Trumpeter 1/200 Arizona build

Looking forward to this thread Eagle. I'm pulling up a chair and taking notes.

Steve

Sorry I have not added more to this before now.  I had some problems with Photobucket and finally had to say something that rhymed with that name and go to a new hosting site.

Should be less hassle and trouble now.  

Here is another installment.

That is this installment, another coming right up.

Here is another catch up installment.  Hope you enjoy!  

That's all for now folks.  Let me know what you think.  Some info I also found on the Model Ship forum, but as always, I do my own research to prove to myself where things need to be tweaked, changed or redone.

Impressive indeed. I really like your approach- steady and methodical.

It has been a couple of days so I will make another catch up post.

Things are going to start getting interesting now.

To be continued...

Oh, and a little note on the photos.  FSM for some reason shrinks them down a bit.  Click on them and they will show full size on your screen.

One of the better WIP I've come across and follow.

Here is a little more catch up on this build.  I really don't like the long thread pages that FSM does so I will keep my photo posts smaller than they would be elsewhere.  Smaller pages load faster and are easier to read through.  They also make it easier to skim to the later page and read up without having to scroll huge amounts.  That's my opinion on it from other experiences.

But enough of that, everyone here visiting is wanting to see something.  This installment has the solution to removing and reshaping that aweful hump that Trumpeter put on the butt end of the Arizona hull.

I think you will like my elegent and simple solution.

What do you think?  A much better way than doing a bunch of splicing of plastic to correct the flaw eh!  The relief I added for the thick plate areas also gives some character to the surface.  Ship bottoms on these early ships were not smooth at all.  They had plates and bands of steel and strips and all kinds of stuff.  Which added a fair amount of drag I am sure, but the building practices of the time these were state of the art.

I will post some more catch updates in a few days.   Stay tuned.    

Time for another quick catch-update.  Took a detour on this one and started on the 5 inch guns.

To be continued...

Hate these long pages that FSM has.  When posting a lot of photos it is best to break them into posts of 5 to 7 photos.  Keeps the page lengths a "little" more reasonable.

Here are the rest of the photos.

I have been working on these guns since this post was made.  This original gun was stripped back apart and the plastic bits set aside.  As the kit comes with 12 sets and the model only uses 10 I had some spare parts.  This initial gun had a lot of rework.  The final builds of these guns had a huge amount more and look much better.  I also redid most of the mount part and made a mold and cast the revised parts in resin.  Much easier to correct one really nicely and more fun to cast a dozen or so than to try and rework ten.

That's all for now.  Let me know what you think. Eh?

  Nice work HAngel. I still think you'll have to raise the height of the wall for the 5" guns not just remove the framing. Everything else looks real good.

The height and such on the superstructure walls is ok, also if that height is changed it dominos into how all the stuff above it fits as well.  Once I make the changes needed the height will be just fine.  Another thing with this kit is that inside the superstructure there is no wood on the deck.  So if I scrape that down until the scribing for the planks disappears it will lower the guns as well.

As I stated earlier the gun openings will need some heavy work as the walls are too thick as well

As there have been a number of folks looking in, here is another catchup post.

To be continued...

I also ordered some brass props.

A little more still coming right up...

Since I had been working on the 5 inch guns a bit I took a little break and finally did the fill on the bow.  It should come to a fine edge and not have the funky bulgy  bit.  Rather than do a bunch of cutting and chopping, I thought why not just fill the bow and sand it to shape.  It worked well enough on the part aft so it should work as well up front.

That's all for now.  I will be doing some finishing up on the 5 inch guns this weekend.

This is going to be a treat to follow. You're doing work way*9 out of my league, both with your model and your posts.  Thanks.                 gk

Is that a Forge World thunder hawk on your shelf of doom? 

Thanks for looking in Knox.  That shelf of doom kit is the Forge World Storm Eagle.  Slightly larger than the Storm Raven and uses some of the parts from it.  Costs a fraction what a Thunderhawk costs and actually looks a bit neater.  Fought it through the assembly which was a real pain.  Did not fit well, had a lot of warpage and missalignment on parts and I made it where all the doors and stuff work like they are supposed to.

Got it almost to the point for paint but lost my *** for GW stuff and have not finished it.  At some point I will probably finish it, but for now it sets on the shelf.  I would not reccomend that kit to anyone unless they have a fetish for difficult and have a LOT of modeling experience.  It is the main reason I probably have quit messing with GW stuff anymore.

I got tired of the over priced stuff that GW calls models and enjoy building kits like the Arizona much more.

  I do feel stupid.  You have the name flashing with the picture.  I understand about the pricing.  I have been selling most of my GW stuff, but turned around and spent some on their mechanicus range.

  You are putting a lot of work into your posts about the even more work you're putting into the model.        Thank you.                                         gk

knox

  I do feel stupid.  You have the name flashing with the picture.  I understand about the pricing.  I have been selling most of my GW stuff, but turned around and spent some on their mechanicus range.

