DocRob

Today I found the courage to add the two black strips (main wales) to the hull, a task, I dreaded, because there was so much potential to smear glue on the finished hull. The pieces come pre cut and fit like a glove lengthwise. The upper one fits into a nook in the back window decoration, which defines the distance to the bulwark pattern, like the manual claimed correctly at 10,5 mm. I cut some spacers of the size from plank residues and added them to the hull sides with tiny bits of blue tack. My precise cutter came in handy for the task. Then I glued the wale in position, using CA and that proved to be quite demanding. I glued in four steps and found the twisting in the bow area hard to compensate, pushing on the wale with my fingers until they got numb. As a security, I pushed in some brass nails, where I painted the heads black afterwards. I cut spacers again, this time three millimeter wide and used small cuts of tape to glue them to the finished upper wale. Then I glued on the second wale, which needed to be shortened at the stern. On the other side of the hull, I repeated the procedure, but found out, that the wood would fit more easily in the problematic bow area, when I twist it between my fingers centimeter by centimeter, which seems to soften the composure of the wood a bit and made it way easier to lay it flat to the hull. That's where I ended up, without causing bigger damage. I sanded the stern endings of the wales to fit and puttied a wee bit, where they lay on the hull. I touched up the sanded and filled parts along the pin heads and some imperfections on the gunwales. The figurehead is only loosely added for vanity reasons Cheers Rob

Thank you Gary, it was an eye straining task and due to the very thin character of the paint, there are some touch ups left to do. Cheers Rob P.S. Here is a stern mock up without the window frames.

Thank you Hubert, why not 'Philadelphia', by the time Elisabeth Chudleigh christened the ship to 'Duchess of Kingston' she wasn't the Duchess of Kingston anymore as her dead 'husband', the Duke of Kingston, officially was not anymore her husband, due to a bigamy verdict (Elisabeth married another man very young, but didn't accept the marriage as legal, later) in England. The ship's name was a kind of retaliation to the process, which Elisabeth felt injustice and alienated her to her mother country. Only to be exact about the color, it's this one among the many Vallejo colors. It can be thinned with alcohol (white spirit), but this was not necessary in my case. I followed the recommendations to use a synthetic brush and to decant what I needed from the jar. Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias, this gold color is my new go to for shining gold, you could paint an Oscar with it or some fake gold ingots in Fort Knox. It's even more shiny, than it looks in the pics. It is very thin and you have to be careful, while painting. Some people claimed, that it's very hard to use, but I found that not true. I used a synthetic brush, not too small, to hold some color, but with a good tip for details. I have to make some touchups with the blue base color, but I like the result. The Vallejo liquid gold was mentioned in the manual by Chris (and James), another hint of the quality of it mentioning even the best chosen colors. I tested all my stashed gold colors before and found none, which was good to hand brush and to airbrush sufficiently and the worst of all, was Tamiya's gold leave, where the pigments are as big as some details on my stern decoration. Cheers Rob

Nice Ernie, a bit scuffed, which is beautifully rendered. I wasn't aware, that the IP is so oversized for just the two instruments and some levers on the Fokker. Cheers Rob

Beautiful rendition of that aggressive looking snake. The OD came out great, near matte with just a little bit of shine. It looks like the killer bee it was. Cheers Rob

Gold, gold, gold,... Today was a, you probably guessed it, golden day. I sprayed all the golden PE-decorations and then painted the figurehead and stern decoration. Vallejo's liquid gold are exactly this. It's a phenomenal color and can be brush painted and airbrushed. There is no grain and the reflectiveness is unbelivable. Even harder than detail painting is taking pictures of golden objects, which look very different with only slightly varying lighting conditions. Figurehead Stern decoration ...and PE Cheers Rob

I can't see anything painful on the pic, Phil. The flaps look great. Once you mastered them, you forget the torturous work and have achieved something special. Cheers Rob

Ernie, in case you haven't noticed, there is the wrong manual lying under your bird. Will this become a FokMug in the end? Cheers Rob

Very nice and fast build, Carl, makes me almost want to start mine . Cheers Rob

Te engine looks very nice. These 3D printed ones are really hard to paint, you mastered that beautifully. Cheers Rob

