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Playing in the Sandbox Group Build Sept 1, 2024 - Jn 1, 2025

Airfix 1/72 scale "E" boat.


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1 hour ago, Bomber_County said:

Looking amazing Gaz, you’d love the Italeri 35th boats. There is quite a lot of cleanup but I think Griffon do a PE kit for one of the E series……….

 

As my wife would say, they're "bigger than Ben Hur". 

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7 minutes ago, GazzaS said:

Heller makes a few kits in the oddball 1/400 scale that I have considered.  But I can imagine needing to replace so much of the upperworks that it makes the task seem daunting.  Then there is procuring railings for the scale...  I don;t know if anyone makes them. 

https://www.tomsmodelworks.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=23_33&osCsid=5qa0sje30vbdoenveas9d0e7m7

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The railings alone, all the PE, and forget trying to bend any sort of PE replacement for the superstructure itself.  Wow.  Ship modeling is a totally different beast!  I'm in awe at the skill level you show between the aircraft, ships and figure painting.  I'm definitely not that broadly skilled!

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7 hours ago, CANicoll said:

The railings alone, all the PE, and forget trying to bend any sort of PE replacement for the superstructure itself.  Wow.  Ship modeling is a totally different beast!  I'm in awe at the skill level you show between the aircraft, ships and figure painting.  I'm definitely not that broadly skilled!

Thank you, Chris.  You've got plenty of skill, I've enjoyed your builds for quite a  while now.  I'm still pretty weak when it comes to photo-etch.  I generally try to avoid it.

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Welcome back...    yes, two Reader's Digest episodes in one week...

Today I separated all but the railings from the sprues, cleaned them up some...   seems I always miss something...  and spray painted them.  Including the crew.

The crew:  Airfix modeled them in late war uniform with a pre-war build.  So, I've cut off their side caps and replaced them with proper sailor caps with tails...   sorry, no pics of them.  They just got a coat of paint just like the rest of the pieces I cut off today.

I also constructed the mast, and using Bob's Buckle's eyelets, prepared them to rig.  I also added three rigging lines which only attach to the mast.  I used stretchy line.

Then I got to painting the wood and linoleum.  I dry brushed the metal strips in the linoleum but they don't show very well.  I didn't want them to stick out too much and my subtle dry brushing only makes them catch-able at the perfect angle.

I'll let the photos say the rest...

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Nice Gary, all the detail painting with wood , masts and linoleum enhances the contrast of the vessel and pleases the eye. 

I will not dig to deep into maritime subjects in the future, besides wooden ships, but there are some plastic kits, I want to build. I have the 1/35 Vosper in stash, with lots of AM and figures and there is the 1/200 Mikasa in 1902 trim tempting my buy button push finger, along with some PE, maybe Pontos and Ion figures. The Mikasa kit is a Hobby Boss releas, so has to be inspected properly before buying, having the unbelievable bad plastic of the USS Arizona in mind.

Cheers Rob

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Gaz

Brilliant update and your eye for detail is amazing ... the sailors' hats as an example are from late war and the build is pre war. The woodwork and linoleum look so good and perfectly done. I'm with Chris in that my modeling skills nowhere encompass what is needed for ship modeling and figures. I do envy you guys who have such talents I lack and so much appreciate following your work and all the photographs along the journey. 

 

linoleum.

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16 hours ago, DocRob said:

Nice Gary, all the detail painting with wood , masts and linoleum enhances the contrast of the vessel and pleases the eye. 

I will not dig to deep into maritime subjects in the future, besides wooden ships, but there are some plastic kits, I want to build. I have the 1/35 Vosper in stash, with lots of AM and figures and there is the 1/200 Mikasa in 1902 trim tempting my buy button push finger, along with some PE, maybe Pontos and Ion figures. The Mikasa kit is a Hobby Boss releas, so has to be inspected properly before buying, having the unbelievable bad plastic of the USS Arizona in mind.

Cheers Rob

Thank you, Rob.  I have seen the Mikasa built.  Seems to be a good kit.

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11 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Gaz

Brilliant update and your eye for detail is amazing ... the sailors' hats as an example are from late war and the build is pre war. The woodwork and linoleum look so good and perfectly done. I'm with Chris in that my modeling skills nowhere encompass what is needed for ship modeling and figures. I do envy you guys who have such talents I lack and so much appreciate following your work and all the photographs along the journey. 

