75th Anniversary of 1944 Group Build (World at War)

Nuckss If you're interested in ships, you need to check out FreeTime Hobby (freetimehobbies.com). It's a very well priced model vendor, and they specialize in ships. Search "1/700 railings" - you'll get quite a selection. Generics are popular and a lot of them are out of stock It doesn't matter much what kind of railings you get - each navy had a slightly different style, but at 1/700 scale, anything will do. A perfectly good selection would be Eduard 1/700 IJN railings (Edu: 99006) for $8. There's Five Star IJN railings for small ships (FS710034). There are several others. There are also some generic US and RN destroyer PE sets (those will be about $10) - but they include a lot of stuff outside of railings - radars, funnel masks, davits - very fiddly stuff at that scale. Good brands are also Flyhawk, Tom's and White Ensign - just avoid anything that says "Extra Fine". Depending upon when the rails were released the price varies. In general Eduard are the easiest to work with because they're thicker - but some of their stuff is also very costly. If you get them go over to Modelwarship.Com and check their railings tutorial. Railings are easily done really. Just cut them in small sections - never more than 1". Get some Aleene's Tacky Glue from any craft or hardware store (smaller the bottle the better - all glue declines in quality with age) and put a very small amount of that glue on the deck. Apply the railing piece with tweezers - the glue will "grab it" - when it's set right, just put on a small dab of super glue. Less is more. And you can always paint over any slight errors. And paint the railings first - whatever shade of gray you need. FreeTime also sells EZ Line - 100 feet for $10 and that will last forever: I'd recommend Fine, Large is a little easier to work with but not much. EZ Line is very good for antenna on airplanes too. FreeTime is one of the most helpful places to use out there - they have a help phone # and I wouldn't hesitate to use it. They also respond quickly to email. It's not that tough. I didn't rig the first three ships I built and they're still here on a shelf - looking naked. It will look a lot better. And, as noted in my first message, you don't have to do a lot of it - 6-10 lines rigged between the masts and the mast and hull will make a huge difference. As you get used to it, put on more. Eric

EBergerud

Nuckss I hope you don't mind a critique. You've got a nice build there. But anyway you look at it, ships need to be rigged.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your comments. Very much appreciated.

I agree it needs rigging. I'll give the ez line a try. I'm not looking forward to it but it will be satisfying if it works out.

Do you have any specific suggestions regarding 1/700 scale railings for cheap?

 

Cheers.

Two steps forward, three steps back. 

All of my airbrush experience is with enamels. This round I tried my hand at airbrushing Vallejo and after looking on-line at the mix ratios I thought I had the consistency right;...... that was a big NO. Most on-line information indicated a 50-50 mix of paint and thinner. I am finding a mix more like 10: 2 paint to thinner. 

I adjusted the air pressure up from 10 to 20 psi which helped a great deal. I was hoping to run low pressure with a thin mix  and very light flow to make the smaller green lines. Now at 20 psi it came down to adjusting the paint flow, which I think I got figured out. 

Now, after trial and error, my kubel is mainly green. I think I got it figured out now and I have Vallejo earth, which is a more accurate color than the desert (dunkelgelb) for north Italy. So once I spray the flat earth over it to adjust the fat and ugly green lines I will have to put another wash over the paint.

Perhaps this is good in the long run (a more accurate color), but looking at it now has me feeling pretty bad. I'll post what it looks like after the german earth tone color fix..... I hope that will tidy it up....

Ben 

 

The highlights and shading are particularly effective, Ben.  Good job!

Nice-looking effect, Eric.  Well-done!

Cheers Eric. I knew the 109 had that channel down the spine, i didn't know other types had it as well. From what i can gather, its not really worth trying to replicate in 72nd, though does work in larger scales.

Nice work on the panther, really interesting approach to that.

 

Thought I'd check in with the Korsun Pocket Panther.

 

 

I haven't been taking as many pics as I should have. The last one I loaded showed the kit, with black primer, being mottled with lighter versions of German Dunkelgelb.

