i think gmm is reasonably priced. will hold off on wem pe for dreadnought and see who else comes out. i have some kits that all i really need is generic railings and ladders. hope to get to BORODINO and MARKGRAF by the end of the week. looks like a simultaneous build along with 30min or so a day on 1/35 MAS boat until it is done.
Wow, those screws look odd…???
They are pretty typical of the period. Here’s Borodino:
Kudos to Bronco for getting them “handed”.
Does anyone have any info on the draft markings? I wonder if they would be Roman, or Chinese?
I’m glad I do not have to make graphics for decals for those on Borodino. If i remember the conventions properly, the draft markings are half a unit measured tall. So, in feet measure, 6" tall. So, under that “swoop” some of those letters are likely 15-16" “tall” to fall between 6" (or half-meter) WL.
…ummmmmmm…did a few pages just get deleted from this thread???
Yep. They were off topic and non-modeling related.
Aaron
Wow…okay. But I was actually thinking that deer in the creek up to its antlers would have made a good dio—just didn’t give it time to develop…
bump
ouch… !
I havn’t started yet… still trying to finish up my final 3… grrr…
[whstl]
Stalled rigging Emden, need to repaint the red on the fortune cookie, just bought a Varyag.
I know, excuses excuses…
This GB otta be called “really stacked”!
Wow, did Fermis scare ya’ll landlubbers off?
I’m recovering from my bout with the Ukrainain shipyard that made the components for my Konig. I am resting by trying some advanced weathering on an ancient Arii (Otaki) P-47D - my first serious model of an American subject I may add. Spending so long fighting Konig did shake the brain a little. Now it’s very confusing to have the pieces fit together. Going to forgot how to use the sander if the parts are too accurate and the plastic more or less sound - fortunately the are enough gaps in a circa 1970 kit to let me expand techniques toward filler. I’m still looking for the perfect paint and am using artist acrylics on this (mostly Golden but also a great Canadian brand called TriArt.) After learning that in the art world there is white for mixing (zinc being the pigment) with low opacity and white for actually coloring (with Titanium and high opacity), I’ve stumbled on the best white I’ve ever used on a plastic. Might be worth reconsidering how to approach Oregon. I still may put her in Santiago war paint (the ship sailed almost as far to Cuba as the Baltic fleet did to Tsushima - and didn’t get sunk doing it - a startling feat at the time) but was in wartime grey. But I want to do one of my oldies in peacetime rig. Thought that would be Mikasa with its sweet black, now I’m sorely tempted to assemble a member of the Great White Fleet. We’ll see. But we’ll try the acrylics on a ship regardless. The Triart neutral grey looks a really good USN color with a tad of lightening and both Golden and Triart make a great buff or concrete that would be great for a deck. (Will have to check into that: I think the WWII USN greys had a bit of blue in them - haze grey especially.)
Eric
Up until 1945 yes - in February of that year new formulas were released that were neutral, so there was a purple/blue haze gray from 1941 until 1945 and then a neutral Haze gray from 1945 until today.
time to jump into this. building alanger 1/400 ST PANTELIMON as a practice piece, zvezda 1/350 BORODINO and, icm 1/350 MARKGRAF. stacks, gun turrets, and hulls are just about ready to prime. lots of boats. all the port holes on all 3 are drilled out. ST PANTELIMON is somewhat rough. i replaced all the kit secondary barrels with brass or styrene. probably have to replace some mast parts too. injection marks go through the wood grain on the decks and some of the canvas shields look like they would stop a 305mm round.
i know the 2 russian ships were black but will probably use a dark grey. have various stuff for rigging and stack stays so will see what works best. i do have a 3x5 russian flag to use as a backdrop when they are done (plus maybe VARYAG and KNYAZ SUVOROV). have gmm for BORODINO/VARYAG and a generic 1/450 merchant ship set for ST PANTELIMON.
the bases are 2x2 scrap wood from home depot and will be replaced with nice bases when done. decided to epoxy the nut inside the hull to have more flexibility with final mounting height and base thickness.
