I hope I am not digging up a thread that’s too old but I wanted to post a couple images of my build. I was having some issues with the camoflage painting and progress on trying to clean that up was slow, so I took a small break.
Anyway here is where I am at now. The starboard side painting is mostly done, except for giving the bottom another coat to help clean up the lower edge of the upper side of the hull. I have also been working on finishing up painting the decks and hull fittings, but am not yet finished with that. Once I clean those parts up, I plan to drill holes in the carge decks for the masts, and add some sort of foundation for the masts in the hull. I will probably work on painting the other side of the hull at the same time, since I like to let everything dry for 1/2 a day or so between coats of the different paint colors.
Then I can scratch build a couple doors and the cargo hatches and fix the bases of the masts and the decks into place. After that it will be building up the midship deck house and adding details like railing, the anchors & anchor capstan, the winches, small boats and rigging.
Glad you posted! Nice to see the old girl coming along: and having ‘walked that deck’ (as it were) I can see how much work you’ve already done. By all means, please, keep us updated on your progress. It’s always inspiring to see other builders’ projects shaping up.
I decided to take a step or two back on this build for a moment. Initially I had tried to keep the existing deck bitts for my conversion, but in the end I had some trouble painting them. As such, I decided to trim them off and repaint the decks, after which I will try and add some scratch built bitts instead. I’m hoing that way I can get them to all look more uniform and a bit cleaner than how the molded on ones were looking.
In addition, I have been having some concerns about my paint colors. The Rust that I used for the decking and the Yellow Green that I used for part of the camoflage came out a bit darker than I had been hoping.
Below is a picture showing part of the deck in its current Model Masters Rust color, along with one section painted over Tamiya Flat Red (on the upper section of the deck in the picture below) and another section painted over with Mr Color Russet (in the glossier lower right hand section of the image below).
Since Mr Color Russet is the color that I used on the bottom of the hull I don’t want to directly use it for the decks as well. But I might look into maybe mixing it with Red or Rust to see how that looks.
For the Green Yellow, I’m not looking forward to messing with the bow area again, since I had some trouble with paint bleeding and such there already, so I may just go with what I have. Though I am going to stop off at my local hobby store tomorrow and see what other shades that they have that might be suitable for each of these two areas.
During WWI, the British Admiralty employed all types of vessels in their Q ship war against German U-boats, even sailing ships. The best known example, is the three masted schooner PRIZE, commanded by Lieutenant W.E. Sanders and her encounter with U-93 off the southwest coast of Ireland. The U-93 was returning back to Germany on the evening of April 30, 1917, after sinking 11 freighters . Thinking the PRIZE an easy target after some of her crew pretended to abandon ship by rowing off in a boat, U-93 moved in for the kill. Much to the surprise of the sub, the schooner hoisted the white ensign of the British Navy and began blasting away with her hidden guns. The shots had shot away the subs conning tower, punched eight holes in the hull, killing two crewmen and forced the captain and another to jump into the water, where they were later taken prisoner by the PRIZE. In spite of her injuries, U-93 escaped into the darkness and managed to make a surface return to Germany, where she was refitted for further duty.
Source information, Page 50-51, Time-Life Books, The Seafares, U-Boats.
I ended up removing the bitts and repainted the deck a more reddish brown shade, as shown below. It may not show up as well in the image as it does in real life, but the decks and hull bottom colors are a fair bit different, The decks are more of a reddish brown while the hull bottom is a bit more of a reddish/burgandy color. After looking at the model under a bright light though I decided to leave the Yellow Green color as is, because I kind of like the way it looks after all.
I used the same red color on my q-ship’s decks after having seen photos of both real merchant vessels and some nicely-done models on which it looked really good. The color was actually my own ‘personal’ mix of standard Hull Red—Tamiya’s XF-9, with a dollop of flat red thrown in—though since I had already decided to go with a green hull color, there was no worry about matching the two too closely.
As to the yellow-green, I think it looks great. It matches contemporary artists’ portrayals nicely…and just looks good, to boot.
As for the bitts, its probably better to replace or rebuild almost everything. The original molding is ‘uninspired,’ to say the least; I left a few details out of sheer inertia (read ‘laziness’), but rebuilt or supplemented most of it anyway.
And Crackers, great call on the story of the PRIZE. There are quite a few good accounts of Q-Ship actions out there to be found—many first-hand—and all amazing and dramatic, the stuff of which great movies could be made if anyone had the sense to pursue it.
