substitute for the Moravia Antifouling. These seemed to be a pretty close match to the profile colours, and after weathering they would be significantly different anyway. Now that the painting is done, the Haze Grey seems a little too light and a little too blue compared to Jamie’s profiles, but I am not going to change it now.

 

First I put down Mr Finishing Surfacer 1500 Grey as a primer, thinned with MLT. I then used a slightly lightened black MRP as a base colour. I masked off the boot topping and sprayed the other two colours.

 

 

In terms of weathering, I wanted to keep it quite light as she had only recently completed a major refit and reference pictures don’t show much wear and tear at all, particularly above the waterline. The following pictures show her after the collision with HMS Punjabi. They show a reasonable amount of scraping of the antifouling. Some of this may be from the collision, but pictures of other ships show similar patterns of wear (https://imodeler.com/2017/09/ship-weathering-inspiration/).

 

© IWM (A 9951)

 

© IWM (A 9950)

 

I tried to replicate this wear by very lightly running a fine grit sanding stick along the hull from front to back, being careful to remove as little of the top coat as possible to allow the dark grey base to show through. I then used the light Flory wash to simulate some salt deposits but removed most of it with a fairly wet cloth, leaving only a little behind. I had also applied the dry transfers for the depth markers which I attacked with a sander to give a worn look below the waterline.

 

 

Next, I had my second attempt at salt staining. This time using white oil paint, removed with a nearly dry brush. I am much happier with it this time as it is a bit less uniform and quite translucent. To finish off this area, I sprayed a very light and random coat of heavily thinned XF-71 along the boot line to replicate algae growth. It is pretty much impossible to see, but does give a slight green tinge to this area.

 

 

Once the lower hull had been complete, I weathered the upper hull. I kept it simple with just a little post shading with a slightly lighter mix of the grey, then a light oil wash of dark grey, and then finished with some dry-brushing.

 

 

 

At this point I was calling the hull pretty much done, so I glued in place the hangar and secondary gun mounts and finally applied the deck.

 

The hangar and gun mounts were given the same treatment as the upper hull, with the same weathering applied. The steel decks were painted with XF-24 thinned with MLT.

 

The wooden deck was first sealed with lacquer matt varnish (MRP-127). I then gave it a very light dusting of thinned light grey acrylic to tone down the bright wood colour, then I sprayed a slightly darker colour in a few key areas to simulate dirt and shadow. As you can see in the pictures below, this was in places such as around the Oerlikons, around the catapult and under the breakwaters. I also generally made the front of the ship a little darker than the rear as this would get the most wear and tear. Most of this weathering was actually completed before the deck was installed, with just a few bits done afterwards.

 

 

The final bit of weathering on the hull was some rust around the hawsepipes and on the paravane foot.

 

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Peter

[PeterMachin]

2 hours ago, Boydie said:

That's really good so far! I'm really impressed with your hull plating. Any chance you could go into more detail in how you done it please?

 

Thanks. I will try and put together a quick step-by-step guide over the weekend.

Edited April 1, 2022 by PeterMachin