To be fair, the absolute last thing I needed was another ship project on the go, but I got talked in to it through a Facebook group I co-admin which initiated a group build themed on the Battle of the Atlantic. Being an admin, I thought it bad form not to join in, but realised that finishing a ship would be good for me so decided a fresh start with lowered aspirational standards might actually help.
I therefore took a bit of a detour on the way home from Duxford in July and dropped in at Hannants in Lowestoft. In retrospect, there are postal companies available which would have saved an enourmous amount of time droning down mile after mile of the dullest roads in Britain, but never mind.
Monday 1st August - sprayed decks C01 Teak, washed with Tamiya IJN Deck Tan then Tamiya Earth Brown by brush, then a final wash of sprayed thinned Colourcoats ACRN10 Dark Earth. Steel decks masked and sprayed RN01 507A Dark Grey
Tuesday 2nd - Steel decks masked and sprayed RN01 507A Dark Grey. Brush painted bits, ventilators, turret barbettes etc on the decks. That was boring enough. Sawed the lower hull in half. Fixed the B turret barbette.
Wednesday 3rd - Glued the hull back together and filled with Squadron green putty. Spent the modelling time that evening with my youngest daughter who wanted to do some of her Airfix Hurricane.
Thursday 4th - Sanded the hull join, sprayed hull RN03 507C then masked for RN10 WA White, finally masking over the WA White and spraying the B5. Demasked, and left it to harden.
Friday 5th - Masked and sprayed RN06 MS3, then masked and sprayed RN04 MS1. Demasked, went and got a beer.
Saturday 6th - had to go to B&Q to buy materials for Sovereign's new paint shop (we're taking lid spraying and tinning in house) - had to build an extractor, loads of shelving and do some wiring etc. Masked and sprayed RN19 Anti-fouling red and then C02 Black for the boot topping. Added some superstructure at the stern and painted MS3 and MS1 camouflage.
Sunday 7th - Added B5 to rear superstructure, sprayed the aviation hangar interiors C03 White and assembled other superstructure above. Made a mess with some Styrofoam and PVA glue!
It's the Trumpeter 1942 boxing. The mouldings are quite nice on the face of it:
I raided the stock room for White Ensign Models PE747 to go with, and also got some brass barrels, masts and yardarms from Master to go with.
The Group Build kicked off on 1st August.
Being Trumpeter, it doesn't take too long to find an issue. The upper and lower hull halves are different lengths. Just blending in the prow or stern didn't seem clever as the torpedo bulges don't line up either.
Anyway, I set about spraying the deck. All paints are my own, perhaps/hopefully obviously.
I started removing moulded ladders which will be replaced by photo etched parts later.
The moulding on B turret barbette shows poorly aligned tooling.
I decided it would be easier to just sacrifice the ventilators to get the barbette cleaned up properly
Then I replaced them with Evergreen strip.
I intended to display this model in a seabase, but I just don't feel right about using waterline plates, so I decided to address the hull, by sawing it in half.
The width of the razor saw blade almost cured the alignment issue, and some wet and dry on a flat, hard surface did the rest. The halves were rejoined and glued to the upper half.
The seam was filled and sanded
The hull was then sprayed 507C thinned with cellulose thinner for maximum drying speed, then masked with Maskol before painting on Western Approaches White and B5.
After a day out at proper work I remasked and got the MS1 and MS3 colours on.
The hull camouflage was completed:
Then the underwater hull was painted in the Royal Navy's anti-fouling red colour and the boot topping painted on.
Building up superstructure prior to camouflaging it:
I took a break and painted the Walrus cockpit areas (not the glazing!!) black and the rest of the fuselage silver. When the Dark Slate Grey/Extra Dark Sea Grey goes on later, this gives a sort of illusion of not being a solid blob of plastic.
I made a start on a sea base. This is my first attempt at this particular technique.
And a wee bit more superstructure assembly and I called it a night.
Monday night was a bit of a disappointment. I started off by giving the sea base another lick of PVA. I think it might work, but it's going to take a few coats.
I then set about the rear superstructure, looking to build that up and get on with some PE. I then promptly broke the mainmast parts when trying to pick them up!
I did try gluing it back together, but that was a disaster. It broke again. The plastic seems really brittle, or maybe I'm having a bad night. Who knows ... ?
Philosophically, I believe it's better to not try and fail, than to try hard and still fail only now you're knackered and everyone can see that despite your best efforts you've still stuffed it up. So I gave up and got the brass tube out of the drawer.
I measured the hole spacing on the kit part the tripod mast sits on and copied it by drilling plasticard and using blutac to generally frown upon movement.
A replacement mainmast was fabricated thus, only when I soldered the brass starfish platform on I managed to get it about 15deg askew in planform so had to desolder it melting all the solder and re-kitting the whole mast etc etc etc. Long story short, I've wasted the whole night making a mast. And it doesn't even have the Yagi aerial on it yet. :hanging:
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Thanks to the mods for moving the thread too - I realised soon after starting it that it was in the wrong place. Ahem ...