 

Mottle2 by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

The result when the base coat is applied - highly thinned put on very carefully - is a mottled and irregular base. That is what happened, and it's what I didn't take a decent picture of. No matter. I added hand sprayed green and red-brown camo. Then came a gloss clear coat and decals. I hand painted more gloss clear over the decals because I wanted the finish smooth. (Should note that during the build, I applied putty/glue on the armored surfaces and then dappled it with a paint brush - this amplifies the textured armor. Tamiya's texture is fine - on plastic - but not when covered primer, paint etc. So I do this on every AFV model - German kits just get less of it.)

 

I applied the first pin wash over the gloss coat - which works very nicely. I use an acrylic paint called Iwata Com.Art that's really designed for fabrics. (Luckily many railroaders like it for weathering and I bought a weathering collection - called - Com.Art Real Deal Weathering Set - and was an instant convert. Most of the colors I use are transparent - which makes it very good for a subtle pin wash (I like it a lot for aircraft panel lines which are, to my eyes, often badly over done). Then I did a salt fade. I sprinkled the tank (and the skirts - the wheel are off again) with kosher salt after spraying it with water. When the salt dries - just a few minutes - I gave it a highly thinned tan-gray blast with the airbrush - almost a kind of filter. (You can tell you've got enough when the salt starts showing the paint.) Rinse off the model and repeat this process with a brown-gray blast. The result does not so much emulate paint faded by light - but a finish that has picked up a kind of dust/dirt patina which pretty well removes the overly bright and clear base/camo. Do note the mottled surface - this is from both the black basing and the salt fading. There has also been the pin wash which is over all details and hard lines of the tank's structure. So the result is a faded surface that is also, in a way, more clear because of the wash. It's a little clearer in the detail shot.

 

salted by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

SaltDet by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

This last detail shows a wheel done with the Com.Art Wash. I think this shows the effect well - it also shows the kind of grime texture that this paint leaves.

 

ComArtDet by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

If this was a Kursk build, I would have added filters and would be thinking of deploying pigments. (I also would have given the surface an oil dot filter to dampen the salt fading - and then oil rendering.) But I've got at least two white wash coats coming, and I think that detailed weathering would get lost in the white. To be honest, I'm not really sure how to handle the white washing, white wash erosion and oils. So we'll see. I've spent real money on books by Adam Wilder and Mike Rinaldi - let's see if that will help. And then I still want to make a base. I'll report in.

 

Eric

 

Bish, I like the ME-410 - a very sweet plane, even if the wrong plane for the time and place. I just found out something about the Messerschmitt designs. According to the Tamiya instructions for their jaw-dropping BF-109-G, that plane had a kind of recessed channel down the back and bottom of the fuselage - that means you don't want to fill the seam. Just for kicks, I've checked plans for the other BF-109s - all had the same. So do the BF-110s. And, unless the plans I'm looking at are wrong, so did the ME-410. What a pity that you really can't use a natural finish on that plane. (The Tamiya Ki-61 has a separate piece going down the seam line - almost as good. The plane was based on German plans of the BF-109E). Eric

Nuckss I hope you don't mind a critique. You've got a nice build there. But anyway you look at it, ships need to be rigged. You can live without railings (generic 1/700 railings are dirt cheap and actually very easy to put on), but you do need rigging. It doesn't have to be extensive. It doesn't have to be to scale (1/700 scale would be very thin.) A number of companies make special products for rigging line - the most prominent would be EZ Line - I'd get "Fine" but "Large" would work too. It has flex and it takes to CA very well. Regular thread is very hard to get taught. If it's covered with wax and you run a lit insense stick under it it will tighten up well. So does stretched sprue - it's actually not that tough unless it's too thin. If you have a fishing shop around and get get 1 lb test mono for fly fishing leader that will do too. And if you get used to it, you can use any of this stuff to make a biplane - a very neat experience. (If you want basic instruction sign on to ModelWarship.Com - they've got excellent tutorials and amazing builds by amazing modelers.) Get on top of that and you'll find that ships can be very good builds - they have a "wow" factor that's hard to match. You don't need a full scale effect - the amount of rigging carried by ships varied greatly depending upon the situation. But it does need something. Perfection definitely not required. I'm like a lot of ship modelers - a duffer with no illusions about making something perfect - ships are still fun and good history. Eric

Thanks Ben. I am just getting the weathering done, some Flory Washes. Should have that done tonight and i can get the other parts fitted. Still got to finish the base and sort some figures though.

