[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

I've made some good progress on the Albatross.  Added the bow and stern posts, and finished building the masts.  I use cut down insect pins - which I think are stainless steel - for things like the posts that need a little more structural integrity and won't bend like brass or other materials when I invariably end up bumping into them.  

After taping the wooden decks - which was a project in itself - I ended up trying to replicate the plating runs on the hull by taping off alternating rows, and then spraying a heavy coat of Mr. Surfacer 1200.  We'll see how it goes - it's tricky in that you don't want to go overboard with too thick of paint as it will look out of scale.

 

I also managed to finish the cranes by adding aftermarket hooks from Rainbow and put together the catapult:

Next up I will clean up the hull plating lines and prime the full hull, deck structures, railings and other deck items using Mr. Surfacer 1500 black.  That will give a good base to paint the ship, which is pretty simple with a light grey hull, and darker gray above the deck.

Thanks for looking in!

[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

On 6/4/2023 at 3:46 AM, GazzaS said:

Doing a great job on both kits.  PE slows me down...   I really dislike working with it, so often find other things to do than sit at my bench.

Thanks!  I just treat the PE as kits within the kit, as oftentimes it can be like an origami puzzle.  👍

[Tamiya P-51D Early]

Excellent Peter!  Great start.  Looking forward to your stampede!

[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

1 hour ago, Peterpools said:

Mike

Just catching up and thoroughly enjoying your work. I'm just amazed at the level of detail you have achieved on both kits. 

 

Thanks Peter, really appreciate the kind words.  All the credit for the details go to the kits and aftermarket - I'm just trying not to screw it up too much.

Now I just hope to finish this all before the end of the month for the Group Build.  Is going to be awfully tight 🙁

[Tamiya 1/48 F-14A]

Wow, that looks fantastic!!

[Soo.... What did you just get???]

On 5/26/2023 at 12:25 PM, Peterpools said:

ebay - auction win:

Still shrink wrapped and brand spanking perfect! 🏆

Think Midway but don't forget the movie: Dive Bombers with: Fred McMurray, Errol Flynn, Ralph Bellamy and Alexis Smith and the movie was in full color. released in 1941. 

Hey Peter, great subject!  I have a build log going on the sister site in case you have any interest in seeing aftermarket and construction issues.  Make sure you take a look to see if the fuselage halves have an indentation between the rear cockpit and the tail.  Common issue in these kits.  Otherwise, it's a really nice kit of a rarely modeled subject.

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/28510-sb2u-1-vindicator-by-landlubber-mike-accurate-miniatures-148/

 

 

[Zoukei-Mura Ki-45]

Looking great Bill!  Look at all that detail!

[Another Kingfisher - RAAF]

Wow that came out really nice NPB!!  I was going to paint mine as a yellow wings version, but I might reconsider after seeing yours.  What paints did you use for the NM finish?  Looks excellent.

[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

Hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day weekend, at least for those in the US and other places around the world where this important day of remembrance is observed.  Thank you to all our veterans! 

I managed to find some time this weekend to move the Albatross along.  I have to say that I'm very impressed with the kit.  The resin parts are very nice, and the PE is very well done for great details.  Everything fits together very nicely, and seems to be accurate relative to the real thing from the sources I have.

I decided that I'm going to install the deck items after painting the deck, as I think in the long run it will be easier, particularly with some of the hard to reach areas on the build.  So, I primed the deck with a thin coat of Mr Surfacer 1500, then sprayed the decks with Tamiya Deck Tan.  I also started to work on the main mast.  My kit didn't include the rod for the main or rear masts, so I used 0.8mm rod for the main mast and installed the PE for the crows nest and other details.  There is an upper section of the mast that needs to be included as well - I have some 1/700 aftermarket mast sections that I'm hoping will work.

I also worked on assembling the catapult components.  The kit allows you to built the catapult extended or retracted.  I built out the extended version which I think will match up with the extended version of the NeOmega catapult I'm planning on building for the 1/48 Walrus.  Here's a picture of the guns, cranes, and catapult parts that will be painted and then separately added to the model after it gets painted.

