Academy 1/350 USS Indianapolis w/ Pontos set

[LE BOSCO]

Hello Richard

the arrangement of your diorama is very nice !!I like
regards
Nicolas

[gborman]

Richard, hopefully it�s just the summer time commitments that�s keeping you from the build? Which is excellent by the way� Cheers!

[marijn van gils]

29.jpg

Ok, that looks much better than in the previous shot! The picture was deceiving me into thinking that there was much more space in front of the bow.
Please ignore my previous comment and leave it as it is!

Looking forward to updates on this build also btw!

Marijn

[RichardP]

Thanks folks.
My ship building enthusiasm took a bit of a bashing recently so I've been distracted by this:

At least it's navy (and there is a fabulous Edward PE set for it ). Then a couple weeks ago I dragged this out of the stash:

Also Navy but....

On the positive there has been a wee bit of progress. The upper 5" gun deck:

The only original part is the 'box' structure and that's been modified.
And then some assembly:

With all the decks being brass sheet replacement with stainless PE from Pontos, it was not easy to get it all lined up like that. The under-deck structure from above? Not so visible.....

And that, is my first ever aftermarket wood deck; used as the plank markings are very delicate and have a nice intersection between the planks and the edging strips.

The tripod legs are making this hard as I really want the join between the compound-angled legs and the surrounding structure to be seamless. With the decks being thin brass, filling is a real challenge.

Right now it's sitting to one side whilst I recover my enthusiasm to do the clean up and paint touch up. I feel it'll get going again soon.

[Angeliccypher]

On the positive there has been a wee bit of progress. The upper 5" gun deck:

30.jpg

The only original part is the 'box' structure and that's been modified.
And then some assembly:

31.jpg

Why the modification? Something wrong with it?

[RichardP]

Trivial things - the sides were slightly tapered (presumably to make it easier to pop out of the mold) so these were squared up, the corners were sharpened and it needed some extra height to cover the thickness difference between the original plastic deck and the new brass one (about 0.030").

[LE BOSCO]

Hello Richard

nice job ,the whole additions (pontos and yours) are very convincing
good choice for your infidelities
cheers
Nicolas

[RichardP]

"Infidelities"

[LE BOSCO]

"Infidelities"

yes Richard , "Infidelities" at warships for the seaking and the scooter
cheers
Nicolas

[RichardP]

This is probably my favorite style of building, when the ship is solidly mounted on an adjustable jig and I'm just adding as many or as few smaller bits as I feel like; both hands free to apply things, to glue, or fill, or paint, or sand without having to touch anything assembled.

[Dan K]

Nice work, Richard.

[RichardP]

Ticking along.....

[ModelMonkey]

Brilliant!

[Quincy]

Brilliant!

Agreed!




Bob Pink.

[RichardP]

Still trickling along.....

The director tubs on the bridge wings are all new from paper as the kit parts were, well, blergh. The fillets linking in the corners of the aircraft handling deck (presumably for stress relief) are from paper as well.

Things should speed up now (hopefully). I have this terror of fitting major assemblies wrong, so I trial fit, and trial fit, and tweak, and touch up paint, and trial fit, and trial fit for weeks before gluing; which usually takes about 5 minutes. Heh.

The (advanced?) Pontos set includes some photo etch masks for the anti skid plating which can only sensibly be used before assembling this much as the pattern extends under overhanging decks and the masks are one piece items. I didn't want to do detailed final painting before assembly so they're are not going to be used. Instead I've ordered some L'Arsenal decals (not the PE strips!) for this. If they aren't quite right I may resort to custom decals but that would be pricey.

If anyone wants the PE masks (nicely done in s/s), PM me.

And one 'infidelity' has been dispatched.

[J. Soca]

Beautiful details all around and i really love the way the hull is coming along



Jose

[MartinJQuinn]

Awesome looking build. Great details.

[RichardP]

Anti-slip Mats

The Pontos advanced detail set comes with some nice PE masks to spray anti-slip mats (the molded 'platforms' on the original parts are just not right), but these can only be used before assembly so got ruled out some time ago. Eventually I remembered I had some Testors decal sheet and decided to try home made decalling. This. Did. Not. Come. Easy.
About 6 weeks arsing (oops- wasted) around with inkjet printers etc etc etc I got somewhere OK with my laser printer instead. These pictures are probably the 15-20th attempt to get it right. These show just the initial decal application, there's still plenty that I can do to tidy things up before the end; it's all in gloss right now so just the application of dullcote will make a big difference....but if it looks good when shiny then, well, it's good.

The pad spacing has been increased as when I matched the spacing on the Pontos masks it just looked like black. This way it's more of an 'effect'.
Ever get so caught up on one thing on a build you refuse to do anything else on the side until you get there? Maybe that's just me. So the only other progress has been the main director mounts.

looking at these I see I'm going to have to revisit the rectangular viewing ports as they are not consistent between the two towers. Blurgh.

Build mojo remains elusive. Double Blurgh.

[Angeliccypher]

Your results are looking good. Having the same Pontos set I am not sure I understood why you were unable to use the stencils. Would you be willing to elaborate a bit for when I get to this build myself please? Also what was the pink stuff on the ladder rungs?

[RichardP]

Here's some scans of the Pontos etched stencils. Hopefully you can see that some of them would be impossible to place if the superstructure has already been assembled due to overhanging decks etc (outlined in red). I guess I could cut them up but it would still be difficult to airbrush neatly in all areas. With the mask being so fine I think you'd need to be spraying directly perpendicular to the surface to ensure sharp edges to the anti-slip pads; the mask would also need to be tight against the surface.
It also makes it apparent that I have changed the layout of the pads somewhat - I can add more at anytime, but at this stage I have focused predominantly on the areas around the gun mounts,

The pink stuff is actually the naked copper that the rungs are made from. The grey is Mr Surfacer that has been brushed on the fill the slightly oversized holes that the rungs are stuck into.