Hey Bish: how is that messerschmitt coming along? I really like the paint you have on it so far. 

Nuckss: Show us your final on the HMCS Huron, it looks nice for a 1/700 ship.

Eric: Do you have any further progress to show on your camouflage?

v/r,

Ben

 

 

This update is a little different as I am skipping throughout the remaining instructions to add what needs to be assembled prior to the camouflage. Starting with step 27 through 35. Without going over every step I will just highlight certain items.

- all the wheels remain unmounted and without tires for painting
- the windshield is not on the frame until the camouflage painting is complete
- items like the shovel and rear license plate holder remain off until after painting
- I decided to fix all of the doors closed, it works for my figures
- the rear cargo hold is glued shut, it will work with my figures
- the rear engine cover was temporarily attached for painting (Elmers glue)
- began work on the kits driver figure (WIP)
- finished painting the convertible top and other canvas tarps (from spares)
- all other small detail items have been added (lights, horn, doors, etc.)











Here it is, time for camouflage......











The next update should be with PAINT, till then... comments are indeed welcome.

Ben

checkmateking02: thank you for the compliment and input. I have indeed ordered the 4 figures shown in the link above. I found them at another link for 1/12 the cost. I also ordered the decals for an SS panzer unit in north Italy as well as some SS uniform decals from Tamiya, Alliance, and Peddinghaus; I hope to have them soon. I am really excited to add the figures to bring activity or life to the kit.

Until everything arrives I will move forward with the kubel.

Ben

Nuckss:  That is a fantastic looking ship!  You've done some great work with such tiny parts.  Well done!

Bish:  That is excellent paintwork!  You have a deft hand with the airbrush to accomplish all the sublety you've achieve.  Good job!

Ben:  sounds like a very good plan, if you can find the figures you want.  Otherwise, just the vehicle will do very well.  The Italian campaign sometimes seems to get neglected, despite being pretty intense with lots of nasty fighting.  You've done a really exceptional job with the assembly and painting.

I have continued to look for European wheels and tires with no success, so I will have to go that route with my build using the baloon tires. Speaking of build, here is the progress for Steps 22, 23, 25, 26, and bits and pieces from other steps. The reason for jumping around is because of the preparation for painting the camouflage on the main body. I will still need to add small parts like the lights, etc., but once the doors and small stuff is on, it will be time for the airbrush. The wheels are step 24 and remain off until the camouflage paint is complete. 





The seats were painted german dark green, then dry brushed with O.D. Green, and last a very thinned wash to bring out the material wrinkles and age the color. The dash was painted according to the callouts and the decal was used versus a painted dial option. The rear stowage compartment has been fixed shut in anticipation of some recently purchased figures that will be sitting on it. The figures I found were specifically made for this kit by Jeffshiu's Minitures: http://jeffshiu.lsft.com/product73.html

I believe I will be going for a camouflage something like the photo below (excluding roof). Looking at the region, there was some in just green, some in just brown, and some on green and brown (the German Military codes of course). Not sure how it will be exactly, but it will be done in this kind of effect.



In the meantime, here is what it looks like to this point:







Every time I stop in to post my progress I am amazed at the great builds happening on this thread. Then I look through the other subjects and find more and more of things that fascinate me. To you ladies and gents building now, you need to pat yourself on the back. Your work, subjects, and skills are both outstanding and inspiring! Keep up the good work.....til next time.

Ben

Thanks Ben.

I like your ideas. You could simply display those areas open and leave out the figures. Figures are limited in that scale, i could not find any that would fit the scene.

Bish, Nice work so far on the 410. 

scalemateking02 and bish, thanks a lot... it has been wonderful to build. Instead of Rommel and the soft cap driver, I am proceeding with the build to make it appear as a northern Italy vehicle to include the driver and possibly other figures. I will most likely use after-market decals for the SS Panzer Corp in Northern Italy during 1944. While I know the tires are normally for the desert, I understand that during the later parts of the war, with parts shortages and troop movement, it would not be totally uncommon to see the balloon tires in southern Europe, what do you think?

