1/700 HMS Prince of Wales - April 1941 (COMPLETE)

[pascalemod]

Ive restarted the project but redoing the hull plating. Think it will be better that way.

What are you using for the new hull plating? That is looking really good! Can�t wait to see you put some paint on her.

Neither can I, I am now at that perilous junction of the build where I need to make 1) radars 2) decide how much to rebuild of the mast in brass bits 3) finish up railings 4) deal with the bloody 4002 ventilator pieces on the deck in 1/700 (honestly, paint them first, or install first and paint each by hand? - and deal with glue mess later?... not sure what Flyhawk means and this is exactly the type of stuff I wish was told to one before building to save time and frustration. Probably I paint them first, having said that.

Now for your tape question, I actually use Tamiya flexible masking tape that usually people use for aircraft camouflages. It seems not allow any kind of seepage under it, so you can get crisp lines and better adherence to hull's curvature. That bit for me is important.

Regarding the pattern I used hull drawings of Duke of York to replicate the plating and Im aware that may be some bits are wrong, but I think my emphasis willb e on a rather weathered lower hull (think discolored, not missing paint or rust) and Ill use pencils to weather it a little later. Will see, Im also eager to start painting as to me that is by far the most fun process. But I have 4-5 days to tackle the above tasks mentioned first.

[pascalemod]

Ive tackled most of the railings and scratch buiild the shields around UP launchers, added ladders here and there. In a word - tedious but thankfully due to detail levels the PE fret is quite small. Im adding as much PE as I can before painting. Lets see if this is a silly idea down the road!

[pascalemod]

The work on masts is the hardest bit I think.

Apologies for poor phone photos.

I used various sizing brass tubing to do the forward mast. I didn't have in my stash the right yardarms for at least the bigger piece, so this might look a little thick. Hopefully that's not too big of an issue, eh. Still, since this photo was taken I have discovered the correct yardarm - would you change this or keep it as is? Guess still not too late though making them straight when assembled will be a whole new level of madd

One of the photos shows why rebuilding the masts is necessary most of time. Too flimsy. Im keeping the supports on forward mast from plastic as they seemed relatively ok, but main mast ones are shot.

[pascalemod]

A dry fit of the masts to figure out if they sit right. Very very tricky part and IM stuck doing this little bit every day. Starfish supports need adding further. But she looks like a ship with them up and thats good.

[pascalemod]

Right, so lets continue this blog:

Got the main structures more or less done with all the PE that I could fit, main and secondary armament, plus few extra:
- built the PoW crest using gunsight on from PomPom PE set
- added ladders around the funnels
- added some extra railings on top of the main tower as they seemingly were omitted by FH
- cranes near searchlight from FH Hood set to replace plastic items that seem a little thick

I opted also on few visual cues to make the ship unique to me:
- it will have 2 Walruses - one in Hangar, one on deck
- I avoided having 2 hangar doors open, as my initial plan with fitting wings on the wall in hangar failed as the wings would not fit. It makes me wonder if 1) hangar inside is too small 2) walrus wings are too big 3) wings seen in hangar on pictures are NOT from Walrus (makes least sense). anyway, I closed one door, kept the other open as I will put the Walrus inside, while the other walrus will be on deck - as it would obscure one of the doors I decided to have it shut to display the cool look of the door instead.
- cranes will be in stowed position.
- forward radars will be pointing in different direction, but rear will be all facing aft.
- I also have left AA guns and radars off, but fitted pretty much everything on it and glued. I cant imagine gluing 50 different optical bits with superglue later. My idea is to paint all 507A and then use a black wash for decks to give it slightly darker tone, and dry brush the optical bits later with lighter color to make them stand out. Fingers crossed it works!

now the parts that you see photographed have been degreased and drying, ready for paint or primer (Im not sure I wanna prime and build up layers of paint but may be needed for PE.

