Airfix 1/600 HMS Repulse WIP

Earlier this year, Dave, a friend of mine from Derbyshire, who specialises in ship models, decided to concentrate on 1/350 and larger, and thus to rationalise his stash and raise funds for the seriously high asking prices now attached to these things. So it was that, a few weeks later, I became the proud possessor of an Airfix 1/600 HMS Repulse, along with a set of WEM etch for it, and some White Ensign Models Carley floats.

The kit painting instructions didn't seem to accord with what my own research into the colour scheme suggested, but on-line research, plus discussion with John Snyder at WEM, came up with the right information and a scan of the colour profiles from the new Trumpeter 1/350 kit. Relevant paints were acquired, a slot was found in the build schedule, and I was ready to roll!

Dave had cemented the hull halves together, and done a good job, adding reinforcing spacers from pieces of sprue, but some cleaning up of seams and sink marks was still needed. Nothing outrageous, just a couple of hours' work. The hull halves themselves are very well-moulded, with the complex curves of the hull itself, the armour belt, anti-torpedo bulges and bilge keels very well represented.

If you want, the kit can be built as a waterline model, with a large recessed cut line on the hull interior at the waterline. I've decided on a full hull, however, the better to display those subtle torpedo bulge curves.

I also cleaned up and assembled the hull display trestles, connecting them with a length of hollow rectangular-section Plastruct to form a more substantial stand that wouldn't be forever falling over and getting lost. I also knocked up a graving dock from some Lego bricks, to support the model during assembly.

Test-fitting the decks showed that the fit would be very tight, and that they would need to be cemented in place a bit at a time. Thus it was out with the masking tape and liquid poly, first the quarterdeck and then the weather deck:



Fit of the quarterdeck side walls and bulkheads was not so good. I ended up cementing them first to the underside of the weather deck, and removing the locating ridges on the quarter deck. Even so, fit at the hull sides was not good, requiring filling with scrap plastic strip and superglue. In the process, I removed the hull side torpedo tube doors (who on earth thought that a capital ship would ever get close enough to the other guy to use torpedos?), but I found some suitable hatch covers in the spare etch box to replace them. In installing the etched de-gaussing cable, I also removed the midships torpedo tube doors. Anyway, the etched hatch covers look better.

To enable the main guns to rotate, but not fall out if the ship capsises in the bath, Airfix provide retaining pins for the turrets. However, these have to be installed from below the decks, which would make spray-painting the turrets and decks a nightmare. Therefore, I drilled out the turrets to accept lengths of 60 thou diameter plastic rod, which make perfectly secure pivots. Other work on the turrets has included drilling out the gun barrels, filling sink marks either side of the sighting hoods, and making blast bags from Milliput:



The penguin's there to use up the surplus Milliput. He also enables me to check when the Milliput has set, without risking damaging the model pieces.

The ship's anti-aircraft armament included quadruple Vickers 0.5 machine gun mounts, and octuple 2pdr. pom-poms. The kit items are a bit crude, and while the etched fret provides superb replacements, I doubted that I had the modelling skills to make up the pom-poms, maybe ¼ across, from no fewer than 12 individual pieces. Thus I went to WEM's website, and ordered some white metal replacements. While I was there, I nabbed some ship's boats and ship's boat details, extra doors and hatches, and some extra Carley floats. Some are moulded in places where theyre bound to be damaged when cleaning up seams, or removing moulded-on detail to be replaced with etch.

To be continued.

Hi Chris,
Nice to see she reached her new home safely and that you have made a start on her.
I'll be watching this one closely!

BTW - The Hobbybounties website still lists her as being available, along with the FROG rebox of Airfix's KGV as the P.O.W. Singapore price around £20UK.

Cheers

Dave

Not much to report over the last few days. Much of the time I've spent working on this model has been taken in filling sink marks and other moulding flaws. There are many of these, often in places which, while tricky to reach, are also going to be visible on the completed model.

I've also been adding pieces of etch here and there. One of HMS Repulse's most characteristic features were a pair of double-width inclined ladders running down to the quarterdeck. One on each side of the ship. Airfix provide these, but the WEM etched fret provides much finer replacements. I cut the kit items off when installing the weather deck on the hull, and marked their location with a black pen. A few days later, when I came to install the etched ladders, I couldn't figure out why they wouldn't fit. I sat there, staring at scale drawings, for at least five minutes until I worked out what the problem was:

On the real thing, the ladders go down from the weather deck to the quarter deck but, as you can see, Airfix moulded them as starting at 01 deck level....

