The Ship Model Forum

Thought I'd put together a tutorial on how to get your Veteran Bofors together... especially for folks who are new to the game. They look scary but they are actually buildable by mere mortals and make a HUGE difference in the detail level of 1/200 ships... well worth the investment for your "ultimate" Missouri, Iowa, Nelson or other Allied WW2 era warship. I'm gonna go WAY in depth here... most of this stuff will be helpful for general photo etch work as well. Feel free to chime in with questions and ideas!





Here's the stuff I'll be I'll be using to get 'em together:



Step 1 is to get the guns ready:



Normally you would never want to just bend a piece right off the sprue but this is one situation where it's OK. Push down on the front of of the receiver... they will cleanly snap right off every time and the seam is underneath where it can easily be cleaned off and not seen anyway. Do this because the resin is fairly brittle; the receiver is molded at an odd angle and you risk breaking off those 2 tiny nubs on the back of the receiver or the other parts on the sprue if you remove them the normal way.



Next, clean off the seam and hit the barrel holes with a twist drill... the brass barrel base male connecting piece is too long to fit into the receiver as-is.



A quick note about gluing... I like to use CA (plain old supermarket "superglue") which I apply by making a little puddle of it and applying it in microscopic drops with an old sharp clay modeling needle ( because it's chromed and I can easily scrape off dried glue over and over again to keep it clean and precise.



Next, I glue the barrels in, making special effort to get them straight both vertically and horizontally. The reason for drilling them (instead of cutting the male insert shorter like the instructions suggest) becomes apparent here... it's A LOT easier to get them in clean and straight this way. Another note... if your ship had all black barrels you could skip this until last and paint the barrels separately.



Next comes the half-circle elevator mechanism...



They will not fold straight on their own, you've gotta fold them against the other side while clamping that side down with something. Here I use my blunt end tweezers in the role.



Make a tiny line of CA down the middle of the receiver bottom and stick the elevator mechanism on. All right, step 1 finished! No, I didn't forget the 40mm rounds themselves... put those in last, after painting. You can leave them out altogether and be accurate too, unless you are portraying your gun(s) at battle stations.

Next up, the gun mount base...

_________________
-Jason Channell

Current Project: 1/200 Bismarck

Next come the doors/shields on the front of the mounts... this is optional depending on what you're building and/or your concern for accuracy, but I would recommend doing it if you're not sure because doorless quads look a bit TOO detailed to my eyes and that might actually work against you on a finished ship... if the rest of your model isn't up to that level of detail the quads will stick out like a sore thumb.

Anyway, carefully scrape off the detail surface with a chisel xacto blade... look out for all that easy to damage/break off detail around the sides of the mounts and take your time.



Then glue the doors/shields on. Use CA... Tamiya plastic cement doesn't like Veteran resin and won't melt it for a good bond.



Next put the rail on the back of the gun... again be careful as it's delicate and make your folds against some kind of clamping device. The fold points are etched out so it's not too hard but it's easy to mess them up otherwise.







After that comes the semi-circular shell chutes. It just so happens that a xacto knife handle is the perfect size for shaping them (don't be dumb like me and leave the blade in while you do it though!) although any round object of similar circumference will work too.

Hold the PE piece parallel to the rod on one end with you thumb and just roll your finger across the PE...







... and glue em on. Notice there is a little "T" joint on one side of the PE, that goes up!



Now, here's how to get the crew chairs on without going crazy... install them upside down from the instructions:



I think this is a mistake on Veteran's part... the folds are on the wrong side of the PE and the foot pedals consequently break off too easily. Instead, put the circle in the seat down... it matches the corresponding molded resin spot where you glue the seat on and the real guns didn't have big circles in the seats either.



Fold up the backrest only, then glue them on.



You will have to trim the side strut a little on the right seat (in the picture), BTW... dry fit first! It's easily cut to length with a razor blade.

After the glue has cured, you can then bend the footrest up and push the footrest bar down to the proper angle...



Next on the list are the elevation cranks... you would be forgiven if you passed on them because they are the definition of tiny fiddly PE:



But if you do, you might be called a "wimpy little girl" when your ship is on display at IPMS NATS.

they aren't as scary as they look... jut bend them the right way (fold in from the etched folding line, although the crank handle needs to fold the other way)



Don't forget the little center step:



And now the shield:

This one is a bit tricky to fold... you have to clamp it or you will mess up the front of the shield (the thin strips between the edge and the outside sight channels won't bend right.

If you don't have a PE clamp, you can use a safety razor held down into the etched bending line while lifting up on the side piece:



... then make the second bend on the side piece:



do the other side and glue on the central crossbraces:



Finally, glue the shield to the mount at the etched side tabs, 1 side at a time:





Final round, coming up...

_________________
-Jason Channell

Current Project: 1/200 Bismarck

All that's left are the sights and cooling tubes... here we go!

First we install the guns we built earlier... I've never seen quad bofors with the two twin guns pointed different directions so I'm pretty sure they are tied together and should be glued in at the same elevation. Otherwise, it's your choice where you point 'em.



The sights are particularly nasty to get on... probably the biggest pain in this whole assembly. The big things to remember are that the long pointy piece where they mount to the guns goes forward, the oxbow goes down and the sights go up. They also don't swap between right and left pieces so work on both sides at the same time to make sure you make a pair of correct opposites. Let me illustrate...

What you start with:



First bend... pointy thing aiming with the gun barrels and oxbow down:



Next section flat w/sights to be put up:



And sights up:



Same concept, different fold directions for the other side:



Please note this is a couple bends less than Veteran's instructions, but the fact is that every superflous bend gets you closer to breakage and they just aren't necessary. I glue them on at this point since they are so tiny and fragile that they're likely to poof out of existence like a Higgs-Boson particle if you look away for even a second...



...and then fold the sight cages (get them half circular by folding them around a 1/16" drill bit like we did earlier with the empty shell ramps):



... and glue them on to the flat portion of the sight bar we made. Also, glue the cooling tubes on; you'll have to pull them out like pulling on a wishbone to get them to fit, btw.



The last thing to do is add the ramp ends for the expended shells:



They go on last because they are incredibly brittle and are likely to get broken as you wrangle the other parts if they are put on earlier in the build. Line them up with those curved PE ramps as they are supposed to be the ends of 'em.



And there you have it! Only 9 more to go!

Hope this help you guys and gives new builders a leg up on becoming a future photo etch wizard. It's not easy stuff but it IS rewarding!

_________________
-Jason Channell

Current Project: 1/200 Bismarck

Very informative guide! Thanks for taking your time to take pictures and post them! Now, I realised I cannot tackle a 1/200 build now...

Aop

_________________
On the way:
--1/350 Tamiya DKM Tirpitz Nov 1944

--1/350 scratch-build HMS Lion never built battleship (1938)

And our artworks!

Hi Jason,

Sorry to resurrect this posting but the photos are no longer visible. Have you posted it somewhere else where the photos are still there or do you have a pdf. copy? This sounds like it would e invaluable to producing these little mind twisters.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Chris

I too 'second' this interest.