1944 Group Build

Doug:  I took another look at the photo of the yardarm.  I believe what you see is detail molded into the yardarm.  With the sprue, I tried to glue it to the underside.  Sprue is pretty fragile, and I don't think it would survive the bending need to wrap it around.  Anyway, I can't take credit where no credit is due.  But thanks anyway!

One other point:  are you using magnification of some kind?  Like an Optivisor? When I was a lot younger, I could do without, but not in the bi-focal age.  Here's what I found at Amazon.  I bought a 10x version years ago when I was painting 54mm miniatures.  It's invaluable now for tiny parts and rigging.

www.amazon.com/s

I think you're doing terrifically well, and you'll only get better.  

Joe:  Thanks for the info.  CV-38's story is very similar.  Although she too was originally painted in a dazzle scheme, I don't think she sailed into combat that way.  One of Shangri-la's original plank owners is a friend for over twenty years (he's well along in his 80's now; lied about his age to enlist in the Navy), and I've picked his brain a lot about his experiences.

From what I've learned from him, it seems CV-38 was repainted at Pearl before Iwo Jima, so she was dressed out in Measure 21 for most of her active service.

After working on North Carolina for the last four months, I certainly understand the time needed to do a dazzle scheme!  Due to the work schedule, I haven't been able to do much all week, and it's frustrating cuz things are pretty close to the finish now.

Thanks for the input guys. The tension factor makes sense to me Eric.

CMK, It is indeed the Hasegawa kit. I was not considering doing the Tico as I felt that I simply would not have time to invest in the masking of the measure 33/10a dazzle scheme. But, then I did a little research. It seems that the Tico was wearing the dazzle scheme in Jan. '45 when it was damaged in a kamikaze attack. Tico was sent to Puget Sound for repairs and returned in May '45 in the Measure 21 all navy blue scheme. Although this would expedite building it, I would rather save it until I could build it in the dazzle scheme.

Thanks guys for the great help.

Eric: I going to try and get to Caballa's today and get the fly ting line. That is if I have the time. Got a busy day ahead of me. Being disabled doesn't mean that I get to sit at home everyday but I do most of the time.

I went to the Ship Model Forum and found what your told me. WOW!!! I haven't registered yet but I will today. There are some great tips there. Thanks for telling me about it. The next ship I build will be better in all levels of the build. I have learned to take my time and make sure I can recover if I make a mistake.

Today I am going to try and do some weathering on the hull. I will attempt to do some rust streaks on the side. I do not have any enamel rust paint but I do have acrylic rust paint. Need some help on other things I can do. I will look at the Ship Model Forum and see what they have also. I have got so used to doing armor that I do not want to mess this up.

CMK: The photo that you posted on your rigging on one of the superstructures, the attachment points on the yard arm were even and looked like they even wrapped over the top of the arm. That was great work.

I feel that doing the small work is helping me to keep my hands working but I still have trouble holding things and drop parts all the time. When my wife hears me say " Damnit" she asks "What did you drop this time and comes to help find the part. She is good to me on that. I can not get down on the floor to look and if I did I have to have help getting back up.

Getting back into modeling has been a real blessing for me. It is my get away from all the real life drama that everyone has. I still have the drama but it's easier to handle.

Everyone here in this GB has helped me to keep my insanity to a very low level plus having someone to chat with me on things that the family knows nothing about.

Doug

Thanks again. You all are the best.

