Tamiya 1/350 HMS King George V – Early 1942

[Adm Lord De Univers]

On 27/03/2022 at 20:20, PeterMachin said:

I have been working on this project for some time, so I am doing some catch-up here to get you up to speed

Thank god. Looking very, very impressive. I would also greatly benefit from a hull plating guide!

 

David

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

That’s looking excellent; yet more technical inspiration for painting Ark’s hull when I get there.  Love how you have toned down the deck, too.  Great stuff

[PeterMachin]

A couple of you @Boydie & @Adm Lord De Univers have asked for a quick guide about how I did the hull plating. It is not too difficult, just quite time consuming.

 

I used two methods. The first was using a micro chisel (Master Tools 09924) to replicate the overlapping plates, the second was to use a scribing tool (I just used a Tamiya p cutter) to highlight the other panel joints.

 

This is a basic diagram of the process for creating the overlapping plates, scraping away the plastic with a chisel to create raised panels and using Dymo embossing tape as a guide

 

 

This is a section view of the finished result

 

 

You first need to mark out where the plating needs to be, checking references. I have highlighted the areas I will scrape away to avoid any confusion. On a complex hull shape, I found it easiest to fix the hull to the base, and use a waterline marker to draw horizontal lines round the hull.

 

 

For vertical lines, I used an engineers square resting on the base and lined up with the hull

 

 

Once the panels were marked out, I applied the tape around the panels, one section at a time.

 

The tape can usually be reused a number of times before it loses its adhesion, though I still got through around three rolls in total. I didn’t use genuine Dymo tape, and instead bought some cheap stuff on Amazon, but it worked absolutely fine.

 

 

With the tape in place, you just start scraping. Holding the chisel at an angle as shown below, start in the corner and scrape along the length of the tape. To begin with, do a couple of light passes. Remove the tape from the length you have done and check how the depth is looking. Give it a couple more passes if needed, or move onto the next side. It is not an exact science and it just takes some time to get a feel for it. The key thing is to try and keep it consistent across the whole hull. One thing to remember is that if you do go too deep, you can always sand down the remaining plastic slightly to even it out. Also, maybe practice on something else first, though make sure the plastic has the same hardness as the kit.

 

 

 

Do the horizontal and vertical lines, then once the tape is removed you can use the chisel to carefully tidy up the corners.

 

 

Once all of the overlapping panels are done, I just completed the rest of the panel lines with the scribing tool, but again using the tape as a guide.

 

 

For the bottom of the hull I only used the scribing tool, as I didn’t have any references for this area. Also the interface between the sides and bottom of the hull was a challenge.

 

 

Then it is just a case of tidying up. I had some adhesive from the tape left which had to be removed and I gave it a light sand to smooth out any scratches. I also needed to fill in and re-scribe a couple of mistakes I made.

 

 

Please let me know if you have any other questions about this process, or anything else in the build.

 

Cheers

Peter

Edited April 8, 2022 by PeterMachin

[Rich75]

Thanks for sharing this guide for the plating, it's great to see how you did it and I like the way you make it sound quite straight forward 😀 way beyond my skills at the moment, can I ask if you could post a picture of what you did inside the funnels? I think they are one of the parts of the kit that let it down a bit and I would like to improve mine slightly if possible,  looking forward to seeing more progress looks great so far.....

[Adm Lord De Univers]

1 hour ago, Rich75 said:

I like the way you make it sound quite straight forward 😀 way beyond my skills

Ditto what Rich has said. On both counts. I think I'll have to build up to this approach, especially as I build in 1/700 - I was hoping it was a trick of the eye and some shading or something, not a level of skill (and dedication) beyond me.😀

 

Absolutely fascinating to see how you approached it though and definitely one of the best hull platings I've seen.

 

David

[Boydie]

Thanks for that, I'll be giving that a shot with my next ship model. 

[PeterMachin]

On 08/04/2022 at 22:58, Rich75 said:

Thanks for sharing this guide for the plating, it's great to see how you did it and I like the way you make it sound quite straight forward 😀 way beyond my skills at the moment, can I ask if you could post a picture of what you did inside the funnels? I think they are one of the parts of the kit that let it down a bit and I would like to improve mine slightly if possible,  looking forward to seeing more progress looks great so far.....

 

Hi Rich. I don't have any particularly good photos of what I did inside the funnels (they are now painted black, so it is impossible to take a photo), these are probably the best I have

 

 

 

However, I did just use the Pontos parts, and these are pictures from the instructions which are a bit clearer

 

http://pontosmodel.com/manual/35013f1-page4.pdf

 

The forward funnel has a grid arrangement inside which could easily be replicated this styrene sheet. The aft funnel has a walkway which would be a bit more difficult to replicate.

 

In the real funnels there are some smaller tubes which I replicated with Brass round and square tubes.

 

Cheers

Peter

[PeterMachin]

Let’s look at the last few major assemblies before we move onto painting and assembly.

 

First up, the main guns

 

There is not too much to say about these. I used a mixture of Pontos and Eduard parts. I used the Pontos barrels, but the PE was from Eduard. I just glued the barrels in place rather than using the complicated PE bracket from Pontos which is supposed to allow the individual barrels to move.

