The Ship Model Forum

"Thingys" added to both cranes. Another round of painting next. Then some rigging from the top of the kingpost to the tip of the boom. Given that I'll probably bump into these while handling, I decided to fix the alignment of the PE hooks right before attaching these to the ship.

Before I broke out the airbrush, I spent some time seeing if there was anything else that needed work before painting. Of course, there was.

The small cranes on the quarterdeck needed some attention. I added PE ladders, wire booms, then grafted on the ends of the PE booms that came wit the kit onto the wire with CA. If I could manage to use a soldering iron properly, I would have soldered them, but solder and I are no bueno, as the folks in my office like to say. I also spent a lot of time going through photos of California, especially Pearl Harbor photos. I noticed details on the funnels that weren't included in the kit. So, I took out some brass tubing, cut to approximate length, and added those. More wire and "sh*t" need to be added to the forward funnel to finish making them resemble the photos.

are you talking about the soldering irons used on circuit boards & not solder guns used by diy? self trained on the use of soldering irons then properly trained while working at Celestica in the late 1990's. used that skill to replace the left switch on 2 computer mice with gaming switch of 80 million clicks. have not used a solder gun in decades, maybe late 70's into early 80's.

Plain ole soldering irons. They hate me, and I them,

I spent most of the day looking at archival photos. Realized my initial interpretation of the funnels was wrong, so I redid the forward one. Also added vertical ladders to the aft funnel

Broke out the airbrush and gave the funnels, cranes and boat stowage another coat of 5D.
Also airbrushed ION figures white in advance of detail painting.
I'll check those for any additional touch-ups, then figure out next steps.

Nice work as always. Do you lighten your colors? maybe it's my monitor as the 5D looks not as dark as my Colourcoats 5D.

Jon C Ryckert wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2026 1:57 pm Nice work as always. Do you lighten your colors? maybe it's my monitor as the 5D looks not as dark as my Colourcoats 5D.

Thanks! I do not. That's Colourcoats 5D straight out of the tin.