HMS Wren (D88) V & W Class Destroyer (Aircraft Guy Builds a Ship) +++ Finished +++

[stevehnz]

Happy Birthday Mark, nice going on Wren, will look forward to an unveiling of your pressie sometime.

Steve

[heloman1]

Just found your build Mark, whilst floundering in the shallow end! I'm not a ship modeller either but like to look at what is going on.

Looking good so far. Stop complaining about the bl**dy Wessex, remember, you still have another to build.

 

Colin

[steve5]

I'm like colin , just found your build mark  , nice job so far , happy birthday , and your wife sounds like a lovely girl too .

[Seahawk]

On 6/23/2022 at 12:00 AM, mark.au said:

My wife remembers almost everything I’ve ever said in our 35 years together.

They’re like that.  I think it would aid transparency if the marriage service were rejigged to include the police caution:: “anything you do say will be remembered and may be used in evidence against you at any point in the future”.  At least your partner remembers useful stuff too.

[mark.au]

On 6/25/2022 at 5:19 PM, Seahawk said:

 At least your partner remembers useful stuff too.

Indeed she does, actually she doesn’t forget anything I’m told.

 

On 6/25/2022 at 3:13 PM, steve5 said:

and your wife sounds like a lovely girl too 

She is, same as she was 35 years ago when we met.

 

On 6/23/2022 at 10:06 PM, stevehnz said:

will look forward to an unveiling of your pressie sometime.

…the total haul was impressive.  The Trumpeter 1/350 HMS Hood plus the Trumpeter Add on set with the gun barrels etc.  She went deeper though; having researched she added a wood deck and the Eduard PE set.  She’s a keeper.

 

On 6/23/2022 at 11:56 PM, heloman1 said:

Looking good so far. Stop complaining about the bl**dy Wessex, remember, you still have another to build.

Lol, yes I must stop complaining about the Wessex because it turned out really nice and I actually enjoyed For the most part.  I’m having trouble finding another kit though so the next one is some way off.

 

In addition to my birthday the last couple of weeks have been very busy; granddaughter’s first birthday, I became an Australian citizen, two work trips and a weekend away with friends in wine country.  Not much modelling. But I did manage some.

 

I made a real hash of the searchlight.  It looks better under paint but only if one doesn’t look too closely.  I finished its structure and also the small gun and it’s platform.  I am marginally happier with the PE rail on the small gun platform.

 

Next, painted and added these components to the deck.

 

I’ve begun work on the forward superstructure and a trial assembly just to see what it looks like.

 

 

So that’s where it’s at as of tonight.  We’re looking at another rainy weekend here in Canberra so some more progress is expected.  
 

Cheers.

[MagisterMan]

26 minutes ago, mark.au said:

So that’s where it’s at as of tonight.  We’re looking at another rainy weekend here in Canberra so some more progress is expected.  
 

Cheers.

That looks incredible! For what exact year are you building her?

[Rich75]

Coming along nicely, a good warm up for the Hood in fact,  I'll look forward to seeing it progress, should keep you busy for a bit 👍🏻

[mark.au]

13 hours ago, MagisterMan said:

That looks incredible! For what exact year are you building her?

Thank you.  I’m building it - not completely accurately - as she was in July 1940.  My main aim is a good representation rather than a replication.  
 

5 hours ago, Rich75 said:

Coming along nicely, a good warm up for the Hood in fact,  I'll look forward to seeing it progress, should keep you busy for a bit 👍🏻

 

Thanks.  The Hood will be a long term project that may be interrupted from time to time by 48th scale aircraft to maintain my eyesight sanity mojo.

[bigbadbadge]

Looks wonderful Mark, progressing well and quicker than I expected really too.  Crikey the PE must be fiddly on this.  

Do you have a plan for the portholes? 

Great work 

Chris 

[RGL]

Another Ken Berran! I’ve done a couple of the V&Ws too https://modelshipworld.com/gallery/image/25329-37a630b8-947e-45c9-9498-23918b5b305bjpeg/

Edited July 2, 2022 by RGL

[AliGauld]

Mam, that is tiny stuff.

Nicely done with it all though.

Looks great.

 

 

Cheers,

Alistair

[mark.au]

On 7/2/2022 at 5:45 PM, bigbadbadge said:

Looks wonderful Mark, progressing well and quicker than I expected really too.  Crikey the PE must be fiddly on this.  

Do you have a plan for the portholes? 

Great work 

Chris 

 

Thanks Chris.  What do you mean by a plan for the portholes?  Weathering?  If so, yes, but not too much.

 

22 hours ago, RGL said:

Another Ken Berran! I’ve done a couple of the V&Ws too https://modelshipworld.com/gallery/image/25329-37a630b8-947e-45c9-9498-23918b5b305bjpeg/

 

Yep, you can call me Ken.  I couldn't see the link, said I didn't have access.

 

19 hours ago, AliGauld said:

Mam, that is tiny stuff.

Nicely done with it all though.

Looks great.

 

Cheers Alistair.  Yes, the small stuff is small, some of it is too small and I've left it off.