 

 

 

The secondary armament was similar, with Pontos barrels and PE. I did scratch build a few smaller details

 

 

 

I said earlier on that I wasn’t very happy with the Pontos cranes. The control part is too small and not particularly accurate.

 

 

I had a go at scratch building it

 

 

I used the main boom from Eduard and the jib? is from Pontos. Additional scratch built detail has been added for the various motors and cable reels

 

 

 

The anchors were from North Star, and the chains were from YX Model

 

 

 

Cheers

Peter

Edited July 25, 2022 by PeterMachin

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Peter, that's a great job of scratch building. Regards, Jeff.

[Rich75]

4 hours ago, PeterMachin said:

 

Hi Rich. I don't have any particularly good photos of what I did inside the funnels (they are now painted black, so it is impossible to take a photo), these are probably the best I have

 

 

 

However, I did just use the Pontos parts, and these are pictures from the instructions which are a bit clearer

 

http://pontosmodel.com/manual/35013f1-page4.pdf

 

The forward funnel has a grid arrangement inside which could easily be replicated this styrene sheet. The aft funnel has a walkway which would be a bit more difficult to replicate.

 

In the real funnels there are some smaller tubes which I replicated with Brass round and square tubes.

 

Cheers

Peter

Thanks for that, annoyingly the link doesn't seem to work, even their own website doesn't seem to be able to display the instructions for KGV but no matter, when i get to that I'll see what I can come up with, top work so far

[PeterMachin]

18 minutes ago, Rich75 said:

Thanks for that, annoyingly the link doesn't seem to work, even their own website doesn't seem to be able to display the instructions for KGV but no matter, when i get to that I'll see what I can come up with, top work so far

 

The instructions are available from links on this page:

http://www.hobbydecal.com/detail.cgi?number=35013f1

 

Hope that helps

[Rich75]

Thanks again👍

[RGL]

Fantastic work, particularly on the cranes as the Pontos instructions were horrible and you outdid them by miles! 

[PeterMachin]

This is the final part before you are up to date, the painting. I have been painting everything else in a similar way to the hull, base colour, post shading, wash and dry brush. Details have mostly been brush painted in acrylics or enamels, although I did use Molotow for the searchlight reflectors.

 

The forward Superstructure

 

 

 

The main guns with Pom-Poms

 

 

 

A couple of the secondary guns

 

 

Some of the deck details painted and installed, including the breakwater, vents, capstans etc

 

 

Making a start on the paravane chains

 

 

And with the anchors painted and installed

 

 

The aft Oerlikon arrangement, though missing the old aft UP launcher mount

 

 

The boat deck and aft funnel painted and installed

 

 

 

I am always looking to enhance parts where I can and I came across a company called Prop Shop (https://www.prop-shop.co.uk/index.php) which makes bronze and steel propellors for RC boats. The smallest propellors they make are 0.5 inch diameter, which are almost exactly the correct size for the KGV class, the full size being 14.5ft.

 

I had a chat with the owner Simon and he was able to reshape the boss of the standard scale props to add a pointier profile. The main issue I had was that the diameter of the boss was noticeably smaller that the propellors which came with the kit. This meant that they looked odd when installed. I tried to compensate for this by putting a chamfer on the prop shaft support, but it didn’t look great.

 

 

In the end I decided to completely rebuild that section, with new supports from brass tube and new struts from styrene sheet. Doing all this and trying to avoid damaging the paint too much was a challenge, but I think it looks fairly seamless.

 

 

The last thing to share are these little covers I built for the rear hatches.

 

 

Cheers

Peter

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Peter, you're doing a superb job with this. All the detail - too many to list here - is very impressive. Regards, Jeff.

[Bobs_Buckles]

Pure magic 🤩

 

Cheers,

Bob 

[PeterMachin]

It is a couple of months since my last post and I have not been doing much modelling. I lost some motivation for it and I have been distracted by other things

 

However in the last few days I have picked it back up again, so this is just a short update. I have started on the last few parts which need to be made

 

First off is the aft UP launcher shield which was repurposed into a Oerlikon mount (Thanks for the reminder @dickrd). This was included in PE in the Pontos set, but it did not include the supports or the cut-outs on the top which were added when it was repurposed. I decided to make it from styrene sheet, but used the base of the PE version to give it some texture

 

 

The other things I have managed to make a start on are the davits

At this time in her career, the KGV had 14 permanently mounted davits in two different sizes. There were four either side of the forward superstructure, two larger ones for handling of the 32’ life cutters, and two smaller ones for accommodation ladders. The larger ones were removed at some point before 1945, probably when the boat deck was moved.

 

 

On the aft deck, there were three of the smaller davits either side of Y turret

 

© IWM (A 4716)

 

The davits which came with the model were okay size wise, but they were extremely simple and there were only three of them included

 

 

I also have some PE ones from MK1 which seem to be quite accurate and detailed, but are obviously very flat and didn’t really look right

 

 

I decided to scratch build them. For the main arm I used 0.5mm brass tube. I put a slight taper on this by mounting it in my Dremel and using sanding sticks to sand it down. It was then curved round a larger tube and cut to size

 

 

The real ones are mounted on a simple bracket which allow them to be lowered when not in use.

