The Ship Model Forum

by **StevenVD** » Sat Jan 25, 2020 5:30 pm

This week I ended the project that was going on for 7 years. First I had to tackle the problem of the Wildcat props. I had to decrease the dimensions of the B-25 props, so I was thinking to do that with an etching agent. I had a bottle of nitric acid, so I took a glass vial of it. but when I introduced 8 of the B-25 props, they were completely gone in one minute.

Luckily, I had a lot of these. So I tried to make the reaction slower by putting one in a glass dish. To no avail as you can see in this video. The blades just break on the nave where they are thinnest.

Now I saw this works pretty fast, I might think of other uses to treat PE parts that need trimming or weathering, but for now I just wanted to finish this by a Dremel polishing stone.

Soon I had what I needed.

I also painted the Tom's Modelworks PE figures.

These looked nice, but the population was not yet very dense. It didn't look like a capable crew like this.

At my last visit to SMC Veldhoven I won a Blackdog container set, also sporting about 30 1/700 figures.

I directly primered the set, though I doubt that I will soon need the containers.

With some glue and paint on them, the figures were ready to accompany my skeleton crew.

The two different Union Jack decals on the Sims page could be used to ornate the two ships, as there were even none in the Yorktown kit. This being done and the deck of Yorktown fully painted, I think this concludes the build. So these are the finishing pictures.

The dio now fits snugly in my showcase. The Big Stick sits behind it, having a very different water dio approach; 10 years of modelling are between the two.

by **StevenVD** » Wed Jan 22, 2020 4:04 pm

Oh, but I meant only the props that are on my WEM USS Enterprise/Hornet set. This has B25, Corsair 3-and 4-bladed, Helldiver, Avenger and Hellcat props. Something should be of use. Edit: after a quick check nothing is useful. A Wildcat has a 9ft 9 inch diameter prop, while the smallest ones on the PE fret are the B-25's with 12ft 7 inch. I would have to cut 1/4 of the diameter of those. It would have been better to create the illusion of the props turning, but I have the wind barriers up, making a takeoff situation impossible.

by **Pieter** » Wed Jan 22, 2020 10:47 am

I put the WEM 3 bladed props over the Martlet props in Tom's Illustrious class set. The WEM 3 bladed prop blades are about .5mm longer. Assuming Rickard Harden is right (he usually is) you can cut off a .5mm piece of brass on each prop or live with the difference. I personally would live with the difference.

StevenVD wrote: Let's study the WEM props, could some pass for Wildcat ones?

by **StevenVD** » Tue Jan 21, 2020 6:50 pm

I made a nameplate out of the kit one and a Theodore Roosevelt one, with scratch Hammann lettering painted with Molotov chrome.

The decals took their time to come loose from the paper, but then they did the job very well.

Then, a wash for the panellines, desert sand from AK. The planes were fixed on the deck, the nameplate is dry-fit.

Let's study the WEM props, could some pass for Wildcat ones?

by **StevenVD** » Sun Jan 19, 2020 7:00 am

Some irregularities were still visible below the water surface and I was out of water gel, so I had to buy another brand. I had no idea how that would turn out.

Apparently, the color remained the same, though AK smells different:

After 24 hours:

Then I used AK's Foam-gel for the waves. Because of the volume it can be used to fill some gaps between the ships and the sea.

Now was the time to furtively add some forgotten decals on Hammann.

I wanted 4 Wildcats on Yorktown after all. They are reasonably shaped out of the box, but missing one detail, the wheel assembly:

First some scraping to get the trailing edges sharper.

If the elephant feet are removed, a new set of wheelbays can be drilled.

The WEM provisions for 4 Corsairs could be transformed to a reasonable Wildcat carriage.

I sprayed this white and also used grey primer on top. This won't take much longer to finish, I figure.

by **StevenVD** » Fri Dec 27, 2019 5:27 pm

The wash on the boats did the trick.

Now I emptied the pot of ocean paste on the frame and glued the two ships on it. The darkening happened much faster now.

Some detailing will follow now.

by **StevenVD** » Thu Dec 26, 2019 9:16 am

The deck is sprayed in two wood tones, red brown and tan. If I dry-brush the cables and girders, it's ready.

