Trumpeter 1/200 USS Missouri Build Log (Sept 2015 - ?????)

[steinerman]

Thanks Scott! However, since I asked that, I've switched to Model Masters acrylic paint, at least for the superstructure. For the anti-fouling red on the hull, I've found that a mix of 1 part Tamaya Hull Red and 3 parts Tamaya flat insignia red works well for me. I haven't quite decided what to use for the blue on the hull above the boot topping yet - I'll worry abut that when the time comes. The one thing I am pretty sure of is that this will be a "clean build", meaning no weathering. I'm not good at it and I'd just screw it up to the point it'd look like graffiti. I do know my limits!

[Scott56]

The one thing I am pretty sure of is that this will be a "clean build", meaning no weathering. I'm not good at it and I'd just screw it up to the point it'd look like graffiti. I do know my limits!

Weathering is not as bad as ya think. I did it all the time when building train cars. Mainly done with a dry brush. Also a trick I learned was a clear over everything prior to weathering, then if ya mess up ya use some water and all gone.

[robertmelvin]

Larry, you keep plugging along. I admire your persistence, as well as the quality of your work. Hang in there. And thanks for the clarification on your choice of paint for the 40 mm barrels. That will be very helpful to me in the future, no only on my 1/350 Missouri (sorry, don't have your cojones to take on a 1/200) Tamiya Missouri, but essentially on any ship fitted with one.

As to our weather, spring has finally come to Kentucky, it appears to stay. Odd as it may sound, we are subject to large snows here as late as the first and second weeks of April, though they never say around long of course. But, I am now enjoying the benefits of apartment life, with no yard or house maintenance to worry about. So, modeling season is now 12 months a year for me.

Bob M.

[steinerman]

Good grief!! I can't believe it's been 2 months since I updated this log. MY, how time flies when you own a house and have to keep the damn place up! Any, how, I hope you all had a decent spring and haven't gotten into too much trouble. I know that almost all of you have gotten a lot more done on your ships than I have. But, my deck is power washed and stained (720 sq ft), all the perennials beds and cleaned and mulched, flowers are all planted, and as of right now, my wife is happy.

Now, what have I gotten done on my Monster Mo? Well, I'm about ready to glue the round cap on the part of the hull that extends a few inches above the decking. But, before I could do that, I had to paint and detail the bow gun tub because the round cap extends forward around the bow right where the gun tub is welded to the ship hull. So, I get that all done and ready to test fit the gun tub onto the ship when it dawns on me that once it's glued in place, I have no way of positioning the paravane chain around the pulleys and rollers that are hidden under the bow gun tub.

So, before anything gets done I have to locate some chain that I can use for the paravane chain. I'm using the 11 link per inch 3D printed stud chain from TFD for the main anchor chain, so the paravane chain had to be considerably smaller than that. Let me tell ya, folks, jewelers don't sell anything like what I wanted - at least not the ones around here. I was almost ready to throw in the towel and leave it off when my wife suggested Micro Mark, as she knew I'd bought small things from them before. Lo and behold, they had some. It's not studded chain, but beggers can't be choosers. This is 25 links per inch and when you lay it alongside of TFD's anchor chain, the scale looks just about right. And best of all, it's already flat black!

So, my lengthy search for chain is finally over. Now it's time to detail the bow gun tub. According to the plan book from TFD, there's a multitude of stuff that needs to be added; phone boxes, a fire plug, loudspeaker, 2-3" support columns, and spare barrel canisters as well as cooling tubes for the 20mm guns.

Here's my final result. As I was taking these pictures, I noticed that one portion of the railing is a bit off, and it really shows up in the pictures. I guess that's why it's a good thing to have these build logs. You can get a close look at the object and see the problems. Anyway, here it is, and yes, the railing has been corrected!

So, here's where I'm at now. The paravane chain is in place on the deck and routed correctly.

And, the test fit of the bow gun tub seems to be OK once I do a little puttying and sanding.

I think I'm about at my limit on photos for this post, so I'll break here and continue on the next one.

[steinerman]

For some crazy reason this site is messing up the order of the photos that I posted. I've tried three times now to put them in the correct order and haven't had any luck yet. So, we may as well make a game out of it and call it "Find the right photo!'