 

As predicted, the weather was rubbish this weekend so I knuckled down and worked on the forward superstructure.  This entailed my first attempt at attaching some of the railing.  I started by carefully removing the PE from the fit in order to keep it straight and then attached the straight portion directly to the bridge wings(?) with CA glue.  I left it to properly cure and then very gently with tweezers and fingers bent it around to match the required shape.  When I had it just about right I applied some more CA to fix it in place.  

 

 

That wasn't so bad.  Next I had to tackle some ladders...

 

 

Also not so bad, maybe I can do this micro-PE stuff after all.

 

Next, after studying the photo below - my only real reference on what Wren might have looked like in 1940, albeit this photo is dated around 1937 and I have been told it underwent some changes prior to the starting - I needed to replicate the canvas covering on the railings I'd just installed.

 

 

I chose to use tissue paper applied with diluted PVA in the hopes that it would take on some of the shape of the railings as can be seen above.

 

 

Before painting it looked like it may have worked.  So I slapped some paint on it.

 

 

I was quite chuffed with how it turned out.  These pics are post a light clear gloss coat which I typically apply as I go to seal in the work done and provide some small protection to it for rough handling.

 

To complete the forward superstructure I needed to build the forward guns.  I used some brass barrels again, and assembled the minute parts for the breach before painting and a little dry brushing to try and pop some of those small details into vision.

 

 

With that done, I installed them both, and also the floatation rings having patient them white.  I'll tone the white down as part of the weathering process later...  

 

 

Lastly, I attached the lifeboat davits and painted them up, and installed the forward funnel.  So here's the state of play after a productive weekend's work, my first for a while.

 

 

 

 

Next will be the postponed painting of its ID marking "D88" and the couple of other markings on the hull.  I should have done them before now but always found something else to do first.  I'm not anticipating too much trouble, but handling the model with more and more of the delicate bits on the deck increases the opportunity for breakage.  Then, I'll work on the foredeck and the rear deck behind the gun.  There's actually an end in site.

 

Thanks for following along.  Cheers.

 

 

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

1 hour ago, mark.au said:

 I couldn't see the link, said I didn't have access.

Me too.

 

Great work there, Mark, beautifully detailed. Regards, Jeff.

[AliGauld]

Very, very nicely done with those railings and the ladder.

The canvas looks fantastic.

I'm suitably gobsmacked here.

 

Cheers,

Alistair

[hendie]

that is some impressive work with the PE Mark - it looks great in situ with the canvas in place.

[bigbadbadge]

2 hours ago, mark.au said:

Thanks Chris.  What do you mean by a plan for the portholes?  Weathering?  If so, yes, but not too much.

Looking fantastic with the railings done and covered too, the gun looks fab too.

 

Great work Mark.

Re the portholes I wondered if you were painting and adding a dab of gloss or if a wash would do the same at the end?

Chris

[beefy66]

This is looking very good so far.  👍

 

beefy

[RGL]

Just Google HMAS Vendetta by RGL, lots of references 

[robgizlu]

Loving the detail - what a great build

Rob

[mark.au]

On 7/3/2022 at 9:21 PM, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Me too.

 

Great work there, Mark, beautifully detailed. Regards, Jeff.

 

Thanks Jeff - the kit has a lot of detail included, not all of which I was skilled enough to use.

 

On 7/3/2022 at 9:33 PM, AliGauld said:

Very, very nicely done with those railings and the ladder.

The canvas looks fantastic.

I'm suitably gobsmacked here.

 

I'm hoping that a successful dress rehearsal on the bridge railing bodes well for the main railings to come.

 

On 7/3/2022 at 10:44 PM, hendie said:

that is some impressive work with the PE Mark - it looks great in situ with the canvas in place.

 

Thanks Allan, it was a bit of a shame to cover those railings with the canvas/tissue.

 

On 7/4/2022 at 3:24 AM, bigbadbadge said:

Looking fantastic with the railings done and covered too, the gun looks fab too.

 

Great work Mark.

Re the portholes I wondered if you were painting and adding a dab of gloss or if a wash would do the same at the end?

Chris

 

Ahh, I see.  No, I'm not going to do anything with the portholes along those lines, though I will add some staining on the hull that will include some of the portholes.  Actually, the portholes are so small that I bet you can't tell on which side I drilled them all out and on which I didn't.

 

On 7/4/2022 at 4:28 AM, beefy66 said:

This is looking very good so far.  👍

 

beefy

 

On 7/4/2022 at 9:57 PM, robgizlu said:

Loving the detail - what a great build

Rob

 

Thanks gents, much appreciated.

 

More progress, but at this late stage of the build the process is not very easy to spot - aside from the obvious, that is...

 

 

 

Working from the stern forwards I completed all the little bits and pieces on the stern and painted them.  Next, I added an extension to the rear mast; compare the image below to how the mast was in  the previous update.  It's not totally accurate as that would have meant disassembling what I'd already done and I was quite sure it wouldn't have survived the procedure.  Nonetheless, it's not bad...