[pascalemod]

She is primed on the main structures, cranes, turrets. I can now paint and weather then to prepare for masts. I can also focus finally on the deck fittings painting and installation, deck painting, hull, etc. Let's see where I end up, Im not sure on the order of painting and gluing:

1) Glue hull, deck, fixtures, PE railings - then Paint
2) Glue hull, deck, fixtures - then Paint, then add railings?
3) Glue hull, deck, paint it - then add prepainted fixtures one by one and railings?

Im really not sure which step to take.

Also, the main structure is a little wide on the botton but narrow at the top when you marry them. YOu can see on the last attached image. Im not sure how to fix that L-shaped identation, which is barely visible in real life. Should I try to do anything about it or count my losses and move on?

[MartinJQuinn]

I had a pause today but it is an excuse to bust out the light box and snap a few shot of the ship next to its Denmark Strait companions/adversaries.

Nice collection of models!

[pascalemod]

I had a pause today but it is an excuse to bust out the light box and snap a few shot of the ship next to its Denmark Strait companions/adversaries.

Nice collection of models!

Thanks. Im trying!

But Im sad to say im a bit stuck with those ventilators (100s of them) that Flyhawk wants me to install. I can drill for round mushroom ventilators, but the square legged ones? there are no square "holes". I need to remove ventilators and just glue in place on tiny thin legs these guys? It is just... so silly setup. IM not sure I get how to tackle this one...

[marijn van gils]

Excellent progress!

About the ventilators: I would just glue them to the deck with CA (gel type) and touch up with some matt varnish, like I would glue figures to a ship.
In fact, probably I would install them before painting and use plastic glue (if they are plastic?), but that's a personal choice of course.

[pascalemod]

Excellent progress!

About the ventilators: I would just glue them to the deck with CA (gel type) and touch up with some matt varnish, like I would glue figures to a ship.
In fact, probably I would install them before painting and use plastic glue (if they are plastic?), but that's a personal choice of course.

Since I dont have mask - which is a 5 dollar thing I might just buy it actually - I would also go that route, install all, paint all at once. I think it is not meant to be painted first and then added with CA glue, it would be so messy or at least wont stick well to painted deck. The mask seems to be necessary in a way. Hmm... thats actually an idea. I probably buy this 5 dollar mask, install all ventilators on clean deck, paint it, and then put mask on and paint again. Of course this might slow the build a lot, which I dont like. SHould have thought of that earlier.

Suppose in meantime I will paint and weather all superstructures, guns, build all small guns etc. Probably also weather the hull and leave deck unglued till last moment.

[pascalemod]

Ive added as many PE and resin ventilators as I could without going bonkers, and left a bunch I didnt add as spares. I assume Ill knock down a bunch later anyway by accident. I have also used bit of white glue to go through each and every one of them to add a little more strength to their tiny bases.

Here are some progress shots, the deck is finally glued in - I still need to add plastic ventilators as I apparently forgot about those. But at least they are pretty "big" in comparison. I ordered deck masking from Hunter so hopefully when that arrives I will handle the painting in one swoop motion.

[marijn van gils]

Those ventilators help a lot to make her decks looks nicely busy!
Good idea to strengthen the joints with white glue too...

[pascalemod]

Those ventilators help a lot to make her decks looks nicely busy!
Good idea to strengthen the joints with white glue too...

It seemed to have worked, because I broke only 3 while painting it.

Speaking of painting, here she is, no weathering except the hull that is beaten up from the sea trials on the bows mainly. Lower hull still mostly unweathered but its turn will come. If you zoom in you will see the hull plating on the lowerhull ever so slightly.

Few words on the boot topping. I chose to paint it above and below the hull break line. Some pictures have it fairly thin, others in dry dock in Rosynth a bit thicker. So I did 2mm tape above the hull break point and 0.8mm below hull break. It comes to what Tamiya shows on its 1/350 PoW which I own, and I reckon that will do nicely. If anything, to my eye it looks visually correct and a ship in service always sat lower so it kind of makes sense to me. If it is wrong - well, to me at least, it looks nicer.

