The Ship Model Forum

Hello everybody,
this'll be one of my first ship models (to date I have started some destroyers but never finished a ship yet...), so for me this'll be a pioneering expedition as I'm normally used to 1/48 and 1/32 aircraft!

If you see something that's not accurate, please let me know. If I cannot correct it anymore, it's at least recorded for posterity if in the future someone might stumble over this thread after searching for info on Casablanca class CVE's, for example!
If you think that there are better or more effective ways to tackle things during the build, please don't hesitate to post it! The more I can learn, the better!


As for the kit of Gambier Bay, I chose to tackle this one first, since the photo-etch on Akagi seemed a bit of a handful for a first carrier! As carriers go, this one seemed to be relatively straightforward. I'll incorporate the two Hasegawa PE-sets too.

The ship in real life in port, April 1944:


Source: Navsource.org

Also April 1944. Camouflage is Measure 32, Design 15A:

Source: Navsource.org

The island as it appeared in July 1944:

Source: Navsource.org

Next to the PE, that Measure 32, Design 15A frightens me most!

Anyway, I found out that I can build the ship as basically 3 sub-assemblies: 1. hull, 2. deck with catwalks and 3. island superstructure. A lot of fine details/extras will be kept off until after painting.

So starting with the hull it was just a case of putting the two halves together with the bulkheads in between. That gave no problems but somehow a gap remained on the keel. I decided to fill that with thick superglue. As you can see the technique used in the CSI TV-series to retrieve fingerprints with cyano-acrylate actually works!





I found it impossible to put in the afterdeck without some gaps at the stern. The bulwarks at the foredeck showed some circular punchmarks from the molds, something that can also be found in abundance in Hasegawa's aircraft models. These just have to be dealt with as they're unavoidable in the plastic molding industry. I chose to scrape them away with a scalpel between the stiffeners. In hindsight I think it would've been better to just sand those bulwarks thinner towards the top and make new stiffeners from plastic card. Oh, well, the front overhang of the flight deck sits quite low, so it shouldn't be too obvious that the bulwarks are as thick as the walls of a medieval castle!

The front corners of the hangar structure showed some gaps that I filled with very thin plastic strips. I think this works better than any possible filler solution. I did the same with the above mentioned gaps between afterdeck and stern.





The bulwark around the 5-inch gun position is of course way too thick if you calculate the thickness of the plastic part to 1/1 scale but I didn't feel like making my own from plastic card. On the other hand, getting rid of the seam at the base took enough time that I comfortably could have made two from card!!





The seam along the length of the hull took some time because small dimples were found in the sanded seam that had to be filled with Mr. Surfacer. I used #1000, but the jar is so old that it has thickened to about #500 by now! The hull sported also two vertical mold seams that had to be sanded off. All this without damaging the raised plating detail. I couldn't save it everywhere but happily enough I was successful in most cases.







Tomorrow some more.
Cheers, Erik.

Off to a good start!

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Thank you, Martin!
The flight deck is pretty straightforward. One of the more important things is to check that the seam at the top isn't too large.

Although quite visible unpainted and under this lighting, I'm sure it won't be (too) visible when painted and weathered:



It's quite a sturdy construction:



The undersides of the overhangs feature quite some punch marks. I elected to scrape them away with a scalpel although after test-fitting the flight deck on the hull, I doubt if the punch marks would be visible at the front end.





This is how it looks with the spars and stringers (are these the right names for these parts in ship speak?) straight from the box:





Under the flight deck, one has to assemble the enclosed gangways that lead to the catwalk and gun pits. On my model, I couldn't prevent a rather hefty seam. My only solution was to once again fill them with some styrene strip. It makes for detail that wasn't there in real life, but other methods of filling the seam would destroy the stringer detail underneath. And besides; I understand the model isn't 100% accurate to begin with!



In real life -as can be seen from the photos of the real ship- the indentations were holes. On one side of the parts most of the indentations also feature the ubiquitous punch marks! So: the parts need to have the holes drilled! Two challenges: the indentations aren't always exactly lined up on both sides, and the ovals can complicate matters... Over-confident, I started with the spar for the rear end with a 12V motor drill. The holes were all over the place! You either have to do this job very carefully and slowly with a hand drill or with a modelling milling machine. As my good friend Huub owns the latter I turned to him to educate me and help me out! These parts are not glued yet, only fitted to each other and the deck to give you an idea how it will turn out.



And the rear overhang with the newly manufactured spar:




This ends the collection of photographs of the model's progress to date. For new pics I first have to progress some more. I'm still not sure if I'll start with painting the hull and add the PE, gun and other small details, or for the moment progress on the catwalks and gun tubs...

Cheers,
Erik B.

Looking good, nice attention to detail!

Cheers, Jabb

_________________
HMS Hood, the big one!

I used to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure.

Good start. I was considering purchasing one of these kits a few years ago but the price turned me off. Watching this build might just change my mind.

_________________
Never argue with an idiot, he will only drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

I will be watching with interest

_________________
Gabriel