  You are putting a lot of work into your posts about the even more work you're putting into the model.        Thank you.                                         gk

 

      

Paul, 

Wow! Very, very impressive build thus far sir. The attention to detail is absolutely amazing, and your WIP commentary is outstanding! I will be here until you finish 

Here is the last quick catch-update.  Ater this you will be up with where I am currently at.  The 5 inch guns are coming together.

I finally decided to go with the 5S Sea Blue color to finish these off.  I finished up one of the barrels and then while studying photos I noticed the foot plates were a bit too far back and I have decided to reposition them to a more correct position.

I will post more photos when I have them.

Hello There ;

   I guess I missed something .What is GW ? Not an abbreviation I am familiar with .  T.B.

Ah, sorry about that, GW is short for Games Workshop.  They make a ton of overpriced 28mm plastic models for a table top wargame called Warhammer 40k.  Neat looking stuff that actually fits together quite well, but is rather way too expensive for what it actually is.  A subsidiary, Forge World makes resin high end, upgrade, and rare aftermarket stuff for GW's stuff, but the resin kits don't fit together for flip. 

I finally ditched that stuff totally after listening to an absolutely horrible audio book from Black Library (another subisiary).

It got hit with the old Dragnet theme, Done-Dun-Dun-Dun, Done-Dun-Dun-Dun-Done!

Now back to our regular Arizona programming!  Have been lacking the zen to do much modeling the last couple of weeks.  Just been feeling like a lazy bum an have had no real zoom,zoom to try and do anything.

Still here,and fascinated.

Good thing the guns weren’t too bad---I can only imagine what great lengths you would have had to go to to correct them.....OH Wait!..I get it!  You did go to great lengths to...... Never Mind.

It has been a litte bit since I posted an update here.  Set the 5 inch guns aside for a little bit.  Was just getting tired of them.  It was like building the track links on 10 tanks and I decided to build on something a bit different.

Here we go.

As I did this about a week ago, I also have a second update that will be right up.  

Here is basically part 1-b of building the cranes for the Arizona.  Only thing I can suggest if you want a real accurate build is DO YOUR RESEARCH!  I had to back up a little bit and now am going to do some more scratch building to get it just right.

Yup some 2 steps forward and one step back.  There is even one glaring error on an assembly in this last picture.  The clue is it isn't the 2 airducts with the screens on them.  Yeah they need to be painted black inside and very thin backs put on them.  They aren't the issue.

Hope you enjoyed!  Let me know what you think!  Till next time Cheers!  

I have finally gotten my build *** back and have a new installment on the Arizona build.

Here we go!

Let me know what you think folks.  It does help the *** when I hear from you.

This following is a bit of a rant about the newest version of the program I use to create these photos.

As a footnote, the program I have been using to create these photos is CANVAS X (version 10).  The current version of this program which is CANVAS PRO X16 is HORRIBLE!  I was inspired to build a new 64bit computer this last December mainly due to the fact I had been able to purchase the newest version on a special deal from the manufacturer ACD.  So far my frustration level hits 20 (on a scale of 10) within about 10 minutes every time I have tried to learn to use the new version.  This happens due to how they have totally screwed up how things work.  In version 10 it takes an average of about 10 to 15 minutes to do each photo.  In version 16 I have no idea if it is even possible to do any of these any more.  The alignment function that is one of the most used tools was changed in such a way that it now is quite broken for quick alignments.  Icons for tools have been changed and removed though the tools are still there.  (they just use the same generic icon that 50 other tools use)

Those are just a couple of the things that are screwed up.  On their forums I noted that most folks are complaining about these problems but it seems the complaints are falling on deaf ears.  As I can't do anything but get angry I just pull up version X(10)  and do a quick smooth build.  Version 16 is broken in at least 7 ways that I would commonly use it.  While I could work around the problems, it isn't a matter of a few mouse clicks it is a matter of 12 times as many mouse clicks as to the few keyboard shortcuts and copy drag items I do.  So while CANVAS has been a quite easy and intuitive program to use up through version 10, I cannot reccomend version 16 at all.

OK, time for bed, sorry if I have come across as a bit of a cranky butt on this but after 20 years of using CANVAS they have totally FUBARed version 16.  

Today is December 7th 2016.  It is the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  My original intention was to have this build finished by today.  Unfortunately the Trumpeter kit leaves a LOT to be desired.  Thus while it isn't finished, it is still in the build cue.  There is so much to do that I decided several months ago to do it right rather than to a deadline.

Let's take a moment today and remember those that gave their lives that day 75 years ago.

Hi ;

 Yes , today is the anniversary of " the Day of Infamy " May those  "on duty " be remembered for their sacrifice as we think of them . Sorry , Posted a day late again ! Tanker - Builder

That's some awesome attention to detail Paul. I admire all the hard work. Going to amazing when finished.