[SovereignHobbies]

That looks good Pascal. Well done

[pascalemod]

That looks good Pascal. Well done

thanks, appreciate it!

I have started weathering the hull, by spraying red over with a mix of thinned beige-red-yellow-grey paint. This gives the hull this nice faded look. After that I used an AK hull streaks red wash, to make those hull plate details pop a bit.

Next I used watercolor pencil to highlight the hull plates a little bit (it is over exaggerated here for now but will be toned down), but there is more to do here as I just started it. I will post more pictures as I proceed. This is the most frustrated but also fun part.

[pascalemod]

Now here I have toned down some of the pencil marks and I think the lower hull is starting to look how I wanted it to look.

I had this faded look in mind, not terribly beaten up but still visually pleasing and interesting. Julian Seddon made a beautiful KGV back in 2013 and his lower hull weathering really spoke to me, so thats what I want to target with many of my ships. I have a PDF of his build so could look plenty at his model to get inspired.

Here you can see from afar it is looking fairly satisfactory (to my eye anyway). I dry fitted the superstructures may be 40 times by now for pictures.

[pascalemod]

Ive been going through boats recently (and my CASF thread shows as much). And in this case I cant even figure out which boats need to go where! More on that will be later.

Planes are another thing - again, in CASF i was looking to find out the colour fo this Walrus - settled on green-greys.
As you see, I have purchased a separate set of Walruses, and now my model will have proudly two of these little bugs! They are hardly my proudest effort, due to the supports for wings, which to me seem over-scale. I think no supports between wings would have been more to scale. Anyway, here they are, one Walrus to go into starboard hangar, with spare wings, wheels, etc. And another will go on the deck to the port side, facing starboard, with rails launch rails painting perpendicularly.

Now, here is very rough painting by hand. I will of course wash and weather them. Like I said, I am trying not to focus too much on them.

[marijn van gils]

That lower hull is starting to look good! The faded look is successful I think!

Biplane PE usually has both the (vertical) support struts and (diagonal) rigging between the wings together. I always wonder why, because the rigging always looks overscale indeed on such small items.
I think it would be best to add only struts in PE (or stretched sprue), paint the plane, and then add the rigging in the thinnest possible black stretched sprue. That last step would be optional, for the masochists amongst us...

[Martocticvs]

You can also get some incredibly fine gauge wire for these things. I think I have a reel of 0.01mm stainless. I can barely see it!

[pascalemod]

You can also get some incredibly fine gauge wire for these things. I think I have a reel of 0.01mm stainless. I can barely see it!

Yeah, I am drawing the line on that and NOT going to do this much work on the Walrus. I like accuracy, I dont like overscale stuff too much, and I like my eyesight and sanity. It is a balance!

That lower hull is starting to look good! The faded look is successful I think!

Biplane PE usually has both the (vertical) support struts and (diagonal) rigging between the wings together. I always wonder why, because the rigging always looks overscale indeed on such small items.
I think it would be best to add only struts in PE (or stretched sprue), paint the plane, and then add the rigging in the thinnest possible black stretched sprue. That last step would be optional, for the masochists amongst us...

Thanks Marijn! I think the weathering will continue on the weekend. The paint dried well enough, and I can move on with more work on deck, slowly approaching the dreaded paint or make it stained phase. I still haven't decided! I have this dilemma that I want a dark deck, but it would imply a freshly painted ship and funny boat arrangement that Im trying to figure out. But I want weathered hull during speed runs, and then I might need to have stained dark deck that is worn out, or wooden deck, and boat arrangement that is more vanilla. Decisions decisions. My Hood (posted below is as sunk, and PoW during same time would look cool to just match things).

boats will be covered, never mind they are not covered in this pic. I made that decisions AFTER painting them. Nice time spent.