A month or so ago I posted some pics of the almost-complete AF-10, USS ALDEBARAN. I just finished it this weekend, and here are some shots. The photography is somewhat poor...I have to work on that a bit. The model is a gift to my father-in-law, who served on her and counts his time on her among his best memories. I spent a lot of time with him at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and asking him what he remembered about the ship, trying not to let him on as to what I was doing.
This is basically a kit-bash of the Revell HAWAIIAN PILOT, which lent itself fairly well to the conversion. The PILOT is a C3; ALDEBARAN was a C2 and slightly shorter, but I decided not to alter the hull length. Mostly everything above the main deck is scratch-built of Evergreen and brass rod. PE WT doors, railings and ladders are from Tom's Modelworks. Rigging is a fine elastic thread harvested from an old pair of socks (washed first, or course!). The model is mounted in an IMEX plastic display case, only the base of which is shown in these photos. The water base was made using a technique I read about in an old FSM using painted tin foil covered with Mod Podge gloss sealer, sort of a watered down white glue that dries clear.
For the cargo gear, I decided to rig the topping wires and guy wires only. The elastic thread worked out great. I started by coloring it black with a marker. It's attached by placing it in a tiny drop of CA, then stretching to the next point, glue, then to the next point, etc. It is only slightly taut, enough so that if someone hits the line it will stretch like a rubber band and does not break. I was going to buy something called "Easy Line" but when I saw what was starting to fray from my socks, I decided to recycle them instead.
My father in law recalled driving the small boats, so I had to make some from scratch. The lifeboats are from the PILOT kit, although the davits are scratchbuilt. All of the guns are from the PILOT. I didn't fuss about their size or accuracy.
Darn it, next time I'll have to make sure I paint the INSIDE of the funnel black...!
I made some mooring lines and placed them on an otherwise empty fantail. I used a heavy thread, which was snaked out on the sticky side of a POST-IT, then coated with Mod Podge to keep it together and make it one piece. Once dry, it is peeled up from the POST-IT and then glued down on the deck.
In painting, this was my first airbrush job, so I wanted to keep it simple. I decided to go with one shade of gray, Testors enamel, and use pastels to shadow, dirty up and rust the hull a bit. I actually got the inspiration to shadow from old B&W photos of the ship, because the shades of gray are what illustrate the detail in those photos. Once complete, the model was sealed with Future, flattened with Tamiya flat base.
Hull numbers are dry transfers (aka rub ons). The only decals are the flag on the stern and the draft marks from the PILOT kit.
The plastic IMEX case, which costs more than the kit, needed a bit of work to get a good fit of the clear lid on the black base. I had to do a bit of sanding at the very base of the clear lid at the ends, and polish it up with a tri-grit stick, before I found that the lid sat well on the black base. The small locking tabs at the base of the clear lid on the ends didn't lock very well, so once I fit the lid to the base, I drilled a small hole through each end of the black base and its corresponding locking tab. I used a small screw in each hole to lock the lid to the base.
As I said in my earlier post, I have to thank all of you forum members for your help over the past 5-1/2 months. You gave me many great ideas, suggestions, advice, information, and some incentive to experiment a bit. I had a blast getting back to plastic ship modeling, this was fun!