 

linoleum.

Thank you, Peter.  Really, there’s nothing much different between the Genres.  It’s more a matter of research and knowledge.  That being said, painting those 1/72 guys won’t be overly easy, unless I simplify a lot.

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No, it's not some plantation of deadly potato masher grenades ready for harvest...    It's the brass stanchion's for the boats railings.

After seeing others talk about brass stanchions and mitre boxes for round stock...   I bought one.  However, mine has a weakness...   the butt piece that keeps your stock from sliding is plastic.  And the movement caused by the razor saw caused the moving brass to wear away the corner of the butt piece causing my .9mm tube to get longer than the 1.5mm it should have been.  I tried various ways to hold the tube in place...   fingertip...  wooden block...    but those teeth going over the round tube just caused movement.

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I needed .9mm tube to fill the .9mm holes made by Airfix to fit their clunky plastic railings.  And because the .9mm tube has a .7mm inner diameter, it was a nice fit for .5mm brass rod which is still a little thick for scale...  but will have to do.

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One benefit of the larger tube at the base is that it gives a natural look to the bottom of the stanchion...  It's not just some piece of metal sticking out form the deck...  it has a proper bolted flange...  or looks like it does, anyway.

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Painting them was a two-step affair.  First, I dipped the base end into some thinned Tamiya paint and stuck the top end into a blob of blutack so that the base could dry and my paintbrush would not need to accidentally touch the deck.

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And once all of the stanchions were firmly stuck to the deck with CA I painted the rest with thinned Tamiya paint.  I thin it with Mr. Color Self-levelling for brush painting.

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I have a spool of silk thread that I use for ropes.   It's pretty nice to represent any kind of cord.   If you work it alot, it can become fuzzy...   but the slightest lick of flame will get rid of the fuzzies, even after you seal it with CA.  I have used it to represent bungee cords on WWI fighters.

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Using Mr. Color on Tamiya paint really slows down the drying process.  I'm gonna let it sit overnight at least before I consider doing oiling and adding the 'chains' between the stanchions...  Hopefully it doesn't become some CA sodden nightmare.

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Good work on the stanchions, Gary. 
I feel your frustration on buying a tool with a cheap option somewhere, that quickly makes the tool useless 😡.

Keep it coming. The end is very near :popcorn:

Hubert

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Gary,

Excellent fix for the stanchions!  So frustrating when a tool doesn't quite work up to how it is supposed to work.  But your resourcefulness won out in the end.  Not sure I would have thought about the .7mm option.  The boat is really looking spiffy. 

I have Mr. Color SLT, too, but actually don't use it very much.  MRP doesn't need it and I have not tried it with Vallejo.  I used to use a retarder with the Vallejo and ran into the same problem you did - paint drying times were greatly extended - far longer than I was expecting.  But for brush painting I can see where it would probably eliminate brush strokes.  Hmmm.

 

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16 hours ago, CANicoll said:

Gary,

Excellent fix for the stanchions!  So frustrating when a tool doesn't quite work up to how it is supposed to work.  But your resourcefulness won out in the end.  Not sure I would have thought about the .7mm option.  The boat is really looking spiffy. 

I have Mr. Color SLT, too, but actually don't use it very much.  MRP doesn't need it and I have not tried it with Vallejo.  I used to use a retarder with the Vallejo and ran into the same problem you did - paint drying times were greatly extended - far longer than I was expecting.  But for brush painting I can see where it would probably eliminate brush strokes.  Hmmm.

 

Thanks Chris.  SLT is really great for making Tamiya paint more brushable.  You don't use Tamiya paints?  I doubt it will work very much with aqueous acrylics...  since you need other water based products for them.

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Great work on the stanchions. These slide fit brass tubes are a gift for modelling. The result looks very convincing. I have to look, if my mini mitre also provides a plastic length adjusting stop. At least mine worked without moving.

Cheers Rob

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6 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Thanks Chris.  SLT is really great for making Tamiya paint more brushable.  You don't use Tamiya paints?  I doubt it will work very much with aqueous acrylics...  since you need other water based products for them.

That's true!  It would not really work with Vallejo.  Used a few of the Tamiya acrylics many years ago but I was never very consistent with them so I gave them up.  There are so many good paints out there now.

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