Revell 1/400 ships

bondoman wrote:

<<SNIP>> They are the Revell tanker, seaplane tender and landing craft ship. I also have bought the big GMM fret with all kinds of stuff, and their decal sheet. My proposition: I need to learn really basic stuff- overall grey colors, deck colors, mast colors. What are the best books/sites for these types of ships?

Question: Are you looking for civilian colors or military colors?  Your comment about mast colors lead me to the question as most civil freighters seem to be an ochre yellow.  On most military ships the mast colors are part of the overall camouflage applied to the ship.

The best photo archive for US Navy ships; all kinds, all periods, is NAVSOURCE.

http://navsource.org/

A very good and complete reference on US Navy and Royal Navy camouflage is at shipcamouflage.com.   It can answer most of your questions about color. 

http://www.shipcamouflage.com/

Be sure to read Alan Ravens monograph on the Development of Naval Camouflage (there will be a quiz)

http://www.shipcamouflage.com/development_of_naval_camouflage.htm

Other ship modeling sites include SteelNavy and Modelwarships

http://www.steelnavy.com/

I have done the Revell tanker as a kit-bash:

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If you intend to replace the molded-on rails with PE, it's a complex job, but rewarding.

Fred

Thank you very much! That model is beautiful, Onyxman. Did you cut the hull down or keep the flat bottom as is?

For the Tanker, I would like to change the name to Mission San Carlos or Mission Carmel which are two names for the same church where I got married, but otherwise build it in WWII wartime service.

For the Pine Island, as per Operation Highjump in December 1946.

I have no ideas about the troopship. One thing I noticed is that the LC's and their davits don't look too good, and there seems to be loading nets cast onto the side of the hull!, so maybe there is a simple fix, or conversion to something else. I guess I can sand off the nets.

My guess for the Pine Island, based on photos I've found is that everything is one basic grey, except for the various items painted black, that the hangar deck is flat black and the other decks are wood (?).

On the tanker, everything is one shade of grey (?). Plus the black bits?

modelwarship.com is another good site.

Loads of tips and build articles.

Hope this helps. 

Pine Island in 1946 would have been in late-war overall Haze Gray, with Deck Gray steel decks. We have both colors accurately matched and available in our Colourcoats enamels:

US 28, Neutral #27 Haze Gray;

US 36, Neutral Deck Gray 20.

No minimum order on paints, and we ship worldwide. If you have specific questions on colors/camouflage, feel free to e-mail me directly.

Cheers,

John Snyder, The Token Yank, White Ensign Models, http://WhiteEnsignModels.com

e-mail: johnsnyder@onetel.com 

Bondoman,

You mentioned you'd like to do the tanker as the Mission Carmel. That's a coincidence, because the other kitbash I did from the Revell T-2 was the Houston. The Houston was a containership that was converted from the Mission Carmel.

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Here's my Pine Island. it's the first ship I've built in a really long time, like thirty years. My plan was two fold: to use the excellent PE stuff available, which as it turns out there are dedicated sets for this ship, and to make a simple diorama of the Operation Highjump launching of Mariners in South Pole waters.

I started by removing all of the cast railings. At first I thought that I'd cut vertically, so that the deck edges would drop below the edge of the hull side. But this is not possible because of all of the stacking of decks and interlocking at various levels. I had to build the edges of the main deck back up, but other wise after cutting the rails off horizontally, it was just a lot of sanding. But I did end up rebuilding the side galleries, which are a prominent feature.

I've ordered Polly Scale Haze Gray, which should arrive shortly. I think I'll have to paint the decks, at least forward, dark gray, by hand.

I've got PE radar, railings and crane booms. The one obvious glitch I don't have a solution for are the really lousy 40MM. I remember those from the Iowa class Revell BBs.

This is looking really good so far!

You'll find the same problem with the rails when you get to the tanker. I did just cut vertically on that one, as there are not any interlocking decks, but it might be simpler to do what you did here too.

Thanks, Onyx. I'm having fun with this. Per advice from the forums, I just ordered my crew from Tom's Modelworks. Should be enough for both ships.

I see a major issue with the tanker in that the decks on the main superstructure have a pronounced crown in the middle from one side to the other that is not in the model.

We might have talked about this before- I'm going to try to incorporate it as a "false front".

Yes. Camber is the term. I'll be interested to see how a false front works for you. I didn't deal with it at all on either of my T-2 builds, but viewed from ahead it is quite distinctive of the T-2s

I still have one more T-2 in the stash, so I hope it solves that defect in the kit.

Yes, I have a near overhead photo of the Ideal X and it shows that it does. The model has this curve in the parts though.

  Plan view here:  http://t2tanker.piranho.de/id492.htm

Fantastic!! Do you have a front elevation of the superstructure? And if not, it can easily be projected from the side view, so no worries. This is great, I cannot wait to finish the Pine Island and start on the Mission Carmel. My Haze Gray Polly S acrylic came today.

