DocRob

Fantastic progress, Chris. Your build turns out more and more master class. Every step will bring you closer to the finish now, which means, Cheers Rob

It's a bit of cash in time now, as it's the time of the build, where all the pre fabricated sub assemblies got finally detailed and added to the decks. I mounted the planes on their sleds onto the catapults, dozens of bollards, winches, AA guns and mid artillery with their gun shields. Not all is glued yet, and I try to assemble in a logical order, without risking to destroy glued on details through bad sequencing. Suddenly the whole build appears to melt together with these very rewarding steps. Cheers Rob

Disclaimer : I'm not responsible for medical issues caused by my builds or comments here, as long as I follow the forum rules. Since now, I was never mentioned to a doctor as the reason for health problems. I will not stop using PE only for the sanity of other forum members. I will not refund your health insurance on the base of my build thread. With other words, reading is an unforced input of information and the author cannot held responsible for bodily reaction of readers, especially not, if the subject of nuisance is pointed out by a member I will not name, except the hint that his name starts with H and ends with ubert . Disclaimer off. Honestly Chris, I read about your health issues and it sounds frightening and serious. I wish you the very best on the way to regain your good health. Cheers Rob

Thanks Gary, the reason, some of the guys look incorrect is, they are pure fantasy products. After a quick search, I found many sources showing navy uniforms for certain years and there were lots of differences. I decided to go fantasy, as I don't want to dig deeper into the subject. What you see is what I remembered from photos and movies. Cheers Rob

The only thing amiss is real function, Gary . The way you made it explains how the mechanism works and I copy Chris about the appearance to the normal eye, which will look good and convincing. Cheers Rob

Phew, I painted up the figures. The printing quality is excellent for the scale and these little guys will bring some life onto the decks of USS Arizona. The figures were primed matte white with the airbrush and then followed by skin color, light blue and blue gray, brown for the shoes and some other details, applied with a 000 brush. Last, I brushed on a mix of grey oil paint and matte thinner as a wash, to let the detail pop a bit more. And here there are the first officers and sailors on duty (or resting). Cheers Rob

Nah Chris, there is nothing to it. All is about 100 times smaller, that's it . Honestly, I enjoy most of the PE work, as the quality and fit of these parts is good. The boats racks were an exception. They are a bit flimsy, but lastly they hold up painting and weathering. Where bad plastic meets good PE, there are sometimes fit problems, but all in all, I had expected worse. Good that you reference to the clothes pegs and tape, because it's not so easy to spot something above with the bare eye . Cheers Rob

I'm not good with 35 scale figures, what could probably go wrong with these 100 times smaller renditions . Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias Peter, the Kingfishers got decaled, but they will receive a matte coat and propellers later, but they went together faster than your one . Lets see about my hand and eyes. I wouldn't like to be the victim of myself, if I were a surgeon. Figure panting will be kept simple and effective, I hope. Cheers Rob

Great progress Phil, it's shaping up. With these large scale boats, you can't have enough detail. The Bofors looks especially great. Cheers Rob

It looks like I've done nothing, but that's not true, did many little things, indeed very little things. I folded lots of boxes and hatches from PE along with ladders, which are time consuming, because I bent all the single steps with a sharp blade and a very fine pair of tweezers. There are more boats with racks and a big range of other tiny PE assemblies, some shown here. All these are now painted up and ready to install. Next were the Kingfishers, which received a two tone camo. The planes were primed light grey and then all undersides where covered with liquid mask, brushed on and then sprayed with the top color mix of light blue grey. I thought about how to paint the windows and tried black panel wash and liked it, as it pronounced the framing and dries glossy for contrast. Now they are up for decaling. Before I install all the larger subassemblies to the decks, I will apply the figures, which is easier due to better accessibility. These figures from Ion Models are really tiny and it took a while, to cut them off the print sprues. Luckily only one leg was lost, the print material has a bit of flexibility and is not too brittle. I grouped the 74 sailors onto double sided adhesive tape for painting and prime them white with the airbrush and continue with brush accentuation . Cheers Rob

Good you are back on this one, Gary. I could sense a starting urge to get the GK finished. Nice detail work all around. Cheers Rob