The WEM etched bits I ordered on Friday arrived today. The boats, Carley floats, and pom-poms, described as white metal on their website, turned out to be made from resin, which makes them much easier to work with and detail. Unfortunately, the quad Vickers gun mounts were out of stock, so I may have to end up fiddling with tiny bits of etch anyway.

 

To be continued....

Slow progress this week. I've been doing a lot of small detail work, involving tiny bits of etch, and I can only concentrate on this sort of stuff for so long at a time. Plus, I've had to be finishing of a review build against a publishing deadline, and this has taken up most of my modelling time.

So, this week, I've mostly been working on:

 

The starfish spotting top for the mainmast.

This was fun. A dozen small bits of etch in tight formation. Looks a lot better than the kit item, though.

The funnels

The funnels themselves were easy enough to assemble. Not so much the etched top framework, though. I used curved pencil and pen tops to give the framing the necessary domed appearance, and lots of trimming and test-fitting was needed. There's a group of four pipes on the after side of the forward funnel, but the kit item got eaten by the Carpet Monster, so I had to scratchbuild a replacement from plastic rod and strip. I think it looks better than the original. I also replaced the Carley float attached to the after funnel with a WEM resin item. They're much better-detailed.

The aircraft handling cranes

Each of these was made up from only two pieces of etch, but the folding was fun. The bases were made from plastic strip, with a plastic rod pivot. There's an operator's station on the outboard side of each crane, which forms part of the kit part, but which I failed to remove successfully. Luckily I found that a 3" open mount from a Skywave/ Pit Road/ Dragon 1/700 USN accessory sprue (a great source of greeblies), when slightly cut down, did the job perfectly.

The 2pdr. pom-poms.

 I used WEM's resin items for these. Better-detailed than the kit items but not as fiddly to assemble as the full-on etch items provided on the WEM etched fret. I added etched railings and gunsights to the resin gun mounts to dress them up a bit.

I've also spent a fair amount of time fixing yet more mould flaws and filling yet more sink marks.

Next week, I should be starting to put together the larger sub-assemblies, and starting to prepare them for painting. I've also had a long, hard, look at the etch for the ship's Supermarine Walrus

I think it would be safe to say that I won't be attempting  Scarf rings and Lewis guns in 1/600! They would have been covered over with tarpaulins except when the aircraft was being launched or recovered, anyway...

To be continued....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ship is completed up to the sub-assembly stage. Here are the various sub-assemblies and individual parts ready to be primed with Humbrol Hu.140 medium grey enamel tomorrow morning:


I loked long and hard at the etched quad Vickers gun mounts, but decided that folding pieces of etch less than 1mm² wasnt for me. I therefore used the kit items, cleaned up some and with etched ammo drums added. I also added etched details to most of the ships boats, and to the gunnery control spotting tops.
I made up three Walrusses the kit item, with added etch:



The piece of etch below the hull is the catapult launch dolly, and the thing supporting the model is a cocktail stick.

I also built up two Trumpeter 1/700 items, reasoning that Id be usin the Trumpeter decals anyway, so why not make up a couple, and paint them at the same time. I lost enough detail parts to make up an extra couple of planes to the Carpet Monster (being tiny, and made of clear plastic, this was always going to happen), but fortunately theyre cheap (useful to remember if you're ordering paints from Hannants, and need to find an inexpesnive, but potentially useful, kit) and come twelve to a box.

To be continued

good god thats small!!

iv just finished airfixes 1/600 hood iv never done any pe i doubt id have any chance of doing any that small what do you use to glue the pe together btw?

ps i want a 1/600 repulse too iv got a 1/700 waterline and trumpys 1/350 jobby that iv started (the 350 scale ship comes with pe which i intend to attempt

Mostly, I use medium-viscocity superglue. This give enough time to work, but also fills small irregularities. For non-load-bearing items, such as searchlight frames, I use white gllue. I also usd this for the anti-gaussing wire around the ship's hull, to avoid damaging adjacent detail.

Looking at the Trumpeter 1/350 kit, the etch looks useful, though I'd add an outer rim to the funnel caps to make them easier to install. You'll also need fsr more railings than Trumpy provide.