[EDIT: OK, I fixed the order of pictures on the previous post. Sorry, you don't get to play the game!]

OK, on to the next issue - installing the round cap. In itself, that's not a big issue, except for one thing: How to join the ends of the brass rods together to make it look like one continuous piece. Glue? Doubtful. Solder? Maybe. But why do it at all? Why not use one continuous length? So I got on Amazon and bought a 50 ft spool of #22AWG copper wire. which will work perfectly.

So that's where I am right now, peoples. Yeah, I'm a lot slower than you are, but I'm trying to think this through and do a decent job. Plus, I'm pleased at what I've done so far and as far as I'm concerned, that's what counts - to me anyway.

I hope it won't be 2 months before you hear from me again, but ya never can tell. It all depends on how fast my wife can think of things for me to do.

Later, folks.

[Jabberwock]

Love the detail Larry!

Cheers, Jabb

[steinerman]

Greetings fellow modelers.

I need help. I'm assembling the cable reels from Pontos and their instructions are driving me to drink. Can somebody please tell me where parts #162 and 163 go on the final reel assembly? I can't for the life of me figure out where I'm supposed to put them.

Thanks for the assistance! You guys are awesome!

[Jabberwock]

Hi Larry.

Usual Pontos instructions! If only they were 10% as good as the set itself.

Just opened your instructions and zoomed right in. I think that the cable reel at the bottom of your right hand arrow is NOTHING TO DO with the larger reel, it is just there to show the left hand cable reel folded and glued.

However, it seems to be missing the cable holder which you will need to fabricate from some rod, or sprue or whatever you have to hand.

Hope this helps.

Regards, Jabb

[GewoonWouter]

Nice build I must say. Can't help you on the instructions here, but I feel your frustration ^^

[Koppalakki]

Yes Pontos instructions can be like that

But to help you out a little, in my opinion there's 2 reels in there.

One consists of parts 164, 166 and 167 (the bigger one)
And a second one of parts 163 and 162 (smaller one)

[Fliger747]

Comment on the round deck edge lip... The biggest issue with coiled wire will be getting it straight enough. What I used on my 1:192 scratcher was brass on one side and steel music wire on the other as I couldn't obtain additional right size brass locally. Except at the curves at the extreme bow and stern, the music wire works quite well, making a smooth curve.

: )

[BB62vet]

Larry,

For the round deck edge lip - used guitar strings - get 2 of the right size (or approx.) and they should do the trick. That's my plan, anyhow.

Hope this helps.

[Scott56]

Larry, Any updates? Inquiring minds want to know.

[steinerman]

Hi guys,

I'm still plugging away on the small sub-assemblies. I finished the cable reels. I bought an old junk TV at a garage sale and tore it apart to get the very fine copper wire from one of the transformers. It's about 0.008" dia. Then I carefully wrapped a single layer around a toothpick, painted it black, and glued it to the cable reel stands. It looks quite realistic if you ask me.

The next thing I did was to assemble the two paravanes and their supports. The first one went fine but as I was building the second one the rear support snapped out of my tweezers and went sailing off into another dimension. So, I had to get a sheet of brass and make my own. The first one was a failure, but the second one turned out OK. I doubt if you'll be able to tell the difference. Since I don't get a lot of time to work on this monster anyway, this took me forever.

Next item was the little control box for the crane. Naturally, the side adjustment wheel broke off and I never found hide nor hair of it. So, I ordered a set of various size wheels from The Floating Drydock and by using one of those, plus 1/16" of small brass rod for an axle, I made my own. Again, it looks as good as the original.(I'm getting pretty good and scratch building things I either lose or screw up!)

Now I'm building the two catapult launching cars and the two dummy car trucks. Things are going OK so far, but I'll be damned if I'm putting the handles on the dummy cars. I can't even see the stupid things!

This is where I'm at now. Nothing really interesting to report, except I'm getting a lot of practice in working with tiny pieces of PE! I'll try to take some pictures in the near future so you can see what's transpired (Yawn!). What I'm trying to do is to build a lot of the little PE details before I start in on the bigger items. It's tedious and I seriously doubted that you'd want to see all this stuff. However, that said, I realize I've been lax in keeping you guys up to date. I apologize and I'll try to do better in the future. The next thing I'll tackle are the catapults. They look like fun.

