Been visiting this site for awhile now and now have enough material on my build I can start posting something. This is the first time I have used styrene as a building medium.
I served on the Takelma from 72-75 home ported in Pearl Harbor. I started this project with a prebuilt fiberglass hull and basic deck house. Knowing what I now know I would have built my own. Since I had already bought them I am using them.
First steps were cutting off the molded bulwarks as they were to thick for scale and adding bilge keels and building the rudder.
Made some mounts with a temporary build board. Used some .060 styrene for the main deck.
I think you will like working with plastic over Fiberglass.
I would advise to keep on a lookout for 1/96 scale parts. Everything seems to be in short supply these days. From Kits to paint, AM parts to Testors Glue, times are tough all over.
I will be following along. Thanks for Posting this.
At first I thought her an unusual project for a Warship forum BUT she had guns!My kind of Tug.
Nino, As far as I know she is still part of the Argentine navy. I have purchased a number of 1/96 printed parts but I have had to make changes to the few I have used.
Well after finding a drawing of the Ellis anchor I was able to make up a pair.
After which I was able to build the bill boards that held them and even than it took me about 5 tries to get them right.
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I am currently looking for Hi-Viz hull numbers and letters for this build. I know Hawk's graphics has the hull numbers and are working on hull letters. Does anyone else make hull letters in 1/96 scale? Printing them myself is most likely above my pay grade.
If you can't find the correct size letters and numbers here is a trick I learned many years ago.
I needed silver letters of a particular font and size, but no one made them. However, I did find some black rub-on letters that were the right font and size size. But those things are thick and just don't look right.
So I painted the surfaces silver and placed the rub-on letters after the paint dried. Then I sprayed on the normal surface color (black in this case), including over the rub-on letters. After the paint dried I used masking tape to lift off the rub-ons and I had silver letters of the desired font and size. Furthermore, because it was all paint, there was no shiny outline like decals or raised surface of the rub-ons. Unlike decals, the paint doesn't turn yellow with age. The letters won't peel off with time like rub-ons. And a clear overcoat isn't needed.
They are the best letters I have ever used on a model!
Phil
A collision at sea will ruin your entire day. Aristotle
Well It's about time I posted a update on my project. I have been working on it but very slowly. The first picture is of the boat davit and only took me 5 tries to get things correct
. Still have a few things to add to it. Some other pictures of the project.
Nice job on the winches! On several projects I used my stencil cutter machine (Cricut like, but a different brand) to produce appropriate numbers and lettering. It was able to get draft marks down to 1:144 scale. These could be used as press applies or as stencils to get paint on numbers such as Phil describes.