The sloops are painted below the waterline and inside.

by **StevenVD** » Wed Dec 25, 2019 1:13 pm

Thanks, Strategos Augustus!

I painted the mast light grey, a homemade mix because I didn't have the right color.

I also wanted to repaint the Sea Blue area, so I masked this again.

The painting result:

To start the weathering process, some rust is added:

Here a picture of Hammann, where I forgot the decals before weathering. That will come later. It's also visible that the boot topping was chipped, because the bottom plate had no Tamiya primer. This was pencilled on again pretty easy. A second weathering phase consisted of bleaching with a light sand wash.

The last step is a dark wash for military vehicles, to make the surface details stand out and to mitigate the rust effect.

The ship comes to life now, though I'll have to treat the railings again with a streak of Neutral Grey.

Uschi finest rigging was added. The ships got their rafts, where I tried to inscribe a mesh pattern.

Now the deck awaits the final weathering session, after being manipulated quite a lot in the last building steps. I think I'll spray with thinned wood colors.

by **Strategos Augustus** » Wed Dec 11, 2019 6:08 pm

Looking very cool.

by **StevenVD** » Wed Dec 11, 2019 6:00 pm

The first steps are taken for the seabase, while Hammann was being rigged.

I taped in the edges of this photo frame, to avoid getting plaster under the edge. If everything went well, I would be able to do a cool trick when it was cured.

I tried to mold the waves on the plaster with this foil, but when I peeked under it, a minefield of large bubbles had accumulated. I abandoned the foil and just modelled the plaster with a spatula.

The trick with the photo frame was to push up the plaster in the space that was left by the photo glass when it was cured. This worked as well as I imagined, lifting the seabase above the frame for 5 mm.

I'll still have to fix this to prevent it to foundering back.

Mig's Deep Oceans will be used for the water effect.

This will turn to a deep blue in 24 hours. Then, a second layer with extra waves will glue the two ships to the base without a seam. The transparency of this stuff necessitates a dark base material.

This is the IPMS The Netherlands Special Prize for the best ship, that had to be sent at my adress because of some little inconvenience at the results of the contest. For this amount of material, I was willing to wait a few days...

Looking now for some reference on LST's and following Tracy's build on it.

by **StevenVD** » Sun Dec 08, 2019 5:46 pm

I did as I promised and went looking for a better seabase. This is what I came up with.

The railing for both ships is now almost completely added after painting. I used grey Tamiya primer and Lifecolor ocean grey:

Hamman in fact was more difficult, because the pattern for railings is more complex and curved.

I had some difficulties trying to figure out how the PE railing was to be applied. In stead of readymade lengths for the forecastle and heck portions of railing, or otherwise generic railing parts without detail, you get 6 equal lengths as large as the fret, but with some seemingly random oblique stanchions and shortened intervals. No doubt these were copied from certain pictures, but the manual doesn't assist in the placement details, while it does for all the other additions there are for these ships. Therefore I cut the railing quite random and put it not symmetrically.

SC radar was provided by Tom's, so I deleted the plastic part around the masttop and fine-tuned it a bit. I discovered a waterline cover in the kit, which now could not be sanded on the already painted hull. It was added and painted black by hand.

Mk.12 antenna went down once again.

Railing on the bow went smoothly.

Catwalk is added. K-guns were forced upwards to get the railing on straight. The chocks on the kit make this difficult. Look for the life raft supports, these replace parts to be removed from the upper deck.

This is as far as I got now. I can also use the PE figures, you get more than 10.

by **StevenVD** » Fri Dec 06, 2019 12:42 pm

Thanks, Marijn. That was my objection to this frame too, I will probably look for a better one this weekend. Frames like these are to be found by the hundreds at the local second-hand store. The idea was to have Hammann alongside Yorktown like at Midway, but I think I want at least some airplanes on Yorktown so that won't happen.

I have the railings for both ships ready for painting, I think I'll do that tonight.

by **marijn van gils** » Wed Dec 04, 2019 7:53 am

Looking good Steven!