This is fantastic, all the details pop. I can imagine how time consuming and skill prone all your great work is, Mark. This is car modeling on another level. Cheers Rob

The Meng kit is a solid kit, actually they offer three versions of the 410. I haven't build mine yet, but it looks good on the sprues and I read many favorable build threads about it. There are a few known issues, like the shape of the spinners and props and others, but no game changer to my eye. Why should ICM compete with this, Phil? Cheers Rob

Fascinating plane, sad story about the replica's crash. You know, that there is a kit out there in 48 scale? I nearly bought it and may will do after one or two other experimental plane builds Bugatti 100 Racer 1/48 | Special Hobby - best for modelers Cheers Rob

Wow Martin, you got a special edition, the first ever modeled twin Spitfire with two props, I knew it existed (conspiratoriel whisper off) . Cheers Rob

Fantastic Gary, you revived the old Airfix dinosaur very pleasantly. All the details add a lot and the eagles are phenomenal. The guys on the bridge look great, but they seem a tiny bit overscale, what do you think? Cheers Rob

Well Peter, you made a huge step in your build and everything looks good to my eye. Hopefully the wing attachment isn't providing more unwanted obstacles. Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias amigos, I continued with lots of PE ladders and storage boxes for the decks, while the black CA cured, in which I dipped the undersides of the gun shields. Through capillarity, the tiny triangle struts were fixed in place. Seems, I have to look into some Youtube channels more frequently, when there are so interesting builds and builders. Cheers Rob

I (not) used some of the Yahu IP's and most of them were great, much better printed than Eduard. Exceptions were the IP's for the 1/32 Tamiya F4U and 1/32 Dauntless, which got yellow dials printed on, which is wrong. I used the modified kit parts instead, with the Tamiya Corsair. Your Mossie panel looks very good on first sight. Cheers Rob

Thank you Carl and Kevin, I generally think, a larger scale is easier to handle and that's why I bought the 1/144 Flower Class Corvette and will add the big Pontos set. The build is seemingly taking forever, but what's even taking longer, is Eduards substitute pollards to get here. In early February, I contacted them, then storage reshuffle, falsely declared package and therefore returned and now, when I need them, the replacements haven't come in sight. Well they are slower than me, that's a surprise . Cheers Rob

Slowly pacing through the on deck applications. This build is testing my patience a lot and the last nagging bit are the gun shields for the middle artillery. They are made by PE and the enforcing struts, tiny triangles needed to be bent in place. I dreaded this part of the build, because the first shield, I tested, lost a lot of the tiny struts through breaking. The others, I annealed had less broken parts, but still some. Some of the sensible struts were too long and had to be shortened with unshivering hands. Nothing is glued, because the parts will be airbrushed off the deck. You will notice, that I left the cut out deck segments in place, which would have to be removed for the original plastic. Leaving them, will look more convincing, I hope. Cheers Rob

I couldn't believe it myself Hubert, normally we have between 80% and 90% humidity, when there is no Kalima (Sahara wind). I wouldn't have thought, it can go that low with the surrounding Atlantic Ocean, which evaporates with the strong sunshine. Possibly the evaporation covers the 6% exclusively . Cheers Rob

Thank you Peter and Chris, I slowly move on with the on deck applications, producing the delicate PE gun shields for the middle artillery at the moment, as well as hatches, ladders, winches, searchlights, ... As the humidity dropped to 6%, an all time low, I guess, I have to wait with the continuation of adding these assemblies, because the wooden deck is still curling up and un adhering itself. I have to wait for some more humidity, to evaluate the damage. The air here is dryer even, than my Martinis are . Cheers Rob

I have a Pontos set reserved, lets see how it works out, as it's sometimes a bit complicated to get stuff to my place. After USS Arizona, I'm not that much concerned about the complexity of the brass. I like the addition of turned brass parts and that's why I haven't considered Eduard's PE. I had my eyes onto the 1/72 Revell kit as well, with the GLS stuff. I decided it's too big for me and I hope the plastic is a bit more up modern standards with the 1/144 kit. I also have no idea, about how well the GLS PE is designed. I learned from my Arizona build, the worse the plastic, the better should be the PE. Cheers Rob