The Ship Model Forum

I've just seen the review of the Aosima Ark on this site: looks fine but the Blackburn aircraft are Skuas not Rocs. The Spitfires on Sprue Z do look poor - like the old ones on the postwar carriers, but the ones on the Wasp are far better - just not enough!

Thanks for the correction on the aircraft. When I wrote the review they looked to resemble Rocs. I am not as acquainted with Royal Navy ships/aircraft as I am with their American counterparts, so please forgive me.

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-Abram
ModelWarships Gallery Page
Joslin Models Facebook Page

No pain, just a minor correction. The Roc was a Skua with a 4-gun turret (ok and a minor change to the wingtips) so confusions are understandable. The Skua was much more widely used. The Roc being a fighter that was slower and shorter-ranged than the Skua made its career very short.

It doesn't say on the review about whether the dimensions/scale of the kit is correct.

We all know what happened with Aoshima's 1/733 Wasp and Tamiya's 1/719 Yorktown class CVs.

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"Haijun" means "navy" in Mandarin Chinese.

"You have enemies? Good. It means you stood up for something in your life."- Winston Churchill

Hi all.

I have just preordered my copy of the Merit 1:350 Ark Royal and was hoping some of you may be able to point me in the direction of some good reference material

Thanks

J

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On the Ways:
1/350 Merit Ark Royal
1/700 Aurora & E-Class
1/600 Airfix Fearless

Ok time to bring this thread to the top and get it going with the release of the new 1/350 kit.


Got some questions. I notice many older models paint the flight deck in a drab green colour. Is this correct? I have doubts about it and would suspect the flight deck would likely have been painted in a dark admiralty grey.

Second question the carley floats on the side many models depict them in a shade of yellow. This colour flies in the face of keeping the floats the same colour as the ship.

Obviously modelling the ship to a specific period will be hard given the producers have selected 1939. There may be changes in 1941 for Bismarck action.

It appears the colours of the ship may have originally been the light admiralty grey 507C, with the dark hull light upper works being 507B and 507C and then the medium grey being 507B.

What reference material is good to seek out for modelling and painting this ship.

Ark Royal's flight deck would have been Bronze-Grey (you won't find it in Colourcoats - John had not heard of it)

Colourcoats is going to need that sharpish.

Edit: I intend to make some up to that formula and see what we get. All of that is easy to get hold of.

Can anyone help me with the Ochre Pattern 52a though? It's the dominant component and ochre can be anything from red to yellow which will make a huge difference. Anyone know where I can get more information of the Pattern 52a part?

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James Duff
Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151

I agree, I am lucky enough to still have a supply of colourcoats in Australia to get me by. Hoping that some day they will be supplied back out here. If the paint has a code then it is easy to make up.

Example I once went to my local hardware store to have tins made up of paints to the Australian Standard of storm grey and pewter which were used on RAN ships I served on. I had to get 1 litre tins.

Re. Australia - there are developments in that direction, which will also supply NZ based customers.


As above - any steer or documentation to elaborate on Ochre Pattern 52a would be greatly appreciated.

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James Duff
Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151

Pattern 52A Ochre was described as "Ochre Yellow English" in the 1931/32 Authorised List of Naval Stores (The Rate Book).

Please note however that the formula specified for Bronze-Grey in the 1937 Rate Book listing (see below) subsequent to the 1934 AFO I posted previously is modified to Pattern 52P "Ochre Yellow". Looking at the mixes specified for other paints then, it looks as if 52P replaced 52A across the board.



Either way I think we can safely assume that it was a yellow ochre and yellow ochre is I think a standard pigment still available today from artists stores. What you get following the mix would I guess be a dirty sea green sort of colour and would perhaps explain the green on older models Sutho refers to.

Early in WW2 (AFO 2859 of 28/9/39) the RN authorised a commercial non-slip deck paint in lieu of AP631. This was available in dark grey, light grey, Home Fleet Grey, bronze-grey and black.

I think it is fair to assume that carriers carried on using bronze-grey otherwise why would the Admiralty have made it available in the new non-slip deck paint?

That's perfect - thanks Dick. I am off to order all the ingredients. I shall report back when I have made some Admiralty Bronze Grey!

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James Duff
Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151

When you get an idea of what it looks like can you please post photos here.

Unfortunately I have no idea what those mixes are and I have absolutely no idea about the imperial measuring system so it is like a foreign language to me reading that description.

As far as painting the ship goes I would be confident to assume that the decks that are not the flight deck would be in the standard RN colours and quite possibly AP507A the Dark Admiralty Grey.

The zinc white pigment is on backorder so there will be a short delay in making up this AP631, but as soon as it arrives (10-14 days apparently) we'll get on it.

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James Duff
Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151

Hi Guys,
Just a quick update, I have had the Merit 1/350 HMS Ark Royal on reserve since it was announced around January.
Am in NO hurry for it, & sure it will come out in a few weeks or so, Just that most other Merit releases are already out or on back order?
If there are issues with it I am sure it will get sorted, hopefully the various etch suppliers won't be far behind.

Rgds

Peter H
Sydney, AU

I hope the PE suppliers are quick to get a set out for this 1/350 scale kit.

Just one other issue I discovered with the kit. The model only appears to have the yagi style antenna director for the AA guns. Going off photos of the ship these directors were never on the ship at all. Can anyone correct me or comment on this one.

How could I look up these forumlas on a British Standard paint chart and what chart like RAL, BS2660, BS4800 or BS5252?

I am keen to see how this colour looks

Paints used by the British Services in WW2 were not British Standard colours, although some of them can be identified in BS381C 1931. I believe that 507C was Light Battleship Grey, and 507A was Dark Battleship Grey. The names, and I presume the shades, have been retained in BS2660. However, Bronze Grey was not one of these.

Thanks. It is only the bronze grey I am interested in deciphering from the above ingredients in that photo Dick posted. I already have a decent supply of colour coats but as we have established the Bronze Grey the RN used has never been produced by colour coats. The new owners are working on it now but as I am in Australia at the present stage I have no chance of getting any more colour coats.

Paints like Dryers terebine, oil linseed boiled and white spirit to mix together to get the colour are a complete mystery to me.

It will be easy for me to go to a hobby store and get some black paint and some ochre yellow paint and mix it together and come up with a green looking colour but I am hoping to get as close as possible for this model.

We're hoping to send a load of paint to Australia pretty soon

I'll post up some images once I've made this AP631 stuff. The zinc white pigment was out of stock so it'll probably be after the Scottish Nationals (in the original Perth ) before it gets made up. The driers and linseed oil are here already.

_________________
James Duff
Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151