Landlubber Mike

Finally got through assembling most of the interior. The Eduard interior PE set is pretty intense with a ton of pieces (close to 100 if not more if I remember correctly). Probably took a good 3-4 evenings of work to get in, and my guess is 95% won't be seen. But, good practice I suppose. I've gotten a little better with some of the types of PE that have vexed me in the past, including circles/rounds. Had a few to do here with the two gun cockpits, and improved my skills there. Here are the pieces with the Eduard interior, minus most of the pieces from the colored PE fret that will go on after I paint these interior pieces: That little piece in the middle of the bottom row is actually the ship/boat's anchor - interesting! After taping the various edges, I ended up priming these pieces and a few other interior pieces this evening. Then it's onto painting the interior green, adding the remaining Eduard pieces, and a bit of weathering. Thanks for looking in!

It's called "work hardening" or "strain hardening" apparently. Bending the copper causes defects or "dislocations" in the cubic crystal structure, making it harder. Annealing it removes these defects or dislocations. At least that is what I gathered from here: https://www.materialseducation.org/educators/matedu-modules/docs/Work_Hardening_and_Annealing_of_Copper.pdf Yay science!

One of my other hobbies is bonsai, where you use annealed copper wire to wire your trees. From what I understand, the copper is looped in coils and heated to anneal the copper. When you buy the coils, the copper is soft and easily workable. Once you start uncoiling the wire and using it, it hardens quickly - a very good quality for wiring your trees because the wire locks into position. That's why you have to be very careful of any bumps to the pre-used coils, as the wire hardens and the thicker diameters get very hard to use. Not sure if this is what happens to brass that is annealed then worked. Very different from using aluminum wire on your bonsai, which is easier to bend and manipulate, but doesn't harden on use thus having lower holding power at the same gauge. Sorry for the digression Rob!

Hang in there Harv! Go play golf, join a gym, find a club or other similar activity. You can always go for retail therapy and buy lots of kits - or live vicariously through the others of us on here that do so

Rob, that's looking spectacular. It's not easy getting those masts and their platforms looking so perfect - what a wonderful job! I haven't annealed before - do you just hold the part over a flame for a couple of seconds? I might have to try it some day. So far I've been fortunate that the PE I've used has been thin with pre-fold channels to make it fairly easy to bend with tweezers or a hold and fold.

Wow, really well done!! If you were going to turn that into a lawn dart, I'd hate to think of what you would do with my models! That's a really fantastic diorama! If you don't mind, can I ask what blue you used for the insignia? I have to paint similar Finnish swastikas on an upcoming Finnish Buffalo build, and was trying to find a paint that matched that blue.

Wow, you're off and running after the Kingfisher, aren't you! Really fantastic work on the interior, great job!!

Great first one in bag! What a way to kick off this group build, nice job Peter!!

Wow, those figures came out fantastic!! Nice job!

Amazing PE work Rob - those cranes look incredible. Very nice job!!

Wow Peter, looks fantastic! You really did the old kit proud. Looks like it should be the box cover!

Another beauty John - love the color scheme! Well done on mixing and matching parts.

Beautiful!! Your canopy lines are perfect, wow! Very very nice job.

Wow, really great job Jerry!

Another quirky one for the stash. I've been interested in the Dornier Do 24T model for quite a while, and happened upon an eBay auction for not only the kit, but also the Squadron canopies (supposedly a big improvement over the kit ones) and more importantly, the out of production Goffy resin engine detailing set. When I looked up what other aftermarket was out there, I found that Hannants was carrying the AIMS very detailed interior and exterior sets, along with a Kora transport carriage that also includes parts to convert the model into a minesweeper. Ended up snagging the kit off eBay for an excellent price and picked up some other AM goodies. John's AIMS PE sets are fantastic, and the Goffy engine set looks great as well. Not sure what to think of the Kora set though - the resin parts look good, but the instructions are horrendous. I can probably figure out how to put the carriage together, but doing the minesweeper conversion is going to take a lot of guesswork. I bought the kit more for the carriage than the minesweeper, so it's all good. There's only a record of one minesweeper from what I can tell, and markings would be a guessing game since there may only be one grainy picture of it out there. Obviously not a LSM (it's probably 1/3 the size of the same scale BV 222 I posted earlier), but a pretty interesting subject especially with the current group build.

Now that looks really great PW - wow!

Very nice - and typical fast - work John. That paint scheme looks really cool! Can I ask what paint you used to paint the propeller? I'm not sure if it's the lighting or anything, but I like the effect you got on it. Thanks!

Nice job on the mine! And be strong should you enter the LHS...you know you can do it...

Looking good Rob! Now it's starting to look like a ship - always a fun stage to hit in a ship build. Good luck with the gaps!

It's quite possible there is residue from a prior painting session, but I also break down the airbrush, and try to thoroughly clean out the nozzle, needle, etc. I only have this issue with Mr. Color's clear. It's just so thick, and even thinning it 2-3 parts thinner to 1 part clear, I'll get the gummed up issue when starting to spray. After maybe 10 seconds of continual spraying with maybe some back-flushing, I'll get a bit of spray to come out. Then maybe after another 30 seconds, it will start coming out the full spray. I really don't have this with other paints and clears. My primary airbrush is an Iwata Eclipse with a 0.35 nozzle. I think what is happening is that some of the clear isn't completely dissolved in the thinner, so it settles and gums things up. Eventually, as more and more thinner/thinned mix is pulled through the brush, things get more dissolved. As I'm typing this, maybe what I need to do is pre-mix the clear and thinner before adding it to the cup. I don't have to do that with other paints and clears, but maybe it's worth trying that out here. Hmm...

Unfortunately, there's not much out there for the kit. Eduard did a set for the antennas which you can find here and there, a set for the engine (which seems incredibly scarce), and masks (which seem really scarce). A couple of others came out with masks also, but I'm having a hard time sourcing them. I didn't find any AM decals for this one either. Hence, it's probably advisable to try to find the 2014 release rather than take the chance on the ones from the early 2000s. I think it would be fun to open the it up and scratch a little of the interior - kinda like you can on big transports like the Ju-52 and the Me 323. This kit is huge though even at 1/72, so I'm not sure about making it into a diorama except for using the CMK towing car which would serve more as a stand since this kit doesn't include a stand for the model. I have a couple of the Pro Modeler Ju-52s along with the Master-X pontoon and ski conversions, so I'll probably use those kits for dioramas (though, the Ju-52 at 1/48 is pretty sizable too).

I actually manually turn the PSI up on my compressor to get the airbrush primed. Once the flow is going the way it should, I then turn it down on my compressor to my working PSI. Sorry for all the confusion!

If you guys are thinking about this kit, take a look at this build on Scalemates. This was what convinced me to build this monster https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=10148&p=albums&album=40097&view=list

Yeah the chisel is so great - I have a few different sizes and even shapes from UMM, with some square faced and some oval faced. I just picked up some other tools from UMM a few months ago that included a set of reamers that have already come in handy. I'm kind of a tool junky and like to try new things out. Of course, some people can just use a #11 blade, some sandpaper and tube cement and build pristine models. It's like on the wooden ship model side. There are so many tools you can buy, including power tools, to make work easier and more accurate. Then there are those that are using a few basic tools that are creating museum quality pieces lol

I'm Mike!