Some more color onto the hull. After marking the waterline, I masked off the whole ship, to avoid overspray and primed with light gray Mr. Surfacer 1200. Then I sprayed on some coats of Tamiya XF-flat white and carefully removed the masking, as I prefer to do so, when the color hasn't completely dried. The same procedure was used for the rudder and the opulent PE sheets, which will later be masked and painted red occasionally and more so in gold color. Cheers Rob

Slight change of plans, following the manual, next would have been adding two black wales on each side to the hull. I pre-bended these, but as I saw, how close they were to the waterline, I decided to first paint the underwater area of the hull in matte white, after priming. I again marked the waterline with a pencil and used Kabuki tape for demarcation. As the rudder has an underwater area, painted white , as the hull, I prepared the rudder with PE fittings, which were pinned to fit with tiny brass nails. The fit again was exceptional with the pre drilled holes to the etched fittings. You can see the pencil marked waterline on the side. Cheers Rob

Phew, this kit seems to be a lot of extra work, I admire your patience. This along with the Hustler are fantastic (in the words sense) airframes, which inspired my thoughts in their time, design wise and technically. Please keep on fighting the plastic, for a great result Bill. Cheers Rob

Very nice sharp edged camo Phil, not easy to achieve with that masking putty. When I use it, it always flows over time and ruins the hard edges. I use it only on flat objects anymore and try to keep it cold. Cheers Rob

In the first pic, I filled and sanded the four areas between the next to add bulwarks. Here the bulwarks are on and the filled areas painted correspondingly in matte black. To apply a bit of pressure onto the parts for a thorough bond, the sharp eyed between you will spot some tiny nails which were angled thrust into the underlaying wood through pre drilled holes in the gunwales. Cheers Rob

Thank you Mike, for this build, I do not considered staining, because I read the Biography of the Duchess of Kingston, where some mentioning about her Yacht were made. This ship was an opulent yacht, to party on and I think, solid bright colors do that appearance justice. I want to use the same blue color for the hull, as is used for the background of the stern decorations and the figurehead, not possible with staining. I really like the translucent look of stains on wood, it make the wood look rich, obviously different from opaque colors and I may try this on other builds, possibly in larger scales. Besides lots of preparations, I assembled the decorative fairings on the hull. A picture of these will follow. I primed the resin parts for figurehead and stern decoration, the latter has been bent slightly, to follow the stern contour with hot air. I then sprayed some Tamiya flat blue as a base for the gold painting. Speaking of gold, I test sprayed Vallejo rich gold from the Liquid Gold range and it works. It thins with Alcohol. When brush painting this color, it looks first a little stained, but then turns to reflective gold, without showing any grain. The effect is smiliar to the Molotow chrome markers Next on the to do list is adding the black painted gunwales, which are only test fitted on the pic, to determine, where I have to use some wood filler on the curved parts, which will be painted black after sanding the filler smooth. Cheers Rob

I like the camo a lot, how did you do it? Were you using masks or is it hand painted? Cheers Rob

Very nice build and presentation. I really like the very matte paintjob with just a bit of weathering, which contrasts nicely to the reflective transparent parts. Pity that the interior is relatively hidden. Cheers Rob

Wow Carl, the Cobra is coming together fast and very nice. The detail on the Minigun was a bit on the weak side, so your tweak enrichens the appearance. It's always good to have a kit with a flat bottom to sit on, I can tell you while working on a wooden ship with delicate underwater shape . Cheers Rob

Whoa Martin, that's some piece. He appears to be a bit dark, but that's maybe the soul showing through. Cheers Rob

She came out great, Carl, nice paintjob, very natural colors, is this 1/1 scale? Cheers Rob

Hi Mike, if I may answer. The Aviatic decal sets for dedicated planes like the Fokker D.VII are only cookie printed, you have to cut every decal to fit. Cheers Rob

Now we are talking, great choice Ernie, I love the late Fokkers but like you haven't build a D.VII yet. With the colorful scheme she will be a supportive beauty. I plastered some planes with Aviattic decals and they are the best decals, I ever worked with. No troubles except excessive pre-cutting. Cheers Rob

Your Fokker is looking absolutely perfect with your trademark appearance. What I mean, it's easily recognizable, that you laid your talented fingers onto this build. That raises my appetite for another Fokker D.VIII, this time a yellow diamond clad maritime bird. Cheers Rob