I use Easy Line for airplanes too. Even the thinnest is a little out of scale for a ship I'd guess, and you're putting a little pressure on points and I think it could cause some uneven setting. Wing Nut Wings which is one of the best model companies on earth - and make only WWI aircraft (hey, it's Peter Jackson's toy and after the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit he could probably buy Auckland) is now recommending it. I checked at Delatorre's WWI aircraft board and people there were rather bewildered by the recommendation. Actually it might work ok on ships but I don't see any advantage over mono for a biplane - EZ does have a kind of fuzzy texture. WingNut has been bugged about rigging since they started - maybe people that have never built a biplane find it easy - but if you're using buckles and tubing a really clean mono would be the way to go. Part of it is momentum I guess. I don't do enough ships so when I start rigging I have to relearn some stuff. Once I get a few good lines down your hand and brain want consistency and not experimentation. But I've got a WWI Battlecrusier next up (hopefully in a long time) and I'll try to remember to give a shot before I teach my eyes to work with things are much too small. At least now, thanks to WingNut you can buy EZ in a proper roll instead of wrapped around a piece of cardboard. In my case, it's easy to default to fishing lines because I've done a lot of fishing: there was a time when I could do a nail knot at night - but that was a long time ago.

Eric

Joe:  I like sprue because it's easy to get, cheap, and I'm old-school.  Been using it for decades.

And the cats like to play with it when I hang it from the closet door.

Is that the Hasegawa Ticonderoga you're considering?  She was sister to the Shangri-la (a long-hull Essex class), so that's what I'll be basing her on.  Found some photos of other modelers doing CV-38, so I think it'll work OK

CMK & Eric, I'm curious. Is there a reason you guys do not use EZ Line for rigging? I use the stuff for antennas on my aircraft and I just love the stuff. Is it out of scale? Difficult to manage? Inquiring minds want to know.

Very good to hear that there will be more ships coming in '45.  Join the Navy and see the world.

Doug:  I just touch both ends of the sprue to a little pool of glue, and then try to pop it into place.  Usually doesn't work and I have to tack one end down separately.  Tweezers are helpful (I find them necessary) to hold the sprue while you work it into position.  I have a kind of broad nose tweezers; needle nose tweezers seem to pinch the sprue too much, sometimes leaving an unwanted bend.  But that just might be me being clumsy.

I hadn't thought about the lines being smooth, but I think the trick is not to get glue on the sprue-line to begin with.  But if you do, and if you use white glue, you should be able just to wash it off by gently "painting" at it with a small brush dipped in water.  Once white glue is set up, it seems to hold as well as needed, but until it does, it's generally easy to remove it completely and start over.

I'm too inept even to attempt using CA to attach rigging, so hats off to you for accomplishing it!

Personally, I find Aleene's a little too thick for attaching sprue (but more power to Eric since he can get it to work), so I use plain old Elmer's school glue, and sometimes I even thin that down some.

Believe me when I tell you that I'm no expert--just pig-headed and persistent.  I went through about nine feet of stretched sprue, just to get done what little I've posted.  Either I drop them and can't find them again; cut them too short; have them break when I tighten them; mislocate them on the ship where they end up not quite where I want them to be; the cats run off with them; or encounter some other pitfall that requires re-working them.  That's why it's important to walk away before you get too frustrated and sink a ship that the Japanese couldn't sink in the Pacific.

One other thing, too, if you don't have black sprue or line, you can color the sprue with a black permanent marker.  It's what I did.  Just tape each end of a long piece of sprue to a piece of paper or cardboard and carefully run the marker over it.  Be sure to check all sides for coverage.

Otherwise, it's just practice, practice and more practice.

Continued good sailing!

Forgot to comment on your rigging - looks very good. It's out of scale by a good margin. But that's not such a big sin early in the game. First of all, you got the ship rigged - and it will look better because of it and in future builds you'll do better. Also, people will be able to see your rigging without using a magnifying glass.. Some modelers build for shows or the camera. Then the super-thin line makes sense. But I rigged a 1/700 destroyer with the 20 Den Uni Caenis line beloved by fanatics. I almost threw the kit through the wall because it was so frustrating to handle. Also, it's almost impossible to see the rigging at all on that model and it's sitting 5 ft away from my desk. And if you can rig a ship you can rig a biplane - a kind of model everyone should build at least one of. (Blow the wad and get a WingNut Wings Kit. Yes, they're $50 minimum but the fit is astounding - no small thing when you're attaching wings to struts.)