Sweet!!!
not sure what is going on with aft superstructure fit. it is so off it looks like it is designed that way. well now there are a couple of little decks as you will see in the photos. got the decks down. they fit tight with some gaps. the edges going into the superstructure needed some work. kraxy kat cya w/ the brush and accelerator are your friends in a time like this. that and knowing i am probably more knowledgeable of russian predreadnoughts than 99.9% of folks in colorado so many faults will go unnoticed if the building and painting is skillful. it’s warm here today so i can prime the hull and decks in the garage. acrylis are fine in the basement but enamels tend to get strong.
the decks. after i fixed the missing rudder half, jazzed it up and put it on, i found the iother half (which is in the middle of the hull.
stern deck with the “new hatches” and new decks.
the gaps are filled with dry whiye glue which is why they still look gapped. primer will tell if this was successful. it works well on angles like the seam between a tank hull and fender where it is hard to sand. the white squares are “new hatches” to cover some injection marks that wold cause more damage to fix than hide. some will be hidden under the boats or the gun turrets. i also need to fill the bottom gap with the bulkhead and deck since the bulkhead was VERY warped in 4 dimensions. told you it was VERY warped. again cya and accelerator. the bulkheads will be painted dark grey so the fill pieces will blend into the shadows. for consistency i did all sides fore and aft.
in order to trace the shap i needed to fill the gaps (the 2 flat white pieces on the stern superstructure) i put an led flashlight in the hull and was able to trace ove a 3x5 card. that worked great for the edge but, due to some steps i had to really trim the backs.
thought i would jazz up the boats and steam launches a bit. these are a tad rough too. after this BORODINO will seem like a dream and HIKAWA MARU will be like heaven. glad i have a BORODINO becuse the instructions for the masts are a bit vague.
apologies for my verbosity.
Looking like you’re making some real progress here…
You’re a braver sailor than I. I’ve read that the early generation 1905 Zevezda ships are all a handful: might explain why Borodino is available for under $30. As I found out the hard way, every ugly warning that was circulating about Konig was true and then some. I once put together a Soviet era plane - it was absolutely amazing. The plastic felt like soap, nothing fit, nothing like pegs and holes (probably for the best - they wouldn’t have worked anyway) etc. Yet it was a popular hobby in the bad old days on the wrong side of the Berlin wall. Probably because it was relatively cheap. Anyway, their market expected crummy kits - things much cruder than 60s era US-UK stuff that was none too sweet either. When I did my first Zevezda tank, (IS-152) a recent vintage and not a bad build really, the tracks were almost laughable. No problem, I hit it with a ton of mud. But Konig, put out by Ukrainian ICM in 2000, was a thing to marvel at. The superstructure was simply out of whack. The slots provided to guide complex build-up ended up in the ashcan of history and I eyeballed almost everything. (A perfect example of a model maker trying to add complexity without the precision to back it up. I would have been much better off working with fewer and larger parts. The ancient Revell (or whatever) DE England has 100 parts at 225 scale, so it could be done.)
But after you hack away long enough and employ a bucket of filler (still have to pump Aves Apoxie Sculpt for any gap that Mr Surfacer can’t handle: it’s so benign that if you make a mistake is actually pretty easy to peel off with no harm done) you will get done and the ship will look neat. (I assume you’ll be scratch-building topmasts: Konig’s wouldn’t have supported rigging thicker than a spider web, and I can’t train spiders.) I know that some really good modelers almost relish this kind of build. (There are some great Borodinos over at ModelWarship.com. At least one explains the surgery the modeler decided to use. A lot of purists on that site.) You do learn about basic scratch building no error whether you want to or not. For this build I’m taking on the Glencoe Oregon: haven’t a clue who built it originally: it’s early 60s though. So I know to be ready for damage control. But the part count is one third Konig’s and quantity does change quality.
Still looking good though. And I’ll root for you. But I won’t be building Borodino.
Eric
Speaking of Oregon, if anyone out there is considering Olympia, Tom’s makes a joint Olympia/Oregon PE set because the two came out together sometime around the Cuban Missile Crisis. If anyone wants to go halves on a set let me know: I think the chances are somewhat less than zero I’ll ever work in 225 scale again.
Eric
I have both the Olympia and the tom’s PE… and it does do both, it does either… if I have some left over, you’re welcome to it… I am building the Olympia Casles Gb… just havnt started yet…