The T2 kit has a half windlass ( like a top half relief) on the fore deck. I assume this should be a complete object?

My photos of the Pine Island handling aircraft on and off all show one bow anchor dropped only. Make sense?

BTW discussions provoke thought, thought provokes revisiting information and I just took the time to study the weathering on the Mission Los Angeles in my photo. Got to try for that!!!

Thanks, Bill

Sorry, I don't have a front elevation at hand, but any indication of camber you can get would be better than nothing. On both my builds I removed the half-relief windlass and scratch built one with real chain. It's pretty easy to do by taking sections of round stock of various diameters.  Note how the anchor chain goes through a structure before it goes down the hawsepipe. From that structure to the hawsepipe I left the molded-on chain alone, as the chain is pretty close to the deck at that point. But the chain should be straight from the top of the "wildcat" on the windlass, to that structure. I can't think of the proper name for that thing, but it would be where the "riding pawl" is mounted to stop the chain from running out.

 There is also a half-relief mooring winch at the stern and two on the 2nd deck aft, which are probably to raise and lower the gangway.

Ships normally anchor with just one anchor. It eliminates the risk of getting the chains twisted with each other as the ship swings around to the tide.

Fred

The Pine Island is close to finished. The next step is to rig the aft crane, hang the Mariner from it and add all of Tom's little swabs on the crane, handling the lines to the aircraft and the aircrew on it. Then a simple black base representing arctic waters in 12/46.

The big Future mark under the bow # will go away when I flat coat the whole thing.

I've really enjojed this model, and will start the Mission series T-2 next.

My most immediate problem is that all of that PE is coming off as quickly as I added it with really minimal amounts of superglue, so NO handling.

Thank you. I'm finished and about ready to post her.

Question- the Union Jack flies at the stern and the US Flag at the masthead while she's at sea, correct?

Here's my mostly finished USS. Pine Island. I'll try to take better photos in daylight. The old Revell kit, which seems to scale out to about 1/425. I always liked this model when I was building US Navy ships as a kid, at the time the Currituck, but it seemed too complex and I never owned one.

My major surgery was to remove the cast railings/spray screens, which meant removing big areas of this ships sides and building back up the structure with styrene strip.

I used the GMM 1/400 PE set extensively for railings, 20 mm guns, radar and crane rigging. I used Toms MW sailors for the crew handling the line to the Mariner. That particular detail was very important to me- its what strikes you looking at operational photos. I also added the hangar bay doors.

I really struggled to get the Mariner to look right being loaded by the crane. Somehow the geometry was wrong, I suspect in the end the boom is too short. But I got things kind of ok.

My inspiration was a good article in an issue of Air + Space this year about Operation Highjump in Antarctica in December 1946 and the lost Mariner "G for George". I'm mostly interested in aircraft, however reading the article I remembered my fondness for the ship too. So I did some research, gathered together photos and the kit, and here you have my first ship model in 35 years.

The idea for the water was to look cold, windswept and forbidding. I thought about ice flows etc. but it seemed wrong so close to an aircraft operation.

My next project is the Revell T-2, to be "Mission San Carlos". I love ships!!

bondoman, your model is looking good, about as good as I've seen that olddddddddddddddddd Revell kit look! And the Mariner being hoisted in is a nice touch. I'm contemplating something similar for my 1/700 Kamikawa Maru build.

But ... that water. It looks, to me, like you used a plastering or grouting trowel to lay down whatever you used for the water to get that pattern. I'm sorry, but it just looks, well, odd. It takes away from an otherwise fine model and interesting presentation. For your T-2 tanker, you might try acrylic gel artists medium for the ocean. I used that for my first-ever ocean base with my 1/700 Liberty ship and am pleased with how it turned out. 

Thanks for the comment and I agree, I was kind of in denial about the water. I did use a semi matte gel medium, but I think it was too viscous because I couldn't get rid of the brush marks. Should it be more pourable? This stuff was like vaseline and it got pushed around but wouldn't self level at all.

The good news is that the frame is just tacked on with a little glue, the ship comes off, the launch can be sacrificed and I made three of the black panels at once so I'm game to give it another shot.

The T-2 is going to be underway so that will present a whole new series of challenges, but I'm up for it.

Thanks for the comments.

bondoman wrote:

Thanks for the comment and I agree, I was kind of in denial about the water. I did use a semi matte gel medium, but I think it was too viscous because I couldn't get rid of the brush marks. Should it be more pourable? This stuff was like vaseline and it got pushed around but wouldn't self level at all.

Acrylic Gel Medium is good for making waves & wakes and the like because it doesn't self-level.   If you brush on a mixture of acrylic paint and artist's gloss liquid medium that should take care of many of the brush strokes.    This is a thin substance - similar in thickness to milk.  It is white but dries clear.  Top it off with a final coat of Future floor polish for an overall wet-look