1/25 Russian armored patrol boat Bronekater BK 1125 (WWII)

[U812]

You guys are cracking me up. Especially you Chuck!

OK. Except for the four vent or cooling holes on the barrel base and a few little parts too small to mold(you will have to make those from provided styrene strips)the darn turret is done. Took me 3 days. But it was like building another model for the model!

Steve

[herrmill]

Steve, are you sure you don't work for Trumpeter?

[U812]

Thanks Chuck but Trumpeter is always too clean and there models take so long to build because you have to WW2 them up. I'm doing that for the modelers. And if they want a perfectly clean model to start, then I'll be done next Christmas! LOL!!

Steve

[U812]

Here's a wide shot of the whole boat and that angle again with the finished turret.

Steve

[Reid]

OH I CAN"T WAIT FOR TO SEE THIS THING AT HANSEN!! It will be AWESOME! and then we can have a fleet of them!! and we can rule HANSEN... uh ho i think this commie Stalin stuff is starting to rub off

[U812]

Me too Reid. Thanks!

Steve

[U812]

Got the smaller gun master made and finished today.

She's ready to mold. Moving on to finishing the super structure and deck.

The barrels for the guns will not be cast resin. Instead I'm going with the widely held theory that the tank turret was a straight barrel. I will supply the drawings and the brass in the kit to make your own. This way you won't be breaking them off.

Steve

[U812]

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=21678

So I was looking through the post of this man's build thread. Don't know his last name but his first is Ron. What blew me away was his approach to rivets and hull plating. Litho Plate! If you look through the posts you'll get to that part. What I didn't like was finding Litho Plate and then having to glue it on. Still faster but I'm always in a hurry.

Then I was looking through my supplies for something totally unrelated and found the aluminum tape you can get at hardware stores. I used it on my B-29 to simulate rivets and brushed aluminum using a pattern wheel. The thing I didn't think of in those days was making the rivets from the back side to get the raised effect. Then it struck me I could do welds that way too. The tape has an adhesive backing. Thus no gluing. Question was when I rub it down will I lose detail.

So I did a quick test to find out.

Here's what I used. The tape and the basic tools.

Using a straight edge you can mark the seam and make the rivets by pushing from the back side of the tape against a flat balsa building board.

Then you can dirty up the seam with the pencil to simulate the welds.

continued in part two

[U812]

Peel off the backing on the tape.

Rub it down and I was easy about it either. Just rubbed it down hard in order to get it smooth.

A little primer on it to see how it's doing and it looks great. And I did this in a few minutes. Quick and dirty. If I take my time it gets better.

This means I can finish off the deck, super structure and a few other detail in a day rather than week! This boat will be done a lot faster now. And it opens up a whole lot of other possibilities from projects I would shy away from because of welds and rivets. No more.

I owe it all to Ron and his fantastic work. Sure he does it different but it was his building thread that gave me the idea. It's really the same and I always give credit where credit is due. Thanks Ron for the lesson. It was oput to good use.

Me a happy camper!!

Steve

[ARH]

Steve, thanks for that comment, my second name is Horabin, I like your idea, im glad you can think out of my box and take things a stage further, well done.

[Reid]

cool!!! steve!!! Ron has many great tricks to use... i have learned sooo much from him

[U812]

Ron thanks again you are an inspiration!

Steve

[kennylibben]

Dang, Steve - that's awesome! I might have to try that out for my USS Monitor rather than making a rivet-maker!

[U812]

Kenny you bet.

Thanks,

Steve

[herrmill]

Steve, now you've got me sidetracked after seeing your aluminum tape trick.

I'll let you know how my experiment works on my S-100 since anything will be better than the smooth surface of the TJ kit deck. Here's an idea of what I'm trying to replicate on the tube doors, foredeck & bridge.

Chuck

[U812]

I'll be watching out to see how this works Chuck.

No work done today as it's our weekly get together at Hansen Dam. Reid was there with his Corvette. I brought my Bristol Bay and my scratch built type 212 seen in my video.

Enjoy the video. I'll be back at it tomorrow!

Steve

http://wavelit.com/media/791/Hansen_Dam ... rt_061208/

Double click the small screen for full screen.

[herrmill]

Thought you'd like that. I'm going to look for tape this evening after work & try this tonight.

Chuck

[Devin]

Steve,

How about making the rivets with a ponce wheel? Some of the aircraft modelers make their own from watch gears, so you can get some that have rounded sprockets and of different sizes to get the correct spacing.

How does the tape respond if you burnish right on top of the rivets or weld?

Great idea. I might have to steal that for my next ironclad project.

-Devin

[U812]

Devin it holds up to burnishing. Used this on my large RC B-29 and it worked out well.

Looked all through my "never throw it away stuff" and didn't find any gears or my pattern wheels my daughter took and never returned. But it is a good idea. But to tell you the truth, they look a bit too perfect. Real rivets, especially during war time could be rather asymmetrical at times.

Go ahead and steal it. It was Ron that turned on the light bulb as it were anyway.

Enjoy it!

Steve

[U812]

A lot more done yesterday and today. Welds on the deck. Armor plating and rivets. All a bit large for the scale of this boat. But I have seen some of these Russian boats that had very raised rivets and welds so I leave it as is.

Here's some pictures.

Steve