Sooo, I was at the Wright Field Scale Modelers Regional a couple weeks back… I brought King George V in hopes of getting some advice from one of the judges I know. He went over it and I was excited to try out his suggestions on how to get rid of the seems from these 3 deck sections that I came home and started on Prince of Wales!
after some dry fitting I put a tab on the back of the bow and stern sections, then glued them together BEFORE placing them on the hull
Next I tacked the Deck to the hull with CA from bow to stern.
Then off to the garage to pull out my oscillating cutter. Off with the hull, well ok just back-halfed it to do waterline.
Last stiffen the hull with 3 cross braces and run a bead ment down the inside so it’s all melted together and won’t separate sometime later when I least appreciate it lol
Cut out the foam and have it set up with a roll to starboard and the bow digging into an oncoming wave.
Next i got POW fitted into the sea [:D] No paint yet but I think these shots will give a perspective of how the ship will roll and how the waves look made with the dryer sheet(check out british ships GB for details on this). Once I have her set in place I’ll start adding gel medium to the sea to add roughness and some wave caps as well I think.
While some heavy gel dries on the base I’m doing some monotonous chain drilling
just an early pic to show what a mess it looks like. Wait till I brush a little cement over it to clean up some plastic hairs, file it down smooth, and coat it with some Mr Surfacer…sounds like a lot when you write it out haha
Thx Cap’nMac, too funny! no extras for this one so we’re gonna see what i can do with paint [:D]
working on the deck now. My thought process being that it’ll be easier to mask the deck while i do the hull since it’s all one color. This way if any paint lifts the repairs are easier.
i also spent a bunch of time trying to improve on my last effort. on KGV the deck looked good in white grey primer, then when I did the base color and then the wash the deck gear got coated in too many coats of everything and I ended up masking the deck and priming the gear again.
this is all painted with a brush. A real surprise technique came by chance. All the color variations you see are the effect of the paint starting to seperate in the mixing. When I did KGV i mixed vallejo model color with Tamiya X-20A. That works real well and fixed my paint lifting issues. I have found it doesn’t work well with black or metal colors. Not sure what the link is but obviously some component of the black paint doesn’t like it [00ps]
so in this case when i added the x-20a i could see the paint start to ‘unmix’ essentially. That happened in the airbrush cup but it was so small that i thought it was just that I didn’t mix it well enough in the cup. Turns out it’s a real thing. In the pick below you’ll see those dark veins, well I’d dip the brush in those at random as well and get another color variation. Then every 10minutes or so I’d mix it up again. Another benefit is that the x-20a keeps the vallejo paint from drying!! Took me 2 hours to do the deck and the paint never dried up in the cup. I think with a wash over this it’ll really pop. To the naked eye the variation really looks great.
Thx guys. Let’s get extra butter on that popcorn! Been bouncing around a bit while i wait on different sections to dry. Put a satin coat on the deck last night so today working on the water. Here’s a progression of work photos. I’ll let this dry till I’m ready too place the hull. Then i can add the tissue and gel medium before doing some final dry brushing and coating with gloss Varnish.
I had a copy of a hull arrangement for KGV so I used it to rough out where the plate welds were at. A few lines will need covered up i think as there are just a few errant ones in these shots. Easy to do though with this technique. Now if i can get our desktop computer fixed I can move on to the hull camo [:D]
She is looking great! That decking and hull work looks spot on! Your base is going to go so well with the ship and really add to its presentation. Will be following along closely.
The hull is painted up and ready for a satin clear and then a wash! The only thing i wish is that i could get a better contrast to show the shadows I did for the plating. It’s hard to see in these pics so will try for outdoor light tomorrow when it’s supposed to be sunny. The positive is that I didn’t want it bold. Came out suttle without getting washed out. My dark grey is a little too dark. May try to lighten it but need to see what happens under the clear 1st. My lighter colors changed alot. Enough to make me stop spraying right away and wait till it dried lol
Thanks Steve, appreciate you stopping by and checking it out!
Not much to report lately. Just alot of standard assembly stuff. I’m working on assembling the bridge decks now. Put a satin coat on the hull over the weekend so I can weather it this week. I’ve found the washes to be more conTrollable when i let the clear coat dry lol go figure [;)]
working on building up 1 section of deck at a time right now. It’s a bit of a different approach for me. Not quite done with the boat deck but thought I’d post my progress so i could step back and see how things look. No close up pics… I didn’t like a couple things close up so going to do a little more detail work before I get to final assembly. So here’s the mock up. The boats are just set in place, same for the gun decks on either side.
ugg I hate the macro lense haha! I see that now. Going to try and clean them up some more. All the rafts are fairly prominent, especially these on the stern deck.
I’m thru 4 out of 5 colors now. Just the green left on the Superstructure to do tonight. Then back to assembly.
Here’s the stern deck rigged up. One of the guys at the local club give me advice on how to do the rigging. The most important thing he said was fresh superglue. Then I’m applying the glue with a needle so that it’s very localized. Surprisingly the needle doesn’t stick to the part or the EZ line which is great. Working hard not to bend the plastic masts…
Bit of play by play today. Ended up with some family stuff today so this will probably soill over to tomorrow. So far i have each superstructure rigged. Later tonight I should be able to connect the tw.
