Borodino

Yeah, you're a funny guy!

Notice all the men except the Tsarvich have massive facial hair. Expect to see that on your little Sergeis!

Nice picture.

Those bases are kit original, I'm just upgrading the armor plate. Tonight I start painting crew. I hate using PE crew figures in this scale, simply too two dimensional for my liking. I have been dealing with this guy in the Ukraine who does some awesome resin crew and has three sets for the Russian Imperial Navy. I've used his WW2 German stuff before and really liked it so have high hopes for this next batch. He is North Star Models - nice stuff but really, really slow service.

Nice work.

The PE bases for the Hotchkiss guns are not accurate.

Okay, the foundation of the ship is pretty much done now I'm working on fine detail. Here we have the modification of the blower funnels, the changes in the small arms with plastic armor being replaced with PE and the main stacks being reworked. Here I opened up the caps and installed a series of eye bolts for the rigging attachments.

Artwox deck material in place. Had to break it into segments then lay it down. Really is nice stuff though. Secondary gun turrets are coming along and lots of clamping required to get the upper deck in place. Russian kit of a Russian ship - no quality issues there!

The instructions call for a black finish but I fell a titanium finish will look better. I don't care if the waterline guns are mobile and don't feel like going through all the grief of trying to finagle them into place with the enclose so enclosure went in first then the bottom of the gun mount was cut off and each unit was fixed in place. I put the aft turret together just to see how well the new gun barrels would work - they work very well and these turrets will retain full mobility.

I replaced the kit stacks with brass tube. Easier than filing away at seams.

For the stack stays I used household paint brush bristles. Not entirely pleased but they look hefty and sit straight.

i have one in the shelf queen area and 3 in the stash. the GMM PE  is for her and V ARYAF armoured cruiser. haven't figured out the stack rigging yet.

The foundation is laid.

Oooo, that is an interesting looking Battleship. I was thinking about doing the San Fransisco next but I think the next couple months are now booked on the bench.

That's a fun kit. It has it's issues, but it's so unique that it's worth it.

Just to be clear it was sunk in 1904 at the Battle of Tsushima.

There's a good book you'd enjoy called something like "the Tsars Last Armada".

Also take a look at the ship model forum on the subject. You'll see mine plus a couple of better ones.

If the bug sets in, Hasegawa sold a fantastic kit of the Mikasa on the same scale, Admiral Togo's flagship.