The Ship Model Forum

Nice work, Richard. Glad to see you back at it.

Good afternoon :thumbs_up_1: ... I saw a lot of different sawing ship models, but I consider yours a riding masterpiece .. :worship_1: I really like it and you give me inspiration in my fight with King George

The catapult is sublime, using PE, resin and turned brass parts, and phenomenally tricky to get right. I am so very glad Pontos included two and I only need one - I made a complete horlicks of some parts. Again, tricky seam filling. The painting looks quite shoddy right now (because it is); with assemblies like this I like to glue brass to brass free of paint (as paint doesn't stick well) and I don't tend to prime for fear of clogging fine detail. Getting the deck blue applied over the grey is going to result in accidents - there'll be a few rounds of re-touching before it's done.

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3 Years....that came as quite a shock. I built 3 three 1/4 scale aircraft from start to finish in Q1 this year which but my need to finish things to rest so I plucked this off the shelf of doom as I feel able to apply some extended focus.

How did it get to be 3 years??

Since April I've been slowly working my way through the Pontos set, turns out I got a lot of the major work done when I last put this aside. So it's all about tiny changes now.

Ladders and various bits are sprouting all over...

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The flag lockers have been given tie rails and covers; I wanted these to look like loose canvas that was sagging so I made up a small frame and covered it with alum foil that was then gently pushed into the frame. The color is terrible and will get adjusted.

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The tubs and searchlight platform are made from paper. Because I remade the overhanging deck pieces from brass, some of the Pontos dedicated rail parts do not fit well enough so I've used generic 2-bar. I try to do something with the bottom most rail to make it look more integrated with the deck etc; on the platform at the base of the aft funnel the rail has been aligned and blended with the top of the superstructure - the inside is painted deck color to diminish it's appearance. On the tapered walkway behind that structure the base rail has been removed and the rail stuck to the side as if the base of the stanchions was bolted to the lip along the side.

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More of the same on the aft-most structure. The ammo boxes are from L'Arsenal, I had them for ages and do not know if they are the right type or not, but they add something so I'm not worrying about it.

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All new bow tubs for the 20mm from paper. The stiffeners and top rail are too deep and will be reduced.

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The crane from Pontos is simply stunning and the arm has been a huge amount of work as I wanted to fill the corner seams to square the corners without loosing the relief etched detail. If you look close enough at the second picture you'll see I've missed a bit.....

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:big_eyes: Amazing work!

Not sure how I missed this one but wow Richard! That is amazing work! I am considering an Indy for my next project and this thread is [i]very[/i] inspiring... hope we can see more!

Richard, first let me say that I share your pain regarding the elusive modeling mojo. Mine has been elusive now for several months and I'm now at the point where making myself sit down at my work bench has begun to feel like work, not fun. But, I'm slowly ploughing through my current project, Dragon's 1/350 U.S.S. Laffey, with WEM PE.

Now to the point of this post. I can't sufficiently express how impressed I am with your work on the Indianapolis. I have her in my stash and either she or the Merit Yorktown will be next up. Frankly I'm leaning toward the Indianapolis. I also have the Pontos detail up set for her. Your work has been both inspiring and humbling, because I know all too well that my efforts will not even begin to touch yours. I'm completely overwhelmed by your resourcefulness and determination in remedying unsatisfactory elements about the kit. I am a "kit builder", you sir, are a "modeler".

I would really like to know the technique you used for making the paper replacements for such things as the director tubs on the bridge wings, etc.. And you just knocked it out of the park with your replacement non-skid decals, the idea, the effort to bring it to fruition and the result are pure genius. I hope you will continue to grace the board with periodic updates. Even us kit builders can learn from your skill and resourcefulness.

May both of us be successful in recapturing our lost and elusive modeling mojo!

Bob M.

Here's some scans of the Pontos etched stencils. Hopefully you can see that some of them would be impossible to place if the superstructure has already been assembled due to overhanging decks etc (outlined in red). I guess I could cut them up but it would still be difficult to airbrush neatly in all areas. With the mask being so fine I think you'd need to be spraying directly perpendicular to the surface to ensure sharp edges to the anti-slip pads; the mask would also need to be tight against the surface.
It also makes it apparent that I have changed the layout of the pads somewhat - I can add more at anytime, but at this stage I have focused predominantly on the areas around the gun mounts,

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The pink stuff is actually the naked copper that the rungs are made from. The grey is Mr Surfacer that has been brushed on the fill the slightly oversized holes that the rungs are stuck into.

Your results are looking good. Having the same Pontos set I am not sure I understood why you were unable to use the stencils. Would you be willing to elaborate a bit for when I get to this build myself please? Also what was the pink stuff on the ladder rungs?

[b]Anti-slip Mats[/b]

The Pontos advanced detail set comes with some nice PE masks to spray anti-slip mats (the molded 'platforms' on the original parts are just not right), but these can only be used before assembly so got ruled out some time ago. Eventually I remembered I had some Testors decal sheet and decided to try home made decalling. This. Did. Not. Come. Easy.
About 6 weeks arsing (oops- wasted) around with inkjet printers etc etc etc I got somewhere OK with my laser printer instead. These pictures are probably the 15-20th attempt to get it right. These show just the initial decal application, there's still plenty that I can do to tidy things up before the end; it's all in gloss right now so just the application of dullcote will make a big difference....but if it looks good when shiny then, well, it's good.

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The pad spacing has been increased as when I matched the spacing on the Pontos masks it just looked like black. This way it's more of an 'effect'.
Ever get so caught up on one thing on a build you refuse to do anything else on the side until you get there? Maybe that's just me. So the only other progress has been the main director mounts.

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looking at these I see I'm going to have to revisit the rectangular viewing ports as they are not consistent between the two towers. Blurgh.

Build mojo remains elusive. Double Blurgh.

Awesome looking build. Great details.

Beautiful details all around and i really love the way the hull is coming along :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1:



Jose :wave_1:

Still trickling along.....

The director tubs on the bridge wings are all new from paper as the kit parts were, well, blergh. The fillets linking in the corners of the aircraft handling deck (presumably for stress relief) are from paper as well.

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Things should speed up now (hopefully). I have this terror of fitting major assemblies wrong, so I trial fit, and trial fit, and tweak, and touch up paint, and trial fit, and trial fit for weeks before gluing; which usually takes about 5 minutes. Heh.

The (advanced?) Pontos set includes some photo etch masks for the anti skid plating which can only sensibly be used before assembling this much as the pattern extends under overhanging decks and the masks are one piece items. I didn't want to do detailed final painting before assembly so they're are not going to be used. Instead I've ordered some L'Arsenal decals (not the PE strips!) for this. If they aren't quite right I may resort to custom decals but that would be pricey.

If anyone wants the PE masks (nicely done in s/s), PM me.

And one 'infidelity' has been dispatched.

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[quote="ModelMonkey"]Brilliant![/quote]


Agreed! :woo_hoo:




Bob Pink. :wave_1:

Brilliant!

Ticking along.....

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Nice work, Richard.

This is probably my favorite style of building, when the ship is solidly mounted on an adjustable jig and I'm just adding as many or as few smaller bits as I feel like; both hands free to apply things, to glue, or fill, or paint, or sand without having to touch anything assembled.

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[quote="RichardP"]"Infidelities" :big_grin: :big_grin: :big_grin: :big_grin: :big_grin:[/quote]

yes Richard , "Infidelities" at warships for the seaking and the scooter :wink:
cheers
Nicolas

"Infidelities" :big_grin: :big_grin: :big_grin: :big_grin: :big_grin: