Bill,
I left a comment on Steve’s Dreadnought thread, and I will say the same of yours as well. You are doing a tremendous job! I have the Zvesda version as well as the Pontos detail set, and both of you have inspired me to take it off of the waiting list to start immediately. Thanks for the inspiration!
Bill Morrison
Marcus I think the same thing happened to one of the torpedo booms at the bow…but unfortunately the tape got tossed into the main garbage and is gone forever…so I had to scratch a replacement with some styrene rod. [:D] Masking can be a tricky business!
Steve thanks for the comments and I’m enjoying your progress as well! You’re not too far behind me depending…I’ve still got a lot of work to do with the details so that’s going to slow things down a little bit I imagine as I figure out just when and how I want to tackle the superstructure and masts. As for what’s next, I’m thinking I will take this in ‘layers’ and build up the superstructure decks/components one level at a time and treat them as ‘modular’ components. The boats and other stuff would come last…the key I think is leaving enough real estate available to safely handle it while working and not, literally, painting myself into a corner. Looking at colors online is always an iffy proposition depending on monitor settings, quality of the image, etc. I figure hull reds in this scale wouldn’t be all that different from each other truthfully, especially when you add some weathering or variation to it.
Bill M Glad to have you stop by and thanks for the support! Dreadnought’s an inspiring old girl and sounds like you’ve got a neat project lined up with the Zvezda/Pontos combination! [B]
Bill,
I am looking forward to seeing how you tackle the masts, since you are using brass rod. I agree, the kit mast will not take a strain at all so I was figuring on using brass also but my soldering skills have not been used in many moons so hopefully I can get an idea on how you setup your masts.
I also agree that trying to match colors off the screen is rather dicey, but I am trying to get an idea of how bright the color were for the USN and RN ships. I found other posts by Tracy White and others discussing the colors of the various navies’ anti-fouling paint and the only one I can say I have a clue about is the IJN color Hull Red XF-7 that Tamiya produces and Trumpeter calls out in their kit color sheet.
Steve
Steve,
Trumpeter did a decent job of molding the masts but they are fragile and mine at least have some flash on them…so there’s added benefits to replacing them vs. using the kit parts. I’ll use them as the ‘master’ for the brass replacements though to make sure I don’t introduce any other complications if possible! Like you I don’t solder very often so I’ll do my best to show how (maybe) not to do it! [;)]
It sounds like you may have a challenge on your hands with the anti-fouling hull red question difference between RN and USN ships. I found that using the Insignia Red over the Flat Black gives you a lot of control over how dark/light you want the red to be in the final analysis vs. trying to mix your own shade to be just right, so maybe that could help for your effort? Every genre has it’s ‘white wale’ of trying to match things up I guess, in the armor world where I do most of my builds it’s the ‘correct’ shade of Olive Drab for US/Allied tanks or Dunkelgelb for German! It’s often a never-ending quest but the chase can still be fun/rewarding depending as it leaves some room for individual interpretation/expression along the way. [:D] [B]
I’ve been busy the last few days but have been getting in some progress here and there to keep the Dreadnought steaming ahead! I wanted to be sure that the wood decking wouldn’t have any adverse reactions to either Future or my preferred flat lacquer, Testors Lusterless Flat, so I rigged up a simple test using the turret cut-out pieces from the Wood Hunter deck and sprayed one with Future only, one with the Lusterless Flat only, and a third with both to see if anything negative would occur. After letting it sit for 24 hours, all three test subjects appeared perfectly normal and fully functional so I went ahead and attached the decks permanently in place for the main deck and super deck areas.
The Wood Hunter deck is self-adhesive backed with a very thin plastic film that needs to be removed for the adhesive to be exposed. I found the best way to do that was to use a strip of masking tape to ‘lift’ the film at the start and then peel it back as needed. Occasionally the backing film would leave a section behind or not peel completely and in those cases the masking tape trick worked perfectly to lift those sections away quickly and easily. I used some wooden toothpicks and a paint brush handle in different spots to ensure the deck laid down evenly and experienced no bubbles or buckling in the process.
After the decks were on, one thing I needed to validate was that the breakwaters would sit at the right height and not interfere with the turret gun elevations. So a quick dry-fit was in order and I also took the opportunity to fit the breakwater along with the rectangular piece it relates to on the X turret so that I could paint and work with it as a single piece vs. two separate pieces. The breakwaters will be painted a bit later along with the turrets to take advantage of having the AB out.