 

© IWM (A 3708)

 

I used some 1x1mm brass U-channel to recreate this. I drilled a hole through the middle to accept a piece of wire which was used to hold all of the parts together

 

 

These are all the parts, plus a completed one. I used a 1/48 eyelet from @Bobs_Buckles, a shorter length of tube and some PE washers

 

 

I made a couple of deployed ones as well as the larger type, which basically the same, but just had some extra detail added using 0.7mm tube

 

 

 

 

Next I need to make the support stands for them

 

© IWM (A 3708)

 

I am going to attempt to make my own photo etch for these, so wish me luck

 

Cheers

Peter

Edited July 24, 2022 by PeterMachin

[Jerry L]

Peter, WOW: great work!

[johndon]

Superb work, it's coming to something when the Pontos set isn't detailed enough for you 😀

[Rich75]

On 20/06/2022 at 16:09, PeterMachin said:

First off is the aft UP launcher shield which was repurposed into a Oerlikon mount (Thanks for the reminder @Rich75).

Many thanks but I can't claim the credit I think it may have been @dickrd ! Great work though, I would like to implement some of your work onto mine, but i dont have the skills so i will just have to admire what you've done  here, top work ! can I ask if you painted the front superstructure as one piece or in sub assemblies, I have ADO sights and other pieces for my build and am pondering my painting process....

[PeterMachin]

13 hours ago, Rich75 said:

Many thanks but I can't claim the credit I think it may have been @dickrd ! Great work though, I would like to implement some of your work onto mine, but i dont have the skills so i will just have to admire what you've done  here, top work ! can I ask if you painted the front superstructure as one piece or in sub assemblies, I have ADO sights and other pieces for my build and am pondering my painting process....

Whoops, thanks for pointing that out, I have gone back and corrected the original. Also, thanks for the kind comments.

 

As for the front superstructure, I painted it broken down into a number of sub-assemblies. All of the smaller details were added before painting, only the primary and secondary directors, the stairs, and the Oerlikons were added after painting. The main breakdown was as follows:

 

Deck to Signal Platform - I separated the hangar from the rest of the superstructure to make painting and assembly easier.

 

 

The admirals bridge plus compass platform - I separated the compass platform from the rest of the upper bridge as the Pontos set is attached to both parts

 

 

The Upper Bridge

 

 

And this part which sits under the main gun director. This needed to be separate to allow the upper bridge to be removed

 

 

Painting it this way only left me with one unavoidable visible join, but I felt this was an acceptable compromise considering how difficult it would have been to paint those part if they were attached together

 

 

Let me know if you want any further details

 

Cheers

Peter

 

[Rich75]

Thanks for that, much appreciated that's sort of what I was thinking, as you said earlier on, the bridges are a bit light on details,  I may add some in along the way thanks for the inspiration!

[Bobs_Buckles]

It's amazing to see my weeeeeeeeee eyelets being used in this way.

Excellent work!

 

Cheers,

Bob 😍

[PeterMachin]

I haven't got an update this time, but I am looking for some help. I am now at the stage where all of the larger assemblies are completed, and I just have a few of the smaller details still to build and paint, however for some of these there is not much information available, at least not that I have found. I thought it would be easier to put some of these queries into a single post.

 

1. Does anybody have any clear photos or knowledge of the area on the aft side of the catapult deck? It looks like it was a storage area, and sometimes had one of the 32’ Cutters stored there. These are the best pictures I have found, but they don’t give a good overall view of the area.

 

 

© IWM (A 3632)

 

© IWM (A 3696)

 

© IWM (A 3658)

 

© IWM (A 3700)

 

2. Any ideas what this is, what it was used for, how many there would have been, what colour it was, etc?

 

© IWM (A 2871)

 

In this picture it looks like there might be two of them in the same area

 

 

3. What colours were the ships boats? The interior and upper structures look to be a mixture of varnished wood and white, I am guessing wood for high wear areas and white for low wear areas

 

© IWM (A 4993)

 

But I am not sure about the hulls. Are they grey, either the same grey as the ship or a lighter grey, or are they another colour? These pictures from Portsmouth Historic Dockyard Boathouse No 4 show a 45’ medium picket boat with a dark green hull and a 25’ fast motor boat with a red hull, but obviously those are modern restorations.

 

(https://www.modelboats.co.uk/news/article/portsmouth-historic-dockyard-boathouse-no-4/22776)

 

 

I hope somebody can shed some light on these queries

 

Thanks in advance

 

Cheers

Peter

[robgizlu]

Hi Peter - just read this thread through from start - what a pleasure!  Some superb modelling here

 

As to the object in the picture:

?  https://www.djparkins.com/product.php?productid=18194&cat=303&page=2

?  Target float

?  Hull painting pontoon

Not seen anything quite like it.

As to ships boats colours, Norman Ough depicts them in a variety of colours including the mother ship's hull colours, I believe the capatain's barge was painted dark blue hull - home waters and light blue Mediterranean

 

This is fabulous modelling - keep it coming

Rob