 

 

I added the pennant number "I88".  HMS Wren wore "D88" as her pennant number until May 1940 when the Admiralty changed the pennant numbering system and allocated "I" to destroyers and gave "D" the larger ships.  In order to represent this late change (compared to when she is modelled, a couple of months later) I painted a rectangle of a slightly different shade of grey to the rest of the hull where the "D" would have been overpainted and then applied the decals for "I88".  It's barely perceptible in the photos above which is fine, too stark a difference would have looked odd.

 

I also completed the foredeck with the actors and chains as well as the little bits and pieces for bollards.  A better view of that here;

 

 

I'm going to have to fix that silvering on the bow decal... I might even remove the decal altogether as I cannot see much evidence of these markings on any contemporary photos.

 

Lastly, I did a bit of preliminary weathering.  Again, not terribly visible here in these pics but I did some shading on the decks with a very thinned dark wash sprayed with my airbrush.  Mostly I was going for subtle variations of tone rather than actual grime - in this scale I don't think that - or any of the 1/48 scale weathering techniques I'm used to using for that matter - works very well.  I did the same on the hull.  Again, it's barely perceptible but much more and it tends to caricature in this scale.  Some sense of the deck staining can be gleaned from this photo...

 

 

Since taking these photos I have completed and added the foremast.  With that done, there's only two things left to glue on this model, the railings and the rigging and antenna wires (and the life boats which are painted and ready to go on).  Both of these tasks fill me with dread, but I am encouraged with my success on the bridge railing and think I can get the deck railings on well enough if I remain patient and work slowly.  I've ordered some generic railing to add to the gun deck as it wasn't included in the kit but it's quite prominent in the contemporary photos.  It should arrive early next week and will likely be the last thing that needs to be done to complete the model.

 

The rigging and antenna wires are something altogether different.  The masts are very weak and may well bend under even the minuscule tension of the AK elastic wire I'm going to use.  I also don't have a rigging diagram, and haven't be able to find one so far.  I can make a representation, but I'd rather try and get it right.  What's scary is the number of wires needed, and their complexity.  Again, patient work should see me right and I'm probably worrying over nothing.

 

That'll do for now, the next update should be one that includes completed railings.

 

Cheers.

 

 

[bigbadbadge]

Looks great Mark with the numbers on and painted out Ds too,  looking forward to seeing the railings on and rigging etc, good luck with the rigging, I am sure it will be fine, if the masts can't take the pressure fron the rigging would brass rod with the sticky out bits soldered on do the trick?

Great work 

Chris

[AliGauld]

That is really looking phenomenal Mark.

Cracking work.

 

 

Cheers,

Alistair

[AdrianMF]

I came over to have a look from your Swordfish post.

 

Looks like you have another modelling genre mastered! Super work on all that PE - definitely an “out of comfort zone” experience!

 

I hope you are clearing a space to display that HMS Hood…

 

Regards,

Adrian

[mark.au]

16 hours ago, bigbadbadge said:

…if the masts can't take the pressure fron the rigging would brass rod with the sticky out bits soldered on do the trick?

Thanks Chris, and @AliGauld, much appreciated.  That would be a very reluctant Plan B, Chris.  I have been thinking about how I’m going to approach the rigging and I think that when I do to stays on both masts it will stiffen them up sufficiently.  Just like the real thing, as it happens.

 

1 hour ago, AdrianMF said:

I came over to have a look from your Swordfish post.

 

Looks like you have another modelling genre mastered! Super work on all that PE - definitely an “out of comfort zone” experience!

 

I hope you are clearing a space to display that HMS Hood…

Thanks Adrian.  Yeah… the Hood will be a challenge even after it’s done!

 

No modelling tonight, planning the rigging and designing the base.

 

Cheers.

[mark.au]

If you were to accuse me of looking for things to do to avoid starting on the rigging and radio wires, you might be on to something.  However, it did occur to me that I should complete the weathering and final painted surface finishes before doing the wires.  So that's what I did this evening.

 

In lieu of in-progress pics (because I didn't take any) I'll describe what I did; a simple wash to accent some key features like the banding on the funnels, then an overall flat coat upon which I painted some chalks to show grime and rust.  Then, another flat coat to seal in the chalks and finally a fade coat to blend everything in and reach the final finish of a very slight sheen.  Here's the result;

 

 

 

As a first attempt at ship weathering I'm quite pleased with that, though I think the staining is a little stark (not helped by this iPhone photo, it's not quite so contrasty IRL).

 

Question; what colour should the prop shaft be?

 

I don't think I can postpone the rigging any longer.  My plan is to go at it in this order;

1. Funnel stays
2. Mast stays
3. Bow to forward mast
4. Mast to mast
5. Stern mast to stern 
6. Radio wires between the masts
7. Radio wires to superstructure

I'm going to use the box art as a guide, plus one or two images from the thread @RGL posted earlier in the WIP (an extensive reference that took a while to read through - thanks).

 

When the rigging is done, which I think will take several sessions, I will finish off with the deck railing and lastly the deck boats.  Almost done.  

 

Cheers.