Lovely work so far Andy!
1/350 USS Princeton CVL-23 - Unofficial GB
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Whow, that's way out of my league. Great stuff andy and keep it up.
- Thread starter
- #43
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks all. Researching photos, I discovered a small platform not included in the kit nor on the WEM PE set so I scratch built it. Pics later today or tomorrow.
- Thread starter
- #44
Crimea_River
Marshal
As promised, here are some progress shots. The first one below shows the platform, circled, that mentioned above, It juts off to the side and slightly below the upper level. Not all CVLs had this but photos of Princeton, though taken form a distance and in many cases quite blurry, show that it is there.
These next two shots show the mast and yard installed. Both are scratch built, except for the ladder on the mast.
Next will be to snake some conduit through the structure and to add the speakers. I'll then likely paint it before installing the 3 delicate radar antennas.
These next two shots show the mast and yard installed. Both are scratch built, except for the ladder on the mast.
Next will be to snake some conduit through the structure and to add the speakers. I'll then likely paint it before installing the 3 delicate radar antennas.
Whow, Love your skill! I thougt the Graf Spee was difficult but this....
Great work so far Andy!
Nice Andy!
- Thread starter
- #48
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks guys. Enjoying it so far as a welcome change from the usual subjects.
- Thread starter
- #49
Crimea_River
Marshal
The bow quad 40's have been assembled. A bit over the top with details, some of the smallest I've ever seen. The gunners' seats come complete with foot pedals and the aiming sights are also provided, though I drew the line at adding the beads - just too crazy. There need to be railings added to the catwalk and I'll do that when the assembly is added to the bow.
At the stern, I started on the twin 20mm anti-aircraft positions. The director is for the quad 40 that will be mounted one level down. Looks like I'll need to file done the PE sprue attachment points on the door a little more, though these will be buried well underneath the overhanging flight deck.
Finally, I finished adding the main details to the island with the rear yard and then squirted a very thin coat of primer on everything. Some brass is still showing a bit but I think there's enough paint ot make the next coat stick.
At the stern, I started on the twin 20mm anti-aircraft positions. The director is for the quad 40 that will be mounted one level down. Looks like I'll need to file done the PE sprue attachment points on the door a little more, though these will be buried well underneath the overhanging flight deck.
Finally, I finished adding the main details to the island with the rear yard and then squirted a very thin coat of primer on everything. Some brass is still showing a bit but I think there's enough paint ot make the next coat stick.
like it! 
parsifal
Colonel
Wow. I need to get going with my HMAS SYDNEY carrier. There are PE parts I cant even see properly.
- Thread starter
- #53
Crimea_River
Marshal
fubar57
General
Looks great Andy
Lovely work so far Andy!
Lucky13
Forum Mascot
Awesome work mate!
- Thread starter
- #57
Crimea_River
Marshal
Thanks guys Jan. Work has been limited to fixing the seam between the hangar deck walls and the main hull - boring stuff for pics but hopefully will post up some progress shots tonight.
parsifal
Colonel
andy, will you be keeping your paint consistency thin so as to not drown that fantastic detail? The scale is so fine, and the detiling so miniscule, I would think the paint thickness might be an issue
- Thread starter
- #59
Crimea_River
Marshal
That's he plan. My biggest worry is dropping an assembly or catching a protruding part and breaking something. A lot of painting needs to be done prior to assembling various bits as there is no way to get at some areas when the parts are assembled.
No pics tonight. Got dragged out to a show so maybe tomorrow.
No pics tonight. Got dragged out to a show so maybe tomorrow.
- Thread starter
- #60
Crimea_River
Marshal
Ok, I finally got a chance to post some progress shots, such as they are. It's hard to show seam work as "progress" but I have been spending considerable time making the seam between the hangar walls and the main hull presentable. But first, let's take a look at what I needed to do at the bow.
The hanger floor and the deck at the bow and stern are all one piece. When I glued these units together, there was a need to clamp the bow area to ensure that the deck was level with the edges of the hull. Unfortunately, things did not turn out that way as the clamp, instead of contacting the deck, actually was touching the top of the cylindrical protrusion seen in the below pic. I didn't notice this and things looked fine when I set the assembly aside to dry overnight but when I checked in the morning, the softened plastic had slowly given way and caused the deck to settle and cure much deeper in the hull than it was supposed to be.
To fix this, I opted for lopping off the deck details and building the depressed area back up with layers of styrene card which were then
blended in with the surrounding areas with a file, sandpaper, and surface primer. The deck details were then replaced with plastic rod and other details were added. The anchor chains are PE parts and, by themselves, look pretty clumsy. However, the chains are mostly hidden under the bow gun tubs so I decided to keep them and add very short lengths of solder to add more depth to them. The below pic shows the result thus far.
