The Ship Model Forum

by **Dan K** » Mon Sep 08, 2025 11:49 am

A ship I know nothing about, but that's a lot of great detail work. Well done.

by **marijn van gils** » Mon Sep 08, 2025 5:06 am

StevenVD wrote:In a few weeks it could be finished, Marijn. No doubt, the ship will make it to Plastic and Steel in october, but you didn't tell if you would go there too.

You were not lying Steven! Congratulations!

Probably I won't be able to make it there. I have to play a gig the same weekend, and the weekend after is SMC already...

by **SG1** » Fri Sep 05, 2025 4:25 am

O U T S T A N D I N G in every respect! Titanic work. Excellent idea for the showcase too. Bravo!

by **StevenVD** » Thu Sep 04, 2025 12:59 pm

I still had to fix the memorabilia to the showcase. The ribbon would go around the base frame. It would not pass far enough around the corners to clamp it and the glass case only allowed for a few millimeters. This required some ingenuity.

A thick piece of sprue was milled out for the width of the ribbon. You recognise the linearity of the Proxxon tool.

A hole was drilled in the bottom of the base, fitting for the sprue. In the front was cut a slot for the ribbon.

Just behind the slot the sprue would be introduced.

The ribbon is inserted with some help from a ruler. Then, rotating the axle winds up the ribbon. This is repeated at the right side of the base.

The model name is now featured in the middle of the base. The sprues are cut short.

The seahorse pin was stuck on a brass pipe that was drilled into the plank through the cardboard top. I had roughened the pipe end and used it like like a drill bit.

The only thing to do was mounting the planes on deck. I had to buy a new flacon of Micro Crystal Klear, after 15 years it had coagulated. Some last-minute changes will be visible on these pictures. Placing the ring antenna, I noticed that the picture of the 13.2mm guns could only be rebuilt if I removed the rear telemeters and threw out half of the gun units. At this moment I have to concede that I used 25mm guns to build these. It were also Hotchkiss-based guns, but I suppose these will now be slightly overscale. I think it's still better than nothing at all. I spray-painted a French flag and stuck it to the smoke-stack rigging. The Vought planes got a wire antenna and the least complete of them, lacking a tail wheel and propeller, was placed in the centre elevator. All was sprayed matt and then the canopies were glossed over again. Now the Crystal Klear would work in the island windscreens. Sticking the ship on the brass supports proved to be cumbersome, but now the B�arn is ready to follow in the wake of the Dunkerques.

by **StevenVD** » Tue Sep 02, 2025 6:48 pm

So many roundels were still needed, I decided to print these myself.

I printed them at 2mm en 3.5mm diameters. The Loire-Nieuport roundels needed the navy anchor on them, seen on the few pictures on B�arn. The Voughts and the biplanes needed the normal ones.

Microscale decal film liquid was passed over them in one swipe. Even then some red managed to seep in.

This product dries fast, and the white film decals could be cut out. For 2mm this could be done with a tool.

I thought these small decals would disintegrate under the hammering.

But they worked well. The cowlings are painted Vallejo chrome. Notice the incorrect prop placement on top of the cones, that are cast together with the fuselage. Compare that to the last image.

The Voughts needed part of their canopies plated over, so I taped that off and painted it.

The 3.5mm roundels had to be cut with scissors.

The overscale roundel on the biplanes' lower wings was sheared off with a lancet. My 3,5mm roundels are an improvement on the 5mm L'Ars�nal ones.

Even more tricolore had to be endured.

All crates were gloss-coated.

Tamiya's brown wash was applied and washed into the panel lines on the wings and the metallic parts.

The Loire-Nieuports got the props removed, the nose cones clipped and then they were re-propped. I sanded new cones from an Evergreen rod. The Dewoitines were treated likewise, though these retained their original resin cones. The entire airwing is now ready to be coated matt.

by **JIM BAUMANN** » Sun Aug 31, 2025 5:27 pm

very good stevenD

-- as usual ....you are very dedicated -==> I like the arrestor cables !!

Bravo

JIm B

by **StevenVD** » Sun Aug 31, 2025 2:15 pm

Thanks to Timmy for the move.

by **StevenVD** » Sun Aug 31, 2025 3:23 am

How bizar, I hope it can be corrected. Must have been drowsiness...

by **FFG-7** » Sat Aug 30, 2025 8:18 pm

you posted in the wrong thread as should be in your Bearn thread not your USS Columbia and ABSD-1 thread.

by **StevenVD** » Sat Aug 30, 2025 7:16 pm

The rigging for this period is shown in the book.

There was at least 1cage aerial visible behind the island.

Also the boat supports were rigged, visible on many pictures.

This would be made easier with eyelets.

These were driven in the hull. Actually I had to move these ones for the whale boats lower.

I did some painting of the eyelets and then started to pass each thread through to the supports. This is tediously slow work and it took me a full day to fix 30 threads.

Only the arrestor cables were still missing.

On older pictures the cables are lifted by many beads. Later I only counted 8.

Even with knots for the beads it seems a bit oversized.

The rigging thread is knotted to the sewing yarn and the ends are glued to make them thicker.

The rigging is connected to the pulleys and the thread is pulled taut.