Aleene's is the bees knees (my wife says there's a drink with that name - retro 20's hard liquor cocktail) and any variety of Aleene's is much better than normal white glue. (I've stopped guying Gator Glue.)  I prefer regular Aleene's - it's tacky enough and leaves the smallest residue. Both quick drying and super tack go on clear but they all dry just a little milky. So you want to use small amounts and clean excess while before it sets. Obviously the "touch up" paint job on my its includes covering little Aleene blotches which don't craze the plastic the way a plastic cement would. And yea, just a bit of CA will hold it for good - just find the applicator tool that works best for you. (Xacto knives are so cheap that I've dedicated two for CA applicators - but I also use plastic tooth picks.) Might add that Jim Baumann uses a UK version of Aleene's for attaching railing and PE and he's one of the best.

For your next rigging job, do give black fly tying line (about 6/0 - 10/0) a try because it's so easy to work with - more so than sprue in my book. Ditto with fly tippet material - something about 1lb test: it's easier yet to manipulate but doesn't knot quite as well. We're talking $2 a roll here - worth the risk.

Eric

Thanks for the kind words, guys. Schatten, I guess the first pic is probably my favorite. Thanks.

Nomad: you need to get over to Model Warship. That's modelwarships.com for the home page. Push forum. Then go to the "Tips and Tricks" Section and you'll find advice from some of the best ship modelers on the planet free of charge.

For railings check a 41 post thread (including advice from uber-meister David Griffith who has the best book about making plastic warships available) - search "Deck Rail Methods." Right at the top of the Tips list is a huge thread called "Weathering Guide". And there's uber-uber-meister Jim Baumann's thread on "Making Stretched Sprue and Rigging with Stretched Sprue".

If you want to gaze at the way ship modeling is done in the big leagues check out their Gallery. If you bring up the Gallery page you can see a search box at the bottom. You can search a ship name or a kit name. (Likely that you'll run into a partial or full photo build - fine resource right there.) You can also search a modelers name. Try David Griffith, Jim Baumann and/or Chris Floodberg to get a look at the meisters at play. (Model Warship has an excellent search engine, but the results will appear in a separate window and not replace the one you're on - just check your tabs. If a builder has ships in the Gallery his collection will be at the top of the search list.) There are dozens of others that have similar skills. (If you search the "Scratch Build" section for completed builds, it's like another planet.) Just remember that these guys are fanatics and have been at the hobby for years. One of their moderators warns new members not to be intimidated. Mortals can make really sweet ships without winning prizes - my ships don't hold a candle to the good ones there, but they are still the models that impress visitors.

Actually there is competition for "wow factor" in the model world - WWI biplanes. The loonies in that field around found on a gem of a site from Australia run by a great guy named Des Delatorre. http://www.ww1aircraftmodels.com/index.html . It's crammed with great information and some of the most complete and impressive photo builds available. The forum is open for all to view but a small donation is asked if you post. (Model Warship is free and registering is a good idea.) I believed Finescale ran a Site-wide build on WWI aircraft this year run by editor Peter Skinner - which I completely missed but I've seen some great models that were entered. Obviously there are some knock-out models here: likewise the Kitmaker network or Swannys. And Finescale is the biggest board in the US I'd guess so someone here knows something about almost everything. And it's the friendliest place in town in my experience. No small matter.  

depends how thick the piece of sprue is. I normally use a fine piece of wire, such as 5amp fuse wire or 34 gauge wire. I can normally get a really small blod of glue where I need it.

Bish,

I am using white glue or Aleene's clear gel tacky glue to hole them in position and then using CA to anchor it in place for good. I use a piece of stretched sprue to apply both. The sprue is the cut off ends.

Should I be doing it different?

Doug

Doug, what glue are you using and how are you applying it.

No problem at all Joe. I have gotten so much out of this build and have made some great friends also.

CMK: I know I have a lot of glue marks on my rigging. How do you get yours to look so smooth?