That left me free to continue working on the turrets so I could start their paint work in the next phases. First up though I needed to remove the molded on detail on the turret top in order for the Eduard PE replacement parts to fit and sit level. I used a square micro chisel to do that quickly and relatively pain-free.
Each turret received its three sight scope housings and kit-supplied PE top covers. The Eduard overlays are dry-fit only at this point as they will be painted separately in a darker gray before they get permanently attached and it’s much easier to do that with them off the turrets vs on.
Made some progress today in the area of the superstructure decks. I started in on the boat deck level and the first order of business was checking the fit/placement of the wood deck panel for this area. Did a quick test along with the conning tower to make sure everything would play nice and no major issues to report…so the deck will go on later after some paint for the deck components.
Then the real fun began, the actual construction for the boat deck. This involves about 25-30 different parts depending on how you attack it. I decided the best bet was to start at the ends and work toward the middle, especially since all the support posts/rods are separate pieces and they all need some time to dry while still keeping their alignment. Since there are a lot of pieces that fit to these, I opted to leave the middle connection unglued for the time being. The bases of the funnels are only dry fit and not permanently secured yet.
Everything in this area is a tight fit and fragile, so I suppose it’s a good thing that Trumpeter didn’t try to mold them all as integrated pieces. More effort will be spent on this area tomorrow to add the relevant details like the signal flag bins and such.
Bill,
It’s great to see that someone can do such neat, clean work! Your ship is coming along nicely and is already weeks ahead of my build - probably will end up months ahead!
I’ll be looking closely at both yours and Steve’s WIP just to see how it ought to be done!!
I’ve had my setbacks today and will post my tales of woe [;)] shortly in my WIP.
Mike
Really taking shape Bill, looking good
Mike thanks for checking in, glad to hear this will be helpful in your own build, that’s the whole point of a build log IMHO! [;)]
Anthony good to hear from you as well my friend, thanks for the comments and support! [B]
Carrying on from yesterday, I spent some more time on the boat deck. I installed all the signal flag lockers and some other odds and ends that populate this area. The admiral’s day cabin was replaced courtesy of the Eduard set. Both halves of the boat deck will be left in this condition until after painting to make it easier to handle them and do the installation later on once the super deck has all its stuff added.
I also devoted some attention to the funnels and the conning towers. The Eduard set provided the cable stays and I used a #78 finger drill to open up the vent pipe tops on the funnels for a little added detail. It’s worth pointing out that the Trumpeter instructions call for a pair of PE ladders, PE16B, be added to the base of the aft funnel but the fit is so tight for it as it slides in with the boat deck that I left them off. I might be able to figure out a way to still add them later…but not sure.
The Eduard set also provides a replacement for the range-finder platform on the aft conning tower but has you bend it up into a weird configuration that resembles a baby cradle. The Trumpeter part, F14, has the wrong type of base, so I opted for a hybrid solution. I kept the base portion of the Eduard piece but removed the railings and will add those later using either some of the Eduard or Trumpeter rails that are duplicates of each other.
Just to make sure everything is still playing nice before we commit to paint, I did a test fit of all the components.
This is as far as I’m going to take things before doing some painting and working on the super deck interior as the boat deck pieces are too fragile to leave laying around for long.
They say the devil’s in the details…well today the devil tasked me with working on the searchlights. Since a few of these go on the super deck and the boat deck, I decided it was as good a time as any to tackle them all and get them ready for painting along with the other details. The kit supplies you with 14 but only 13 are needed. I went ahead and prepped all 14 just to have a spare since the Eduard PE set includes 14 bezels as well.
First up was drilling out the faces of the lights. This was done with a pin vise by hand while the lights were still on the sprues. This made it much easier to handle them and control the drill bit vs. trying to do it with them off the sprues.
Once that was taken care of, they were removed from the sprues and cleaned up where needed. The Eduard bezel faces were added using liquid glue and a spit-moistened toothpick to help in the pick-up-and-placement of each little bezel.
Once painted, these will get further detailed for the reflective surfaces and what not.
Beautiful work Bill.
Steve
Thanks Steve! One more step out of the way in the detail department.[;)]
Lots of progress to report today. First up were the baffles and screens for the funnels. Trumpeter provides these as multiple PE parts (5 different parts for each funnel) and they are all extremely fine/fragile. The internal baffles are probably the most fragile as they require a lot of bends but the part itself isn’t that sturdy to begin with. One thing that Trumpeter does that I like is they provide their PE with a laminated adhesive sheet…if you only peel off the top sheet, the bottom sheet remains stuck to the back and you can use that to your advantage for parts like this. By only freeing one leg at a time and bending it up into place, it was possible to get all the legs into position where needed…then one last cut to free the baffle from the fret.