Next steps are to finish building the main and rear masts, and rather than use the 2D PE parts for the bow and stern posts, I will scratch build them for a three-dimensional look.  At that point, I can start painting the hull - light grey for the hull sides, and a darker gray for the sections above the decks.  

Thanks for looking in!

 

[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

30 minutes ago, KevinM said:

Well that is looking awfully Good there Mike.The PE on the 1/72 Walrus looks like you have reached Master Status Sir!

Thanks Kevin, really appreciate it!  I'm slowly getting better at PE, and still have room to improve.  It really helps to have the right tools - Optivisor, very fine tweezers, and a good hold and fold unit (I have the Bug and one of the larger units from The Small Shop which I highly recommend).  

[SH P-39D up next]

Yikes, that's quite a gap.  Can I ask how you made that plug?  Is it a solid piece?  If so, did you laminate a bunch of plastic sheets together or are you running thin plastic card around a wooden/clay former?  Just asking as I don't know that I've seen plastic card available in such a thickness.   Looks great so far!

[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

2 hours ago, Bomber_County said:

Amazing workmanship on both kits, the Walrus looks great……

Thanks BC, really appreciate the kind words!

[Soo.... What did you just get???]

5 hours ago, belugawhaleman said:

A trip to my local Ace Hardware resulted in this purchase......

Tamiya's Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat (61034) in 1/48.

Not armor, or large-scale......but ,still a nice little kit.

I have a couple of the 1/32 Trumpy kits of this.....but

I know this will be a smaller , Yet less frustrating build.

I enjoyed building this kit - goes together really nicely.  I added a bunch of AM to it, but even without AM builds into a great model.

[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

Thanks Hubert!  The Walrus weren't too bad.  I had to run them under hot water to straighten out the wings a bit, but other than that, the hardest thing was not losing the tiny things like the floats and tail wings.  

For the nose, I think part of the look is an exaggeration from the extreme magnification, part is that the kit is trying to show the gun in the front turret.  I'll have to figure out if I want to keep it or not, thanks for pointing it out.

[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

I made a lot more progress on the Albatross the past few nights.  Managed to get the bridge completed, and added a bunch of other items to the rear half of the ship.  I changed my mind and am going to paint the deck before adding all the various deck items.  Part of the issue is that if I put on some of the platforms, I really won't be able to paint the deck underneath.  Plus, a lot of the deck items are resin with their bottoms attached to the plug, so I can paint them off the model, cut them off, and then glue them onto the deck - at least that's the idea.  

Next I worked on the Walruses.  I probably only need one, but built the second up as a spare.  I thought building a biplane in 1/72 was tricky - at 1/700, it's a completely different story!  Good practice for future builds I suppose as I have a few 1/700 aircraft carriers in the stash.

Thanks for looking in!

[1/700 USS Nimitz and USS Pharris]

Nice!  Looking forward to this one.  I love 1/700 models.

[ZM Bf 109G Hartmann]

Wow, what a fantastic build Peter!!  Beautiful work!

[RFI: 1/72 S-100]

Wow, really nice looking model there Kevin.  Great job!

[Arado 234 Nachtigall on Speed]

Somehow missed this one Rob, but read through from the beginning.  Very impressive!  Your canopy work in particular is really incredible 

Looking forward to seeing this cross the finish line!  Primed and smooth as a baby's bottom!

[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

20 minutes ago, DocRob said:

It's hard to tell from the picture, but it seems to me the Eduard attachment points and AIMS wires are not a perfect match. If you have the attachment points already glued, you could use flat elastic rigging material, like Prym produces. I think EZ-Line is also available flat shaped. 

Cheers Rob

I haven't glued those points in yet, but I believe I removed some of the plastic points in preparation for the Eduard parts so will need to use the Eduard PE at this point I suppose.  My guess is I will need to drill holes whether I use the AIMS wires or elastic rigging, just so there is a little more security with the bond.  I'll have to play around with it.  A big reason why I put the Walrus down and started on the Albatross 😞 

[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

3 minutes ago, npb748r said:

It's a MkVIII depth charge - I have just bought a set of these in 1/32 scale.

Thanks!  Good to know.  Kit part looks awfully plain, hmm...  