Great project too! I will follow with interest.

One thing though: I would really advise against using that picture frame for a base. It is too long for the subject, and most importantly really too narrow. You can only fit the ships perpendicular to the edges (while I think it would look much better if they would be at an angle to the sides of the base), and even then there is almost no room for the see on the side of Hammann.

I think it is always best to first determine the size your base needs to be to fit the scene as good as possible, and only then search for a base that fits those dimensions.
You can have picture frames made to any dimension you want for not too much money. You can also order the framing as one long stick and cut and glue it yourself.

by **StevenVD** » Mon Dec 02, 2019 4:36 pm

To be able to paint the ships with Lifecolor over PE and all, I first primered with Tamiya grey. Then I painted Yorktown's hull with Sea Blue and Hammann's deck in Deck Blue.

Hammann got taped in, which was quite a job. Later on, I would discover some minor seepage on the deck.

Hammann was now sprayed Neutral Haze Grey. Then, to get "splotches" of Haze Grey, they were modelled with gum and sprayed Sea Blue. Above the deck edge this is done in Ocean Grey.

Yorktown got its graded camo system prepared.

At the same time, the boot topping was laid down.

Three layers of Sea Blue and Ocean Grey were put on Hammann. Yorktown also got some Ocean Grey and the boot topping, with a temporary overspray protection.

Then they were unwrapped, with Hammann's the most striking of the two schemes.

A bit of Pledge can avoid fingerprints or chipped paint.

Lots of details will follow, like railing, sloops and a PE walkway.

Yorktown is less conspicuous, maybe the Sea Blue is not dark enough.

She is drying here and still needs a third color on the mast tops.

by **StevenVD** » Fri Nov 22, 2019 5:33 am

It took me a little while to recapitulate on the Hammann's porthole errors, but after almost 6 years and one address change I find the courage to end this project. I'm also armed with better paint provisions and some experience with waterline settings in the Princeton diorama, so I should be able to finish this in a few weeks.

I found this narrow base frame. They are quite close like this.

I had to redrill the wrong porthole row, to be able to insert the Evergreen slices. Now I only had to do a little clipping, sanding and filling up the seams.

After adding the anti-submarine mortars, it should be ready to paint the deck.

by **StevenVD** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 4:57 am

Well, that is not very funny to discover, but at least it's not a terrible setback. I'll fill them up again. The picture dates from short before Midway, if I'm right. Thanks for this very valuable information, Timmy!

by **Timmy C** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 3:39 pm

Steven, she looks very fine!

And I hate to be a bearer of bad news, but...

From this wartime photo, it appears the lower row of portholes were covered up by the time of her demise. I don't know what time period you are depicting the two ships, but with the lower row of portholes now drilled open, it seems that you can only portray them in prewar colours/fit.

by **StevenVD** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 8:46 am

Thanks, Gordon. I'll comply to your wishes and show you an update of USS Hammann. I have been placing watertight doors and drilling the portholes on the partly undetailed hull. To complete the portholes on the bow section I had to use Wikipedia pictures of the Sims class that had been painted an overall light grey. Tamiya's box-art was almost useless on this subject, because they had omitted these portholes by splashing a giant wave over them. I only noticed their presence on an early picture of Hammann. Some had to be filled and redrilled because they were a bit off. The stern section was also undetailed and there had I started drilling. Because the propguards came loose again, I adapted them to the length of the Tamiya examples. This mistake turns out on the picture, Tom had them trimmed right. Oh well. Soon I'll be getting tangled in ends of railing and stanchions...

by **Gordon Bjorklund** » Sun Dec 29, 2013 3:33 pm

Steven,

You have a great start to your Yorktown/Hammann dio going there. HIstory you can model.
I'm looking forward to more progress pictures.

by **Guest** » Sun Dec 29, 2013 5:10 am

Hi, Taskforce. I guess that would be the easiest to do, because most of the deck pictures are taken on that day. I took care to admister the starboard side of Yorktown with .50 guns, as seen on the most famous picture of the island of cv-5.

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1/700 Tamiya CV-5 Yorktown and USS Hammann diorama

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