One of the aspects I'm watching out for is the order of assembly as there are a number of areas that really ought to be painted before assembling more sections to or around them. On such area is the rear hanger wall (below) that will be largely buried under an extensive overhanging deck, which is the part with the 20mm guns and director shown in the third pic of post #49. The wall is provided on the after-market WEM PE set as there are some inaccuracies on the kit supplied part. WEM would have you just glue the thin PE part in by itself but I decided that the part was too flimsy to have any chance of staying there with further handling so I glued the wall to a piece of thick plastic card with door openings cut in where needed. Centered between the two closed doors is a rather nifty PE fire hose real and I further enhanced the wall by adding the fire water header which is simply a few lengths of bent solder CA glued to the wall. Note also the surface blending and gap filling that need to be done around the gun tub. This was accomplished by "melting" stretched sprue into the larger gaps with Tamiya Extra Thin Cement and applying surface primer followed by delicate sanding.
Following are a few pics showing the joints between the outside hangar walls and the main hull. The long seam was a challenge to line up perfectly on both sides so there were a number of areas that needed blending. All of the work so far has been achieved by building up the misaligned surfaces with layers of Tamiya primer and successive passes of wet sanding using a curved backer for the paper. I found that a Type FF wooden biscuit was perfect for this purpose. One of the difficulties here is that the molded-in degaussing cable crossed the areas that needed blending so I ended up cutting some of this flush since it would have been impossible to sand around it. I'll need to replace the lost details with appropriately sized stretched sprue when all this is done.
There's also a seam along the entire length of the torpedo belt that needed to be filled as the edges of the mating parts here are not molded with a sharp edge.
The large blister under the rear gun tub also needed attention and this area was treated with good old Squadron Putty.
That's all the visible progress I have to show for now. Thanks for looking in.
The hanger floor and the deck at the bow and stern are all one piece. When I glued these units together, there was a need to clamp the bow area to ensure that the deck was level with the edges of the hull. Unfortunately, things did not turn out that way as the clamp, instead of contacting the deck, actually was touching the top of the cylindrical protrusion seen in the below pic. I didn't notice this and things looked fine when I set the assembly aside to dry overnight but when I checked in the morning, the softened plastic had slowly given way and caused the deck to settle and cure much deeper in the hull than it was supposed to be.
To fix this, I opted for lopping off the deck details and building the depressed area back up with layers of styrene card which were then
blended in with the surrounding areas with a file, sandpaper, and surface primer. The deck details were then replaced with plastic rod and other details were added. The anchor chains are PE parts and, by themselves, look pretty clumsy. However, the chains are mostly hidden under the bow gun tubs so I decided to keep them and add very short lengths of solder to add more depth to them. The below pic shows the result thus far.
One of the aspects I'm watching out for is the order of assembly as there are a number of areas that really ought to be painted before assembling more sections to or around them. On such area is the rear hanger wall (below) that will be largely buried under an extensive overhanging deck, which is the part with the 20mm guns and director shown in the third pic of post #49. The wall is provided on the after-market WEM PE set as there are some inaccuracies on the kit supplied part. WEM would have you just glue the thin PE part in by itself but I decided that the part was too flimsy to have any chance of staying there with further handling so I glued the wall to a piece of thick plastic card with door openings cut in where needed. Centered between the two closed doors is a rather nifty PE fire hose real and I further enhanced the wall by adding the fire water header which is simply a few lengths of bent solder CA glued to the wall. Note also the surface blending and gap filling that need to be done around the gun tub. This was accomplished by "melting" stretched sprue into the larger gaps with Tamiya Extra Thin Cement and applying surface primer followed by delicate sanding.
Following are a few pics showing the joints between the outside hangar walls and the main hull. The long seam was a challenge to line up perfectly on both sides so there were a number of areas that needed blending. All of the work so far has been achieved by building up the misaligned surfaces with layers of Tamiya primer and successive passes of wet sanding using a curved backer for the paper. I found that a Type FF wooden biscuit was perfect for this purpose. One of the difficulties here is that the molded-in degaussing cable crossed the areas that needed blending so I ended up cutting some of this flush since it would have been impossible to sand around it. I'll need to replace the lost details with appropriately sized stretched sprue when all this is done.
There's also a seam along the entire length of the torpedo belt that needed to be filled as the edges of the mating parts here are not molded with a sharp edge.
The large blister under the rear gun tub also needed attention and this area was treated with good old Squadron Putty.
That's all the visible progress I have to show for now. Thanks for looking in.