[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

8 minutes ago, DocRob said:

Great work all around Mike. I can't add to the tube thing question though, maybe it's a mine. I don't think there were dragged sonars by that time. The PE looks tedious, but adds a lot of detail. I can imagine the patience it took, to assemble these pieces.
I never used PE flat rigging, but the AIMS set looks like you should slot the ends of the wires, maybe in a scalpel cut small hole. Measuring will be not so easy, but you could slot in one side and look where the second slot has to be then.

Cheers Rob

Thanks Rob!  I kinda enjoy working with PE, as it's like a puzzle often times.  Of course I hate it when I drop parts and spend an hour on my hands and knees looking for them on the floor.  CA and I have a better understanding these days, as if the CA is not behaving, I threaten it with accelerator.  Makes for a nicer relationship.

That was the sense I got from the AIMS instructions as well.  What will be tricky I think is slotting the ends where they should connect with the Eduard PE attachment points (see picture below).  I think it's just a matter of drilling a small hole in the center of these PE parts, and then running the AIMS wire ends into the hole.  I'm probably overthinking this.  

On my first plastic builds in coming back to the hobby after 30 years, I had stainless wire aftermarket from Starfighter that I added to my 1/72 F4B-4 and P-6E builds.  It was really tricky adding them, given that if you didn't fit them just right, the wires would bend.  The parts were double wires which made things even worse.  Hopefully at this scale and the fact that the Walrus rigging involves single wires, the AIMS set should be easier.

[Soo.... What did you just get???]

Wow @DocRob, those wheels look fantastic!  I picked up a couple of spoked wheels from UMM (the spokes are in brass), but will have to look at Copper State's offerings too now that I see your pictures.  

@ScottsGT, that camo scheme is incredible!  Good thing I don't build modern fighters, as I'd be tempted to buy a kit just for that scheme, but that still is awfully tempting!

[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

While putting off thinking about the rigging, I did start on the Albatross build.  I didn't realize this, but Niko makes two kits for this ship - one from 1939, and the other from 1942.  The 1939 version has a plain gray camo scheme, while the 1942 version has the more intricate dazzle scheme.  Otherwise, except for a few minor modifications, the kit/ship is the same between the two versions.  

I have the 1939 kit - fortunately or unfortunately - which matches up with the 1939-1940 schemes for the Walrus I'm planning to model.  I still haven't fully decided which of the two versions I'm planning to model.  I'm heavily leaning towards the 9F (first below) over the 9U, as I have the 1/32 HpH Walrus on the shelf and the scheme I like from that kit is very similar to the 9U.

Back to the Albatross, the Niko kit is very nice.  It's a mostly resin kit with a sheet of PE.  It's a welcome change from having a plastic kit where you need to eliminate details to replace them with tiny PE parts that you need to glue and fold together.  Building guns in 1/700 using PE is not fun!  Much easier when the guns or other parts are already fully, or mostly fully, molded in resin.

The hull is nicely cast, and didn't require much cleanup.  There is a small tab on the stern platform that you need to remove, but that's about it.  I gave it a lot of thought, and whereas some builders first paint the hull, then add the various details, I decided to add as many details as I can, then will paint the hull -- first painting the wooden decks, and then taping it and painting the rest of the ship.  I think in the long run that will be easier, though there are always advantages and disadvantages to either approach.

I built most of the bridge and side platforms up.  Here's where I was glad I took the approach of building before painting as it's pretty fiddly trying to get all the various parts to line up.  If I painted the bridge assembly first and then tried to install it, there was a good chance it wouldn't fit right.  That being said, I'll add the top level of the bridge separately after priming with black primer as there are lots of nooks and crannies that I might not be able to get to with the top level installed.

I also built up the AA guns, and mostly built up the three bow cranes which will get cables and hooks.  Very nice details on these parts.

Thanks for looking in!

[Walrus (Airfix 1/48), NeOmega Catapult, and HMS Albatross (Niko 1/700) by Landlubber Mike]

Anyone know what Parts E34 and E35 are intended to be?  It's some kind of tube that fits on the under-wing bomb racks.  I wasn't planning on adding bombs to the build (at least not the E38 small bombs), but might add this tube thing.