I was looking through my parts the other day and noticed something disturbing. For those of you who have the Pontos detail set, resin parts R04 and R05 are the side periscopes for the Mk37 fire directors. There are 4 of each part. However, on my pack of parts, the side protrusions (periscopes) are broken off on 4 of the 8 parts. And, I can't find the broken pieces anywhere. So, I'll probable have to scratch build my own and, to make them all look the same, I'll probably end up making all 8. Oh well, we never said this would be an easy build, did we?

Now, before I sign off, I have a question. What do I do with the two dummy catapult car trucks? I can't see what I should do with them. The only think I can think is that they are there to give me more practice in working with small PE???. Anybody got any suggestions?

Take care gents. Are we having fun yet?

[BBlover]

Larry

Using the 1/48 Gibbs and Cox builder's model pics as a reference I attached one of the dummy cars to the quarterdeck inside the right catapult about even with the second life raft from the front. I should have put it a little closer to the center line but too late now. They are on wheels, so it moved or that's my reasoning. The second dummy met the scrap pile and never got finished, yes it was practice.

I sympathize with the tweezer launched flying pe as it's always the smallest parts and I spent lots of hours on my knees with a flashlight and the success rate was less than 50%. When those little suckers are gone they are gone, forever.

I'll try to attach a pic or two of the dummy cars.

Lloyd

http://i.imgur.com/CIXv1TE.jpg

http://imgur.com/eT5TC4r

[steinerman]

Thanks Lloyd,

That works for me. It would be nice if I could get my hands on a 3rd seaplane, but I don't know of anyplace that sells just that, and I'm sure that a modern fighter jet from one of the carrier kits would be prototypical!

[Scott56]

Larry,

Glad to hear your still plugging along on the MO. Yes the sub assemblies are many. I finally painted my Bofors and need to paint my Orlikons. The cats are not too bad, make sure you get all the parts where they need to be prior to bending the rails, of course if your like me it will break off and you need to glue it.

Keep us up to date and post pictures, we always like pictures.

[steinerman]

Wow! Every single tiny piece installed where it should be. Not one piece lost or broken! Damn! I'm gettin' right good at this here PE stuff! Now I gotta paint it!

(Yeah, I see where there are a couple places I have to straighten the railings. I'll getter' done after I slop on some paint. Bought a new air brush and I'm anxious to give it a try.

Laters, Dudes (and Dudettes)

Now: On to the crane!

[Brett M]

Wow! Every single tiny piece installed where it should be. Not one piece lost or broken! Damn! I'm gettin' right good at this here PE stuff! Now I gotta paint it!

(Yeah, I see where there are a couple places I have to straighten the railings. I'll getter' done after I slop on some paint. Bought a new air brush and I'm anxious to give it a try.

IMG_6707.JPG

Laters, Dudes (and Dudettes)

Now: On to the crane!

That hurts my eyes just looking at those little parts!

Nice work, she's going to look great when finished!

[steinerman]

Evenin' Gents,

Another beautiful day here in SouthWest Michigan. Mid-80's and not a lot of humidity in the air (That's gonna change in a day or two, though!). Beautiful day for painting, and I did get a chance to spray my built-up sub-assemblies with primer. And by the way, my new air brush works like a dream. I can't afford a top of the line unit - I have a Badger Model 200 single action gun and a small air compressor I bought from Amazon. Between the two, they do a great job.

While I was waiting for the primer to dry tonight, I did something that you're probably going to think is nuts. I'm sure Jason will come back with some retort after my "anal" remark!!

Anyway, I got out Excel and made a spreadsheet of all I've done to this ship so far and the exact number of pieces that went into each sub-assembly that I've built so far. Plus, I kept a running total on the far right Good Grief, I couldn't believe the results! I really have barely started on the actual assembly and already I've glued 1600 pieces in place (and probably swore at a third of them!). "Bout blew me away!

Anyway, some of you might be interested in this. And, if you're "anal" enough to want to do this yourself, let me know and I'll be glad to send you a copy of the spreadsheet. And now, it's 11:30PM and my eyes are crossed from counting all these damn little bits of brass so I'm going to bed.

Night All-