The Ship Model Forum

In the immortal words of Britney Spears: "Opps! I did it again"

Having already committed to upgrading the Vickers 0.5in quad machine guns with Tetra Model Works items, I mentally justified upgrading the rest of the weapons with some MicroMaster designed�parts 3D printed by�Shapeways.



Some close-ups (not that good, because this is just a camera phone).

The 4.7in QF Mk.IX guns




And 21in pentad torpedo tubes


A bit of a luxury item, for sure, and particularly given the eye-watering price of 3D printed parts. This certainly won't become a habit, and I for one am not worried about 3D printing supplanting other means of model making any time soon!

The Shapeways site recommends against enamels and advocates acrylic paints. That's only because they're not cured when sent out from Shapeways though. I have proven previously that Colourcoats dries perfectly fine on the 3D printed frosted plastics offered by Shapeways, and all that is required to ensure that happens reliably is a bit more UV curing time. Hence, the new parts are now sat in the sunshine and I will paint them tomorrow afternoon or Sunday, depending on how my weekend pans out.

I love the stuff. I let my Shapeways accessories sit under a blacklight for a while.
Really enjoying your build & appreciate your efforts to accurately represent your RN paint range.
Thank you! John

Hi John,

Thanks for looking in!

On the subject of trying to get it right, I studied that photograph a bit more and now think that the bow wave was hiding more dark grey amidships. I think I can see an outline just above the white water. So, I've modified the scheme on the model a bit and to be honest it looks a bit more balanced now too.



Best regards,

Jamie

Today I started a little weathering, not that it's especially apparent now that I have reviewed the photographs. Still, it's easier to add more than to take away excess!



To ensure the 3D printed bits got a good long soak in the sun's UV light, I have avoided them today and instead had (yet) another attempt at something I have never succeeded in before; a sea base. I've seen several people who can do them really well, and hundreds if not thousands who, well, don't. I am in the latter camp!

I have started this time with an 18" by 6" slab of pink styrofoam from the garage, which has been tortured into an approximate sea swell shape with a flap wheel in an electric drill. This was then sanded with one of Infini Model's nifty new sanding sponges and a ship-shaped hole cut out of the middle with an Xacto blade (I normally use Swann Morton scalpels but the Xacto blade was longer and could thus cut deeper).



I painted it with PVA glue, then laid on tissue paper separated into single leafs, which was brushed on with a little water



Once that dried, I checked the ship still fitted in the hole before adding any colour, and brushed on a generous coat of Windsor and Newton acrylic gloss gel medium



HMS Imperial was in the Mediterranean for the time period I'm interested in and indeed sunk at Crete, and the Med is quite a warm and sunny place for the most part.



Looking through paints I had here, I happened across an old tin of Revell enamel that was quite deep and very blue. Not knowing what it was nor having any plans for it, I used it for the base colour of the water. Some WEM-era Colourcoats RN21 B30 with its torquoise appearance has served for toning around the hull. Once dried, I'll do some of that cotton stuff with more acrylic gloss gel for white water.

Still can't say I'm happy with the water, but it's my best yet and frankly better than some I've seen around so it will have to do.







Thanks for looking in

I have gone ahead and sawn the�barrels of the very expensive 3D printed guns. The barrels were not a credit to the breaches.



I drilled each of them with a 0.5mm drill and inserted the turned brass barrels with a droplet of medium CA which gripped immediately. The 3D printed stuff drills really well if anyone is interested...

The 3D printed stuff has been painted base colours (507C and dark deck grey) and the detailing is suddenly visible.

Bloody marvelous, m8!

James,

Loving the build and the commentary to go along. I did have a question, and apologies if you explained it already. What is that Green stuff that you made the funnel out of?

Keep the updates coming!

Matt

PS> Watch out for shapeways, your order once..... it's almost impossible not to order again!

Fantastic piece James , lovely destroyer and your impressive work is showing the results .

Thank you all for your time and comments. It is much appreciated as encouragement

Matt, the green stuff is a variously called "chemiwood", or tooling board or medium density modelling board. It's a grainless substance which can be sawn, filed, milled, drilled, turned and sanded and is often used for prototyping or master pattern making. I bought a small block of it back when I was mostly building radio controlled aircraft models as it's a nice density that sits somewhere between being easily workable yet without weighing as much as most metals do.

http://www.fighteraces.co.uk/product/ch ... ing-board/

I've heard (second hand) that Peter Hall uses a similar product for master patterns for the ex-WEM / now Atlantic Models kits. I use mine on occasion. The biggest offput is cutting a suitable chunk out of the block to use, which admittedly would be much faster with a bandsaw! I do have a scroll saw. Perhaps I should put that somewhere useful and I could make better use of this stuff. Cutting a bit out with a modelling razor saw is a bit of a chew.

.

Excellent work, however, as this is a wartime version, wouldn't most of the portholes/scuttles have been plated over ?

.

Hi,

Honestly I don't know. There is an abundance of early war photographs of the pre-war built destroyers still show the portholes unplated including Intrepid, Havelock, Hurricane etc. Infact just Googling some of the G, H and I class names off the top of my head (so not exhaustive by any means) I haven't found any images which show the portholes plated over.

I've got nothing on Imperial either way. That single wartime photograph I've got is inconclusive in that respect.

Best regards,

Jamie

Not much to show this time, but I've added the lens to the search light and glazed it with Clearfix



I added the siren platform and two sirens to the aft funnel



And I made a small modification to the Brazilian bridge to accommodate the coincidence range finder that HMS Imperial had. This amounted to very minor choppy choppy on the resin bridge, two razor saw cuts on the resin range finger piece, and a piece of suitable diameter plastic sprue cut to length then sawn in half length-ways to make a semi-circular section. The plans and photographs I can find aren't 100% clear here, so I have interpreted what can be seen as best as I can.



I think the most startling aspect of these three photographs taken with the same phone camera as all the above, but indoors at twilight under the phone's flash, is that one should not choose any old random paint colours on a "that looks about right" basis (particularly without any real knowledge of what "right" actually looks like) under artificial light. These images look completely different to the previous post's images taken with the same camera outdoors in the sun light. Whoever first said "cameras never lie" was a fool. Cameras are pathological liars!

Nice work! Excellent detail showing through in those printed parts as well


I wouldn't say cameras lie... it's our brains that do that Cameras are just telling us what wavelengths were hitting their CCDs during some brief period of time. We automatically do such phenomenal colour correction on the info coming from our eyes, that the only thing you can really be certain of is that you are NOT 'seeing' what's actually there! Unfortunately this colour correction is sometimes done without enough data, and so our brains have to guess about conditions etc. Photos are out of context and allow us a glimpse of what goes on in our heads.

I made a start on the Tetra Model Works 0.5in Quad Vickers guns.

Great work! Thanks for sharing. I think your sea/water looks great!

Thanks!

Imperial had to take a bit of a break. Those with a common interest may have noted I've been very busy with work of late, but, I made some time for myself yesterday after replacing the washing machine drum...

I got the other Vickers gun assembled then the pair painted and mounted on the gun platform:






I really do love those little Tetra Model Works guns and am very pleased they have finally released the Pom Poms in a similar fashion.



Tonight I added some railings and ladders to the bridge. There are still semaphores and some pipes to add, but that section is close to done now.

Cracking little build!

I have made up the pole foremast and tripod mainmast. They need painted before fitting.