The Ship Model Forum

Thank you to our customers for your great patience and trust in the 1:350 HMVS Cerberus! We highly recommend this small kit to warship model enthusiasts who are looking to start their first 3D-printed warship project. It's very beginner-friendly and an interesting kit to build!

If I am allowed a word of criticism: why have the deck-planks been marked with these deep ditches between them? In my opinion, this spoils an otherwise potentially interesting kit.

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Eberhard

Former chairman Arbeitskreis historischer Schiffbau e.V. (German Association for Shipbuilding History)

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@wefalck It is mostly because it's a prominent feature of the ship, if you take a look at any picture of even her current state, but we are always striving for improvement and currently the deck planking is one of those items under scrutiny.
Just as a way of comparison however, the grooves are 0.4 mm wide, and the model itself is very small for a 1/350 kit, roughly half the length of a Fletcher class destroyer. So they may look out of scale due to that as well.

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We can have all of the resources in the world and still get it wrong. Not out of any incompetence, it's just because of how difficult it is sometimes to implement a physical feature without having seen it with your own two eyes. - the Chieftain

Well, if you take 0.4 mm and multiply this with 350, you arrive at 140 mm, which presumably is about the width of the prototype planks. The seams on a real ship would be in the order of 10 mm wide and more or less flush with the planks (depending on temperature and humidity).

The more ambitioned modellers would have to fill in such grooves.

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Eberhard

Former chairman Arbeitskreis historischer Schiffbau e.V. (German Association for Shipbuilding History)

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You are probably correct, but we can't make a 10 mm plank gap in scale, it would just be non existent. We are probably going to refine it in future models to make it more realistic, but it's simply something we can't replicate in perfect scale.

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We can have all of the resources in the world and still get it wrong. Not out of any incompetence, it's just because of how difficult it is sometimes to implement a physical feature without having seen it with your own two eyes. - the Chieftain

The feedback above is absolutely on point.

You definitely can make gaps between planks less, to whatever is minimally allowed by printer. Currently it is too big, but Im sure in your new releases you will take care of it. Not hard and will improve model attractivness!

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- @Shipific on IG
my gallery

In 1:144 would scribing be an option compared to 3-D printing the planks? Providing a decent diagram or template for scribing might be useful in this case.

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Gernot Hassenpflug
Find out how it works, then functionality and limits

Honestly, we are not sure how to do that. Plus there are details already integrated in the deck which kind of make the process difficult (things like coal chutes, capstans etc.), so it would probably be more hassle than it's worth.

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We can have all of the resources in the world and still get it wrong. Not out of any incompetence, it's just because of how difficult it is sometimes to implement a physical feature without having seen it with your own two eyes. - the Chieftain