If I elect to close the rear engine cover, all of the engine detailing will be lost. I may choose to fix it open with come kind of maintenance being done (?). I've also obtained some resin tarps and an ammo (grenade) box that I may add in the storage area behind the rear seat. That would mean I would have to leave it open too. The problem with that is it would limit my figure options as most I find are sitting on the storage cover behind the rear seat, hmmm..... your thoughts?

Ben

My 410 build has slwed down a bit the last week or so, but finally started to get some where. With the main construction finished it was masked up and ready for some paint.

Then after the primer some paint. First did the light blue on the tail and patches on the side, followed by the grey and green.

I tried for a patchy effect underneath but once again went a bit to far, i keep forgetting my own rule that when it looks like it needs one more pass leave it.

Then time for the decals. There is a seperate sheet for the stencils but this says for the A-1/3 variants. But i did use some that were above the black undersides as this would have covered the lower ones.

Also touched up the underside with some lighter areas and added the exhaust stains. Not sure where that lighter band came from, tried going over it with the thinned colour i was useing but didn't cover it up. I decided to leave it rather than make it worse.

Next up some light weathering washes and add the remaining parts.

Nuckss, that looks pretty good to me.

Ben, your work on that really does continue to impress. This is going to be one kit build once done.

Some touching up required also once you start looking closely. I'll need to check references to figure out how to paint the details. Everything is so small though it's hard to know what would be visible to the naked eye.

Hello again,

 

Not too many in progress photos, just a couple of shots of upper hull.

I should have painted camo colours on the superstructure and funnels with them off the deck. Much harder to do once in place. Got a gloss coat of Vallejo gloss acrylic varnishon it to prep for decals and washes. Seems to go on smoother and shinier than the alclad aqua gloss

" alt="Trumpeter 1/700 HMCS Huron 1944" />

 

 

Great progress, Ben.  The detail is wonderful!

Hi again everyone. Steps 20 and 21; building the body.



This was very simple as the sub assemblies have already been done in the previous step. I added both sides before adding the hood and bonnet. As with everything else in the build, it fit flawlessly. Not much to say as the same technique was used in this assembly. I am soon to be reaching the point of adding the camouflage so I am looking at what needs to be added before the spray. Here is where I'm at today:







Cheers! and have a wonderful weekend....

Ben

Eric, that looks like a neat technique on your panzer. I am watching your thread to see how this finishes. Oh!, nice job so far!

Ben

Continuing with the kugel build, step 17 has us adding parts to the interior floor; specifically the foot pedals and the wood subfloor. 



Looking at the pedals of real kugels I noticed that they were normally the tan of the rest of the interior. The accelerator (or gas pedal for us Americans) appears as either a round rubber grommet or around metal spacer on the end of an arm. Likewise the clutch and brake pedal pads are either rubber or metal. I want the pedals to look a little used so I cleaned them up, added the same dirty wash, and dry brushed the pedal faces with silver to appear as having worn the paint off. Likewise I have seen the emergency brake on a kubel either the tan color of the interior or black. I agreed with the instructions to paint it black, but... I left the floor bracket tan, painted the lever semi-gloss black, and the release button at the end gloss black. Last I lightly dry brushed the hand grip of the lever with a slight amount of silver to seem used and worn.

The wood slat sub-floor took some thought. Tamiya molded them with a very fine wood grain on the surface. Any brush paint would hide that feature. The color callout indicates they should be a red/brown or (rust) color and photos confirmed that. I thinned some Valejo (acrylic) rust and used my airbrush to apply a thin coat and let them dry a full day. Next was the same dirty (enamel) wash that i applied to the rest of the kit and let it dry thoroughly. Last was a very, very light brown (acrylic) dry brush over the wood to bring out the contrast and appear worn. Prior to adding them to the interior I needed to paint the rubber nubs on the rear floor as they sit inside the rifle holder bases that are part of the wood subfloor. Here is the completed parts from step 17:



Step 18-19 begin the sub-assembly of the body panels. These parts make-up both sides, the hood (over the rear engine) and the front bonnet (?). Step 18 is adding the heater ducts and inside bracing to both sides. Step 19 added tow hooks and the fuel tank to the front bonnet as well as drilling two holes on the rear hood for an air intake scoop. Prior to attaching anything you should determine if any of the doors will be attached open or closed. If the rear doors are to be closed you need to remove some attach points on the sides of the body. The inside of the side panels have numerous mold ejection pin marks. While some of them will not be seen after assembly, others will so take care to remove them. The gas tank has fine engravings, tank straps, and a fuel petcock or valve. After working through the process, here is the results:

Inside and outside of main body panels:





And here it is with the fuel port, window catches, and the spare tire laying on it. 