Doug

Looks like we will have plenty of ships for 45. Not that I am complaining, I will get to some ship models one day and always nice to get some ideas.

Bish, Doug & CMK, Thank you all very much. Your positive reinforcement is definitely providing the motivation to knock this out by the deadline.

Doug, I like your rigging. You did a really fine job on it.

I've finished up with the touch ups. I'd like to be making better progress today yet, I find myself distracted by perusing my stash for 1945 subjects. I'm finding that I actually have more candidates than I had anticipated. And thanks to the inspiration provided by CMK, Doug & Eric I got to digging through my ship stash. In addition to the USS North Carolina and USS Ticonderoga I found that I also have the IJN heavy cruiser Ashigara and HMS Nelson. Both of these kits provide for their 1945 configurations. So, I now find myself at an impasse as to what I want to build.

Wonderful, Doug!  Nice work!  You are sailing along!

Doug, that's very not bad. Looks like all the help is paying off. Your braver than me.

Joe, I ain't much into Pacific subjects, but that scheme is really nice. Its looking great.

Looking great Joe. Can't wait to see the rest.

Doug

Thanks Eric for all the info. I just ordered two sets of the railings this morning.

Okay here are photos of my rigging. Remember this is my first time at doing this but I think it came out okay.

Now to finish up all the small stuff and the rest of the pesky masking. Then on to the rest of the weathering. Another new thing for me with ships.

Doug

Really nice, Joe.  Terrifically attractive.  Great technique you employed there!

Thanks Doug. Yup, still showing the love to me silly putty. Hope you are well.

Alright Joe! Coming along nicely... you've really done a nice job on the seperation of the pattern, ie the gray and the blues. I assume your still using the "putty"?

Doug

Hey There Gentlemen. I've applied all of the dark sea blue and removed all of the masking. I'm really pleased with the overall outcome. I had just a bit of over spray on the left side but, that is easily scraped off with a #11 blade. I'll take of the touch ups this morning and get an overall gloss coat on later. Thanks for having a look.

Revell have low part count and I know they have their fanatics. My Revell JU-52 was a brilliant kit.. For build ease, though, I'd plug for any of the great 1/48 WWII fighters Tamiya put out around 2000. Oddly the 51B had a kind of ugly flaw on the front/bottom fuselage - and of course that's the one I built for this GB. But the otherwise the thing built itself. I've got a Corsair, Wildcat, 51D all from that vintage unbuilt. Accurate Miniatures also did a P-51B that is now sold by Academy. This was from the mid-90s AM range, and they are really sweet kits - but Academy is charging $35 for it. (You can still get the AM 51A for about $20 - that's one of the very few kits available I'd consider buying but the stash already kind of silly.) I see you've got the RevelloGram B25 on the list. I've got the AM version that's a kind of legend. And Academy is selling that one for $50. Good racket. (A WWII bomber GB would work really well I'd think. I'd build my Tamiya Betty or the AM Mitchell).

I'd sure bet you're right about the Revell being easier to manage than a c. 2000 ICM kit. I think ICM has done some decent kits in recent years, but in the past ICM sold models because Asian kits were so expensive in Europe. I built their 1/350 KMS Konig from 2000 and it was a bloody nightmare.

Eric

Yes: 1/600 is smaller than 535 - more than you'd think actually. There are 1/500 scale generic railings at Tom's - I think Heller built in that scale a generation back. They'd be a bit too large, but closer. Either one would be better than nothing - the 1/500 railings (they have simple ladders too) are $11. Scale Hobbyist has WEM 1/600 (lots of those because Airfix built to that scale for a long time and some of those kits are actually very good) - Scale Hobbyist has those for $3.59. The larger railing would be a little easier to handle, but not much. Below is an Airfix 1/600 Iron Duke (WWI RN flagship) that I did a long while back - it was the first kit I rigged and put on PE. A little crude but a real step forward from earlier work. The odd railings hung above the decks were the kind of radio antenna that late WWI ships used - I probably should have left it off. Now I would never weather a full hull ship either. The next full hull I do will be "commission day" - only enough washes and filters to give depth to colors and outline detail but zero weathering. Surface ships are just a little too abstract for serious weathering full hull because you never see them that way (a real ship in heavy surface would have a very weathered area below the waterline no doubt with marine growth etc: I'd do a sub that way because you think of subs sailing underwater.) Waterline ships beg for a little weathering - or in my case, usually a lot. 

