Jeepers!
just over a month since my last update ...!
Hot weather, too much business, driving classic cars and family have conspired to limit constructive time at the workbench
nevertheless-- progress is afoot!
I was making myself unhappy about the aft pilothouse; trying to find a solution, as it had tall narrow windows and the Combrig item being rather too small in my view
as well as being solid,==|> when the port side was actually open on the real thing.
I eventually found some suitable donor material in the form of some old Stairway PE ( unknown fret )
this was applied on the edge of some thin styrene and the corner solids being made by gap-filling with CA
Once installed it resembled the real thing reasonably ( for 1/700- !!
I started making the masts in readiness for imminent masting
using some suitable diameter copper tubing that had stainless steel rod installed within and then filled by dribbling in runny CA glue
thereby making a rigid sandwich laminate to resist mast bending when rigging.
The heel of the mast goes all the way through in-to the the base of the hull
The fore upper top mast was supports by a V shape bracket--made of 1/350 PE handrail longitudinal material
The lower fighting tops that had been made some time earlier, adding brass splinter-shield on drilled out resin cups
as opposed to the far too shallow resin versions
These were now also installed
The upper aft mast was concentric to the lower mast
for the upper masts I used some 1/350 Master Models of Poland sailing ship Yard arms cut in half--
these make finer masts and have a nicer progressive taper than many commercially available masts
that are usually to thick at the base relative to their length ( in my opinion! )
Moving on tangentially-- the steam pinnaces on Hood in the Mediterranean at most times,
under-way or anchored, appeared to carry large white covers
throughout her career in the Med in both colour schemes
i decided to make these using white glue as its a medium I am happy with and can control the appearance and shape of.
To give a believable outline of a canvas covers spanning the high points, I made a ridge of stretched sprue
This is the first coat of glue going on ( 4 coats were needed in the end--more of this later )
allowing for drying times ( dull!) I started to add the stairs
Commercially made handrails on PE stairs in 1/700 are almost always faaar to thick
so as to keep the light and flimsy look I took a different approach.
Cutting WEM ultrafine 1/700 asymmetric destroyer(?) rails down I was able to glean some suitable material
A B C illustrating the stages, single asterisk being GMM stair hand rail and double asterisk being the old ' normal ' WEM stair variant
( it all tok quite a while to do--the fail rate was very high! )
WARNING-- Excessively zoomed large closeup of 1/700 stairs shows my sloppy paintwork alas...
whilst engaged in small brass bits I decided to add to the fun using smaller still sized stretched sprue
and made the Cowl vent braces
Before embarking on the odyssey that is making the 18 or so boats(!! ) for this ship I revisited the bow crest
and added a few more bits of paint and brass swarf
more soon!
JIM B