The rear hood along with a four piece fuel can with fine engraving, and the tire shown in the previous photo.



This concludes steps 17-19... till next time.

Ben

Quite an interesting technique.

 

The easy Tamiya build is over and we're getting into more interesting territory. A lot of armor modelers use some variation of "color modulation" - paint different shades of a base coat over a primer (often gray) to make areas of the vehicle that would get more sun lighter, less sun darker. This also brings tonal variation to the base - much weathering is actually done early. The problem I have with the technique is that it gives a very orderly tonal variation - almost like preshading an airplane. (A variant called "black & white" is more interesting but suffers from the same problem of regular irregularity.) So I'm going to give "black basing" a shot. If you've never heard of "black basing" I really urge you to go to YouTube, search "Black Basing" and watch an 8 minute video by a terrific modeler named Doog - he has an entire series of long videos on it if you're interested. I've used black basing on my last four airplanes and they're the best planes I've built. I think it should work on a tank - we'll see.

 

Briefly, when black basing you apply a coat of black primer. (That means, for a few hours, I had a Black Panther - that impressed by grandson.) For airplanes I use a sandable lacquer primer in a rattlecan from Duplicolor - it's terrific. I decided to use Stylnelrez here. I thought Stylnelrez was supposed to be matte but I got more of a satin (the flash on the pic amplifies it) but no matter. You then follow up with the "Mottle" stage - you get a good detail brush and use a lightened rendition of the base color and "paint small" making very thin lines. In this case I used three shades - a buff, light yellow and lightened Dunkelgelb. When you apply the base coat over this, you will get a very uneven tonal variation which is what's intended because more weathering is to come. It's essential when applying the base to use a thinned paint that's very slowly built up: if too much goes down the black basing is made invisible. That's like putting too much base coat over a preshaded plane - preshade gone.

 

Here you see the primer and the mottle coat done. Should note I'll be using Golden High Flow water based acrylic paint which are simply terrific - easily the most airbrush friendly water based acrylic on the market. (That would be Vallejo, LifeColor, AK and Mission Models. I just tried Mission - it's good, but High Flow is better.) Ideally you'd want to use an acrylic/lacquer like Gunze, MRP or Tamiya - all are very good for "painting small." It's a testimony to Golden's quality that you can do well enough from half an inch. For the mottle stage I use a Creos ProConn Airbrush (made by Iwata for Gunze in Japan) - it's a dynamite detail brush, absolutely super and well worth the $85. You could use it for general work - but I've already got both an Iwata Eclipse which I favor - and a Harder Steenbeck Infinity which is now used for clear coating. (I've also got a HS Evolution which I don't use at all: I wish I'd tried Iwata before HS - I would have saved money.)

 

The problem with Golden is that it's an art house brand (a very very good one - they pioneered artist acrylics in the 50s) and it doesn't come in military colors. But, if you like to color mix that's no problem. Because Golden is made for artists it has several "mixing" colors and all the types are made to combine. I liked finger painting when a kid, and color mixing is very like it. (I also have a very good "color recipe" book for help.) Dunkelgelb will be made with Titanium White, Yellow Oxide, Sepia and a tad of Light Green. I want the color to be lighter than it should be, because the weathering will darken it. Not quite sure how much weathering to do - eventually I'll have a white wash on top. I'll forward a pic of the tank when the base color is applied. (Obviously I've taken off the wheels for individual treatment - they won't go on until very late.)

 

Eric

 

blPrimer by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

Mottle1 by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

Mottle2 by Eric Bergerud, on Flickr

 

checkmateking02: Thanks for your kind words. I am really impressed with this kit. I have built some very good kits in the past (fine mold engineering), but this one simply begs to fall together by itself (it is that easy). I am enjoying this build... thanks again for letting me participate.

Ben

That's very intricate and detailed, Ben.  You're doing a great job with it.  Nice going!