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PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2022 1:34 am 
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Hello:

I finally did scrape the hatches off with a scalpel blade x-acto, then glued back on just the hatch part. But now given the photo that Matt posted, I might put the 'border' back on around the hole in the deck. With just the hatch sticking up on it's own, it looks like there are 8 tiny tomb stones on the hangar deck...

While waiting for the new airbrush hose to arrive, I had a go at the fo'c'sle. I needed to use the extra magnifying lens to get all of the tiny hand wheels and such in place. At least everything made it down onto the deck and didn't go PLINK out of the tweezers. How folks do this in 1/700 scale is beyond me.

One short comment about the bitts...and whether I'm doing them right. There is a bit of a nub on the bottom of the bitt that looks like it should be left on, so I've left that nub on. To get it to sit flush, I then have been drilling holes in the deck after I glue down the rectangular plate at the base of the bitts. I've got nearly all of the bitts on now, so I guess it's a bitt moot at this point as to whether I've been doing them right.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2022 1:40 am 
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Hello:

One more bitt about bitts. There are a pair of bitts to be added in the aft 'boat pockets', near the boat cranes. There's also a semi-circular D-shaped part to add near the base of the crane. To get the D-shaped part flush with the deck, I attached the top to a piece of tape, then taped it in place. The tape helps ensure that the top of the D-shaped part is flush with the hangar deck and not tilted. The pencil marks are there (at the fore and aft edges of the D-shaped part) to help be get it center fore/aft. I then I flipped the hull over and glued it in from below. There are also 3 braces added on the bottom side too. I think I got good alignment, a flush surface, and no visible glue.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2022 7:54 am 
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Location: Belgium
Great work! :thumbs_up_1:

What glue do you use for those large PE deck sections like the forecastle?


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2022 1:14 pm 
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Location: New Jersey
Yes, very nice work

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"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

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2022 5:27 pm 
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marijn van gils wrote:
Great work! :thumbs_up_1:

What glue do you use for those large PE deck sections like the forecastle?


Hello:

I've just been using regular superglue that I get from the craft store. It comes in little tubes about the size of a AAA battery. That seems to be about as far as I can get before the glue inside hardens on its own. I slather a bunch of CA on the back of the part and put it on. Then I wick more CA into the edges using dabs of CA on my facto blade to 'seal' the edges.

There is the problem of how to get the part aligned since the CA glue sets very fast. Here's what I do:

1) Without any glue, I dry fit the part (nice side up, glue side down) and get it positioned just how I want it.
2) Each of these big parts has a straight side. I tape the part down to the deck using that straight side only; roughly half of the tape on the PE part and half on the deck
3) Lift up the un-taped side of the PE part. It should open like a door, with the tape acting like a hinge.
4) Slather CA glue on the bottom side (which is now facing you).
5) Close the door, and push down all over the PE part to get good contact.

This technique has worked really well for me on this project. The alignment of the big PE parts has been pretty much dead on each time.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2022 3:43 am 
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Location: Belgium
Many thanks Mike!

That tape trick is so simple, but I hadn't thought of it... Brilliant! :thumbs_up_1:


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PostPosted: Fri Nov 04, 2022 12:25 am 
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Hello:

The airbrush is back in action, which means that I can start priming things. I primed the hangar deck, the fo'c's'le and stern decks, the underside of the aft flight deck, and the brass assemblies at the '4 corners'. By that I mean the outer walls of the hangar deck abreast of the fore and aft elevators, where there are the big sets of roller doors. Things looked kind of nice all shiny and brassy, and now things are just gray and it all sort of blends with the lowly plastic.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Fri Nov 04, 2022 12:31 am 
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Hello:

Since the hangar deck was primed, it was also then painted. I just found a dark neutral looking gray that was about as dark as the deck blue. I masked the elevator wells, as I'll paint that white. After the wells are painted, I'll put in the auxiliary elevators, railings, and the hydraulic elevator shafts, then there will be a lot of touch-up painting to do. To me, painting the hangar deck is kind of a big deal, as that was necessary to unlock a lot of other things, like adding the walls around the hangar deck.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Tue Nov 22, 2022 8:49 pm 
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Location: Hoover, Alabama
Looks fantastic! Great job!

Kelley

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 22, 2022 11:35 pm 
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Hello:

Here's a picture of the area around the aft elevator well. The fore well looks about the same. I made an auxiliary elevator, the hydraulic lifts for the main elevator, and railings. Since this area is always in the shadows and will be hard to see, I'm calling it good enough.

I'm still on the fence as whether to add some details to the walls around the elevator well. The kit walls are plain (aside from some doors that ought not to be there).

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2022 12:39 am 
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Hello:

I also built the 40 mm gun tubs. For some reason, the diameter of my tubs came out a wee bit smaller than what the good people at Pontos expected. Thus, the rings that fit inside the tubs wouldn't fit. The solution is to cut out a section of the ring and squeeze it in the tub. The slight squeeze helps to hold the rings in place as I glued them in.

The second picture shows the two front tubs. The white rod is just to help keep the upper tub centered over its base. I'll eventually do something similar for the others.

Cheers
Mike


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PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2022 7:51 am 
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Location: New Jersey
Love the auxiliary elevator and the racks for the 40mm gun tubs. I have not tried adding those racks to any of my builds, but they look terrific!