Eric

I had hoped to do the ICM kit, but considering it is now December, I have decided to do the Revelogram P-51B, for the sake of ease of build compared to the time left.

Thanks Bish, Hey one more question and I should know this but 1/600 is just a bit smaller than 1/535 right?

I'd try to put railings on your present ship. Get White Ensign generic 1/600 railings/ladders. They cost about $6 and should do just fine for your ship. I have no love for PE, but railings are a real must. Railings are also very simple to apply. The only thing to be careful about is removing them from the sprues. I use a #16 xacto blade and push directly down to cut the connecting points (they're very small and easily cut) or a scalpel blade and kind of rock back and forth. If you have a good pair of small scissors, they work very well - just cut through the outside of the sprue frame and cut the connecting points carefully. Actually I've found 21/2" blade scissors to be a really valuable tool for PE and rigging. A regular Xacto knife will work - just avoid trying to move it back and forth in a sawing motion - put on your readers and push the tip of the blade right on top of the connecting point. Easily done actually. Then you've got a string of railing maybe 3" long. I'd cut it - again pressing down, now sawing - into 1"-2" pieces. (You want to do this on a very hard surface. The best I think is black plexiglass - hard and you can see the PE very clearly.) I attach the pieces of railing with small dabs of Aleene's "Tacky Glue" (available at any craft shop and many hardware stores - incredibly useful stuff for $1.50). The "tack" will hold the very light weight pieces of railing. I then apply the smallest possible dab of Crazy Glue (CA) at each end to give it a stronger hold in the long run.

Everyone can model the way they want of course. But there's a reason why a lot of people avoid ships. If you want to do ships you need PE and you need to rig. If you're not a purist you can get away with generic ladders/railings - they're cheap even at 1/350 and $3 for 1/700. PE varies greatly in cost and complexity. White Ensign "extra fine" is for experts only. Tom's Model Works is very high quality. Eduard is less precise and thicker but easier to use - I'd give that a thumbs up. Freetime Hobby used to take phone calls and answer emails if there are different brands for the same ship. I'd start easy and work from there. The real fanatics get very elaborate PE sets from companies like Pontos that cost more than the kit, but you may never get to that point. Ladders are another serious embellishment and are actually very easy to make - especially if you skip trying to change the angles of the individual steps. (There are YouTube tutorials on that - maybe railing too.)

For bending PE you don't really need a complex tool. A little gizmo from the specialty maker of PE equipment Small Shop is priceless - and about $10. Here it is:

It's called SMS015 Photo Etch Cut-Off Set (from The Small Shop http://thesmallshop.com/). This is so simple I don't know why the ancient Egyptians didn't figure it out. It's a piece of clear plexiglass that's sharply angled on one edge and has a handle, and a couple of pieces of black plexiglass which help you see the PE very well. (That's one of the biggest problems with PE in my world - more tidy folk may find the need less pressing - but I lose the parts easily - unless they're sitting on black plexiglass and can be seen by the semi-blind.) You take the clear part, put it over the connecting points of the PE and cut right along it's edge and off they come and nopart flying around the room. The clear tool also makes an excellent basic bender. Just put the part underneath the clear thing (you can see it - that's why it's clear) and carefully go underneath a piece of PE with a razor blade or even Xacto blade and gently push up to the desired angle. (Ladders become a cinch.) Small shop also sells a pretty good small bending tool for $30 - you'd need to be hard core to need more. But you don't need that one either for the basics.