Then the real fun begins…I opted to glue the baffles into place first inside the funnel cap using liquid glue, then added the outside ring, and finally the top portion of the screen. The funnel tops are only dry fit for now to make it easier to paint them separately from the funnel stacks as masking due to all the PE is clearly not an option.
After studying the rigging diagrams, I decided to add some rings for the signal flag lines that will be rigged later on. I used the fine copper chain that came with the Hunter deck and clipped out 12 links, cut them in half with fine wire cutters, and glued them in place with CA.
Then it was finally time for some more paint to fly…I primed everything with Flat Black since I needed to spray some anyway for the funnel tops. The turret tops were sprayed with Panzer Gray and everything else got the same custom gray mix that was applied to the hull. In order to paint the 12 pdrs, I stuck them in small blobs of blue tack putty and then stuck the putty to the masking tape so I could paint them more easily since they have mount pins on their bases.
That will get a chance to cure up and this weekend will see more detail work in terms of getting the gear installed on the first super deck level so I can secure the boat deck and continue to work my way up in the superstructure.
Wish I thought of leaving on the plastic film when I did the baffles. Remove them when I cleaned the PE in solvent and then in vinegar to rough them up for painting.
You are making great progress, I really like you idea of the tie downs for the signaling flags. You won’t mind if I use it on my dreadnought.
Marcus
I couldn’t manipulate the PE for the baffles on the funnels into the proper configuration to save my life! My hat’s off to you for your skill in working with the brass and for the helpful tip about leaving on one side of the plastic protector on the metal while working with it.
I am very, very impressed with how neat and tidy your work is!
I think any posts of images of my WIP will now be taken from 5 feet away [:D].
Mike
Thanks Marcus! No problem at all with you using the tie-down idea…that’s the point of build logs like this after all, the sharing of info and techniques that may prove helpful to others even if it shows what NOT to do! [;)]
Mike appreciate the comments as well. Don’t stress over your own build…working with PE like this is not something I particularly enjoy but is a necessary evil when dealing with details in this scale…most of the time it works out, sometimes not. Fortunately there have been others who have built the kit and noted, like Marcus, how fragile the PE parts were in this case so I had some forewarning to encourage me to think just a little bit more about how to try to attempt it! [B]
Building on the paint progress from yesterday, today’s efforts were all in the detail department. Turrets received their 12 pdrs along with the Eduard platforms and guard rails. The 12 pdr mounts as-is were all pointing downward, so some gentle pressure on the breech portion of the gun ‘elevated’ them so they would sit at a level height once installed into the platforms. Took a little trial-and-error but eventually I got all 10 sitting at pretty close to the same height. The 12 pdrs got a little extra detailing in the form of some Model Master Non-Buffing Metalizer Brass applied to their breeches.
The funnels got their caps permanently installed and the signal flag deck area and aft searchlight platform were painted with Panzer Gray to detail the crew walk areas. Same thing for the aft conning tower’s fire direction platform. I’ll wait to install some railings for it until I’m ready to finally install it in place to avoid any possible damage or complications.
Front portion of the boat deck received its wood decking as well as a permanent install. This is much easier to handle with the deck ‘loose’ vs. fixed and today was as good a time as any to check that off the list.
The boat deck levels are still dry fit only at this point as I need to work on the super deck level details next. Doesn’t hurt to do a quick check though to make sure everything’s still playing nice with each other.
Bill,
Making great progress, really like the bass added to the 12pdrs. I see your model has the bollards on the bow portside, mind are missing on my model, will have to fabicate a couple.
Marcus
Bill,
Your Dreadnought is looking awesome! She is coming together rather nicely to say the least. I really like your idea of leaving one of the plastic wraps on to help keep things together for the baffles.
Are you going to drill holes in the stacks as well as the various deck locations for the tie downs? I did that as soon as I put the stacks together and drilled holes on the decks. Of course I used the Kagero book and line drawing for the tie down locations as the Trumpeter instructions did not show anything. Also, I am not sure how much detail are you going to put in the rigging.
As I said earlier, very nice work. I have nothing to post lately as I have been juggling family commitments and have not had a chance to even sit at my work desk.
Steve