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"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


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PostPosted: Wed Nov 30, 2022 12:02 am 
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Hello:

For no particular reason, I felt like making some boat cranes. Well, I was working on the catwalks in the area, and there's a fixture on the under side of the catwalk that supports the crane. At any rate, here it is. I primed and painted the inside before assembly so that there wouldn't be any shiny brass showing through the holes in the crane. I'm pretty happy with how they came out.

You may notice a gap between the fixture above the crane and the catwalk above that. At the time the picture was taken, I was doing a test fit to make sure that the crane would fit into the hole in the deck and the hole in the fixture when the fixture was in the right place. It all fit ok, so I glued the fixture to the bottom of the catwalk. Both cranes are done, so it's time to move on to something else...

Mike


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 12:59 am 
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Hello:

Previously someone asked about how I glued down the large photo etched pieces. I recently glued down the part that goes under the front of the flight deck, and I took some pictures of the process.

Picture #1: The part is dry fit to the underside of the flight deck. Once I have it where I want it, I put a big piece of tape on the aft edge, as that's a long straight edge and it's adjacent to a large flat area where the tape can stick to. Use as big of a piece of tape as you can...that'll help keep the alignment from shifting of you.

Picture #2: I 'opened the door', folding the part back using the tape as a hinge. Slather a bunch of superglue on the PE part, then close the door quick! When I closed the door, I tried to press down starting from the aft edge and working my way forwards so that I wouldn't get any waviness.

Mike


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 1:10 am 
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Hello:

Attention then turned to the big girders that support the front flight deck. These slot together, and the fit is VERY precise. I slotted them together (as shown here), and THEN glued them down. In this picture, there is no glue holding anything together, they're just slotted together and resting on the flight deck. I needed to sand inside some of the slots to get enough clearance, and even then it was a snug fit.

If I followed the directions, which appears to suggest glueing down the length-wise girders and then adding the cross-wise girders, I wouldn't have been able to get things to fit. I've run into that problem elsewhere with the Pontos set. I just can't glue the parts down accurately enough to get the slots to all align. The only way I've been able to get it to fit is to slot them together and then glue.

In other news, parts A15, A17, and A22 are mislabeled in the instructions. The space between the cross-wise girders are all a bit different, so there's only one space where each fits well, so it's easy to figure how where they ought to go. Also, parts A61 in the instructions are actually D61 (these are box like things that go between the flight deck and the fo'c'sle deck).

Mike


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 14, 2022 5:06 pm 
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Hello:

The time is rapidly approaching to decide what color to paint the ship. I mixed some paint (I use mostly Vallejo these days) to match the deck blue color chip from Snyder & Short, which is pretty much the same as 5-N. I made a little paint card using my deck blue and a number of other bluish-grays to see which I like best. I think that just straight 5-N might look too dark, and it'll be hard to see details on the ship. However, the areas that I've airbrushed so far are a bit lighter than the brush painted paint card, so maybe it'll be ok. Maybe I just need to start painting, see how it looks, and go from there.

One alternative is to use 70.903 Intermediate Blue, which I've been using as the Ocean Gray 5-O on the 1/200 Missouri. I think that's too light, and it'll look really weird with the models of the Missouri and Big E being the same color when they clearly weren't.

Mike


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PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2022 5:08 pm 
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Hello:

I had a go at painting the '4 corners' of the kit. I was afraid that the 5-N would look too dark, but I think it came out ok. After the whole model is painted, I might give it a dusting of haze gray to lighten it a bit and reduce the contrast. Things might look a bit different once the whole thing is painted, so we'll just have to see.

Mike


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PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2022 5:19 pm 
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Hello:

Before I start gluing on the hangar deck walls (for lack of a better term), I thought it'd be good to finish major hull work. Unfortunately, that opened up a can of worms. Careful inspection of photos showed that the sponsons for the hangar deck catapult were gone. Apparently they were removed in mid-42, a little after Midway. Out came the razor saw, clippers, and files, and within a few minutes they were off.

Another thing that I noticed recently a problem with the roller shutter tracks on the front port corner. For the front thin vertical photo etch bit, its bottom was hanging in mid air outboard from the edge of the hangar deck. So, I added a little shim of sheet plastic to widen the hangar deck by maybe 1 mm, right in front of the sponson (no longer there). Now the bottom of that part isn't hanging in mid air, and has something to attach to.

Mike


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PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2022 5:26 pm 
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Hello:

Regarding hull work, I also want to add the degaussing cables. As before, close inspection of photos showed that just about all of the hull port holes were gone. There were still a few under the aft 5" guns, and maybe immediately below the front 5" guns, but that's about it. The pictures at Pearl Harbor in May '42 show a lot of portholes just below the degaussing cable, but in late '42 they don't seem to be there. So, out came the putty and a lot of little holes were filled. The kit portholes under the front 5" guns are very elliptical, so they were filled and will be drilled out circular.

Mike


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 30, 2022 1:05 am 
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Hello:

Work is nearly done on the underside of the front flight deck overhang. I think it's safe to say that there are well over 100 photo etched parts in here. At this point, there are just the catwalks to add. I've got the starboard side catwalk on, but the rest (I think there are ~5 more) haven't been put on yet.

Mike


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