The Airfix Repulse comes up on ebay from time to time, often in the Singaporese 'FROG' re-boxing. There's one, in the original boxing, there at the moment. A couple have been sold within the last week - one went for £13.50, the other -looks as if there was a bidding war - for £23.50.

Cheers,

Chris.

Hi Chris,
Nice to see her progressing.

I now know why I could never have handled 1/600 & 1/700 PE!

BTW - A guy on MWS has built the 1/350 kit and there was enough PE railing.
It was a question I asked before I bought mine.

Cheers
Dave

Hi Dave,

on reflection, you may be right about the railings - there isn't much need for them above the weather deck.

Anti-fouling went on this morning!

Cheers,

Chris. 

 

Hi Chris,

Trumpeter's Prinz Eugen arrived last Saturday - lovely kit.
Am now awaiting the release of their Graf Spee, then I'll read the reviews and compare Trumpeter's to that of Academy's before making a purchase decision.

Oh, and there might well be a 1/350 Dragon Scharnhorst before this Xmas or early New Year too!!

It depends upon the final price of the latter though.

Cheers
Dave

Hi Dave,

yes, an impressive, if budget-busting selection. Only ship I've pencilled in for certain for the remainder of the year is the Airfix 1/350 Lusty - if it sees the light of day this year, something on which I would not bet the ranch.

Cheers,

Chris.

"yes, an impressive, if budget-busting selection. "

Indeed, which is why I shall be placing great emphasis upon the price/quality calculation when it comes to Academy's Graf Spee (£21+ from Relish Models) versus Trumpeter's Graf Spee (most likely around £60UK).

On many web boards, although the news of the new release is broadly welcomed, Dragon's Scharnhorst is already a bone of contention when it comes to final pricing.

If they can manage to bring her in at around the $100-$120US range, then there might be a significant number of takers. If in the other hand, they pander to the view of many foolish modellers out there with more money than sense whose view is "If you want it bad enough, you'll pay anything for it", then I for one won't be buying.

All this attitude serves to do is to give the manufacturers carte blanc to name their own prices.

If Dragon go for Hasegawa & Fujimi-sized pricing for their Scharnhorst, then I'm out - Completely.

The *report me* thing can sit on the modelshop/warehouse shelf for all eternity as far as I am concerned.

There's a distinct difference between taking the******and taking a reasonable profit.

I dearly hope that Dragon, or rather their respective importers/distributors choose the latter route.

Brief update. Painting is mostly finished, and the ship is now mostly built up into sub-assemblies. Painting the hull required a lot of masking,

 

but most of the sib-assemblies could be sprayed one main colour, with the detail colours brush-painted.  I used White Ensign Colourcoats enamels for the most part, with the black camouflage being Revell enamel Anthracite, a useful ‘not quite black'.

 

The boot-topping was done with black decal striping and the scuttles with a 0.3mm draughtsman's pen - why make life difficult for yourself?

The Walrus amphibians have also been painted. Originally, I had intended to use the decals that came with the Trumpeter 1/700 Walruses, but the roundels proved to be too large and of the wrong style, so I used some from White Ensign's 1/350 Modern RAF/ FAA decal sheet instead. Despite the nominal scale, these sheets also include markings suitable for 1/600 and 1/700 aircraft. I ended up using only some underwing roundels, fin flashes, and code numbers from the Trumpeter sheet. They're awaiting a second coat of varnish and some detail painting. Should have piccies in the next bulletin.

Generally, the project's about a week off completion, depending mostly upon how much rigging I decide to do.

To be continued.

Well, here are the Walrusses. Two Trumpeter 1/700 and one Airfix 1/600. Truth to tell, the Trumpies are pretty crude, and moulding them in clear plastic was a bit pointless. You'd never be able to mask off the canopy, and the Carpet Monster just loves clear plastic. Nominally, the set contains twelve aircraft, but if I get eight out of it, I reckon I'll be lucky.

Here are all three together. Notice that the pilot of the Airfix machine was so keen to get ‘up and at'em' that he forgot to pull the catapult dolly release!

Next a photo of the Airfix model:

And another with a single stud Lego brick for scale:

The Repulse herself progresses steadily. A bit of detail-painting here, adding some etched railings  there....