The Ship Model Forum

My next model will be a most handsome ship : Heavy cruiser BOLZANO

so brave

Should be interesting, a beautiful ship in the Italian/French streamlined late interwar style.

The Italian cruisers were some of the best looking ships of WW2

I finally reverted to the old bread and butter method for the hull. I was not satisfied with the styrene cladding. I also made my own photo etch with corel draw. Hauler etched it and it's not expensive

what thickness of styrene did you try to use as cladding for the hull?

FFG-7 wrote:what thickness of styrene did you try to use as cladding for the hull?

0,25 mm

too thin & were you just cladding 2 frames at a time or do longer plates to cover more frames at once?

I filled with balsa the space between the frames, but the plating did not fit exactly to the frames.

I already used this method with succes but it was a 1/200 scale model with 0.5 plating

I used mostly 1mm thick styrene to frame then clad a scratch built 1/525 scale ww2 full hull tanker. did that over 30yrs ago & still have it. no balsa was used on it at all. my 1/144 warships are balsa framed but clad with 1mm styrene with the biggest being 52" long & about 40yrs old.

The hull is complete , I used MK1 design wooden deck.

The superstructure and the turrets are not glued yet

Great work - she is coming along nicely!

A nice scale, petty tiny but just big enough to do some nice detail. My only dive here was a 1:515 DE USS Whitehurst which was built as a 3D proof of concept for a 1:144 model. I was using 3D printing but was quite pleased with how well many small detail items came out from inclined ladders to small AA and deck features. Many techniques are possible and you are off to a good start. I did make a 1:192 Alaska using the original technique you tried here and it came out very well. So perhaps give it another try sometime.

Keep up the good work!

Fliger747 wrote:A nice scale, petty tiny but just big enough to do some nice detail. My only dive here was a 1:515 DE USS Whitehurst which was built as a 3D proof of concept for a 1:144 model. I was using 3D printing but was quite pleased with how well many small detail items came out from inclined ladders to small AA and deck features. Many techniques are possible and you are off to a good start. I did make a 1:192 Alaska using the original technique you tried here and it came out very well. So perhaps give it another try sometime.

Keep up the good work!

Thank you Fliger.

I think I'll stick to the 1/500 scale. My last model was at 1/100 scale and 90 cm long, and I have no room left in my flat for another one !

Yes I remember that build! Very nice. These models if completed to any scale do take up a lot of space. I have always wondered how big a warehouse Song myst have for his sizable production! My tiny DE fits very well on a shelf on a display case in the hall.

hi ! I worked on the directors an on the funnel caps. The caps are vacuum formed. The directors are made of boxwood

a test, nothing is glued yet

I've made the 100mm guns with custom photoetch and Albion Alloy tubes

I've worked on the after part of the superstructure. Still some painting to be done

I forgot to take pictures and now the model is almost finished.
some pics of the vacuum formed boats