Having completed a small u-boot in 1:700 from scratch, I'd like to try something bigger. I'd like to do the IJN Kitakami in her 1945 Kaiten carrier fit. I have the plans needed, thanks to a friend on the site, and have scaled them to the correct size. I've also looked over the 1:700 Hull post and have a few more questions.
What is the foam board mentioned in the hull post? Is this the stuff that is sandwiched between two pieces of poster board at craft stores? Also it looks like a lot of scratchbuild stuff is made of paper products, is there advatages to this over styrene sheets? I have spare PE and a lot of other various materials was going to go for a model that would be as highly detailed as a plastic kit but maybe I'd be over my head on this project.
Any advise for a newbie to scratchbuilding 1:700 would be helpful.
Thanks,
Anthony
More 1:700 Scratchbuilding Questions
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Neptune
- Posts: 2456
- Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2005 11:51 am
- Location: Belgium
Re: More 1:700 Scratchbuilding Questions
I mainly use Styrene as it's pretty easy to use and I like the gluing method of it as basically the glue melts one part to the other.
I think the main advantage of paper products is that it's cheap, much cheaper than styrene (certainly Evergreen). If you need special stuff, like carved or special shaped planks, Evergreen is the main supplier. If you need regular sheets, over here Raboesch is the main supplier. However, for my builds I use something called Polystyrol. Basically it's the same as Styrene, just a little tougher, little more difficult to cut, yet it's a LOT more cheap than Evergreen and it's supplied in big pieces (about 30cm x 50cm and even 30x 100cm, depending on thickness the price for this polystyrol is about 3.5 to 7 euro for one plate of 30 x 100cm, for Evergreen I don't know the price, for Raboesch sheets slightly smaller than an A4 size you'll pay about 3.5 euro if I recall correctly, just to give you an idea of prices and sizes).
The glue is the same and it does the same also. When you want to bend a piece of styrene you can use hot water to weaken it, or like I do, you can mark your bending line and just add some styrene glue along that line, this will partically "attack" the styrene and melt it, when you bend it, slowly, it won't break since the molten part (where the glue is) will just stretch. Once you have your shape, just keep it like that and the glue and plastic will settle in that position. Takes some effort, but it works.
As for detailing, a LOT can be done with stretched sprue as you can bend it and make different thickness etc. Ladders, masts etc. can be made of that. Again the styrene glue comes handy. Also carving, cutting and sanding of sprue itself can be usefull in small scales.
In Picture Post you can find my Maersk Fighter, most of that boat is made of styrene sheets and stretched sprue.
Practically, when building a small ship you can use a full hull method. You can cut plates with the surrounding shape of your ship, glue them on top of each other to form a block of styrene and afterwards sand it to shape. This suffices mainly for 1/700.
FOr bigger ships, in 1/700 or bigger, I use the regular keel and frame method and afterwards create boxes on that by putting small pieces of styrene between the frames. To shape the bow and stern I put a coat of two component filler, in my case Milliput, over these pieces of styrene. Afterwards I sand the filler untill I see the frames coming through, then you know your shape is correct. Of course for this method you need a good idea of the frames and/or a linesplan of the ship in question. If you do not possess such a plan then you can just sand the filler till it looks like pictures.
If you need any pictures or elaboration about any of the methods, just let me know. I don't know all techniques yet since I had to find out everything by trying myself. But I've experimented a lot over the past years... Once you start it's quite hard to stop, since you will be able to build any ship you want and that's really addictive.
I think the main advantage of paper products is that it's cheap, much cheaper than styrene (certainly Evergreen). If you need special stuff, like carved or special shaped planks, Evergreen is the main supplier. If you need regular sheets, over here Raboesch is the main supplier. However, for my builds I use something called Polystyrol. Basically it's the same as Styrene, just a little tougher, little more difficult to cut, yet it's a LOT more cheap than Evergreen and it's supplied in big pieces (about 30cm x 50cm and even 30x 100cm, depending on thickness the price for this polystyrol is about 3.5 to 7 euro for one plate of 30 x 100cm, for Evergreen I don't know the price, for Raboesch sheets slightly smaller than an A4 size you'll pay about 3.5 euro if I recall correctly, just to give you an idea of prices and sizes).
The glue is the same and it does the same also. When you want to bend a piece of styrene you can use hot water to weaken it, or like I do, you can mark your bending line and just add some styrene glue along that line, this will partically "attack" the styrene and melt it, when you bend it, slowly, it won't break since the molten part (where the glue is) will just stretch. Once you have your shape, just keep it like that and the glue and plastic will settle in that position. Takes some effort, but it works.
As for detailing, a LOT can be done with stretched sprue as you can bend it and make different thickness etc. Ladders, masts etc. can be made of that. Again the styrene glue comes handy. Also carving, cutting and sanding of sprue itself can be usefull in small scales.
In Picture Post you can find my Maersk Fighter, most of that boat is made of styrene sheets and stretched sprue.
Practically, when building a small ship you can use a full hull method. You can cut plates with the surrounding shape of your ship, glue them on top of each other to form a block of styrene and afterwards sand it to shape. This suffices mainly for 1/700.
FOr bigger ships, in 1/700 or bigger, I use the regular keel and frame method and afterwards create boxes on that by putting small pieces of styrene between the frames. To shape the bow and stern I put a coat of two component filler, in my case Milliput, over these pieces of styrene. Afterwards I sand the filler untill I see the frames coming through, then you know your shape is correct. Of course for this method you need a good idea of the frames and/or a linesplan of the ship in question. If you do not possess such a plan then you can just sand the filler till it looks like pictures.
If you need any pictures or elaboration about any of the methods, just let me know. I don't know all techniques yet since I had to find out everything by trying myself. But I've experimented a lot over the past years... Once you start it's quite hard to stop, since you will be able to build any ship you want and that's really addictive.
The merchant shipyard
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Sr. Gopher
- Posts: 1091
- Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:31 pm
Re: More 1:700 Scratchbuilding Questions
So this is where you got your info for making the Kitakami!!! I loved it, and is it okay that I ask where I can see some pics of your U-Boat, if possible?
Current builds:
Hobby Boss 1/700 Type VIIC U-Boat for my AH
Planned builds:
3 more 1/700 AH submarines
Hobby Boss 1/700 Type VIIC U-Boat for my AH
Planned builds:
3 more 1/700 AH submarines