No landings will take place because of the open elevator.

by **StevenVD** » Wed Aug 27, 2025 4:05 pm

The hull is now weathered with the Lifecolor Liquid Pigment set using salt streaking and green growth. A rusty wash was done with Humbrol orange and some acrylic chipping followed. Tamiya black wash went into the portholes. I found out that the middle elevator doors had to be lifted a bit.

To rig the mast, I attached some PE roundels to copper wire. I hope this yardarm will last, it's only glued with CA.

by **StevenVD** » Mon Aug 25, 2025 5:46 pm

In a few weeks it could be finished, Marijn. No doubt, the ship will make it to Plastic and Steel in october, but you didn't tell if you would go there too.

Something that is not included in the model are the smallest AA component, the 13,2mm Hotchkiss guns. These were a replacement of the first AA armament, 8mm mitrailleurs.

A few years later, these got a splintershield (masque) and this is shown here. Sadly only a part of the shields are shown, the text mentions six double emplacements on each side. In this image they also take a location that was used by the starboard rear telemeter. This then seems to return in 1946.

This is the only clear picture in the book of the first three gunshields while being painted. A search online for this kind of armoured double emplacement did only result in one 1/350 3D-model. That at least gave me an impression to scratch these shields.

For the gun particles I still had in my stash the remainder of the 13,2mm Zuikaku guns. The Finemolds triplets I had then put away because of their crooked barrel combinations. I also had six of the superior Infini single PE guns on turned bases, five of them still having a turned brass barrel. That all resulted in 22 barrels. I decided not to mind too much about the scale difference with my 1/400 project, half of these barrels would be hidden behind the gun shield.

But on that 3D model I noticed that the shields taper to the sides, this was not visible on the picture and I had made 6 of them before noticing that. Also I understood that they were all double barrel guns.

I corrected this by redistributing the Finemold barrels under the gunshields. They were decent again if separated. I would also need to completely disassemble the Infini guns to get three sets of two barrels aligned correctly. The missing barrels had to be scratched.

All guns, searchlights and telemeters were painted and placed on the ship. The port 13,2mm guns are protruding above the deck more than the starboard ones, because of the level difference of the catwalks. I had to add sprue nodes under these guns to get them to fire over the railing, maybe this is overscale in height. I decided to put these guns where the original 8mm guns were. The two unused resinboats were apparently also additions for this period, they were placed on scratch supports on the catwalks. The starboard telemeter was described as double and I found it left on the picture above with the painted gunshields, having two optical tubes superimposed. These also had to be placed on nodes to reach over the deck.

I didn't want to use silver for the canopies, it's ugly and I needed metallics for the Levasseur cowlings too. I decided some trompe-l'oeil blue shine would be nicer. The tricolore decal system for the tail planes doesn't work, there is no space left for the white between the red and blue decals. That meant all had to be painted on by hand using Vallejo Ferrari red and transparent blue. These were also used for the hippocampe images on the Dewoitines. They are not included in the decals, but can be found on a few pictures and artistic impressions on the web. On the Levasseurs, the torpilleur and bomber codes are written in fineliner. For the Voughts and Loire-Nieuports I am still looking up the necessary color schemes, apparently this was more colorful.

Dewoitines and Loire-Nieuport AB4 color schemes.

This weekend I received B�arn's glass showcase. I wanted the base to be like the Dunkerques. First a wood profile frame was made.

Finding no plank fitting in this frame, I combined some smaller ones. That won't be visible.

The ship's supports have to be connected through the false floor by this plank.

I covered up the floor sides with a PVC profile.

It was filled in with styropor particles.

Then that is glued together.

Only the brass supports are still visible, the rest is covered by a cardboard sheet.

If I push down the ship another 5mm I have 10mm left above the mast. Then, the broche and the ribbon wll be added. But first some weathering.

by **marijn van gils** » Fri Aug 22, 2025 4:00 am

StevenVD wrote:It sure is, but this week somebody chose to start the same project, he even got 2 kits: https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mat ... bum=130689 . Let's wish him all the luck.

Wow! Judging by your tempo, I bet yours will be finished first though!

by **StevenVD** » Wed Aug 20, 2025 8:41 pm

Thanks, Marijn. It sure is, but this week somebody chose to start the same project, he even got 2 kits: https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mat ... bum=130689 . Let's wish him all the luck.

Now let's go over to some of the last building steps before the weathering phase can start.

The plastic 75mm/L50 guns are not detailed enough for use. The gun base with all its wheels, seats and visors is reduced to a simple cylinder.

Also the gunshield is totally underscale. The width is 1/2 the height.

Compare to this reference picture, showing a square frontispice. It also occured to me that the cutout in the fight deck edge is too narrow, but thats too late to change.

Only a piece of metal plate would do to replace this. I made it 5mm wide.

Compare to the kit part, a gunner wouldn't even get behind the shield like that. Also, the gun slit could be made narrower, because I also found a barrel replacement.

The shield needs some sidewalls, these can simply be added from the plastic gunshield cut in two halves.

The barrels will be replaced by these 3 inch Aber ones, exactly what would be needed in 1/350.

I changed the shape of the gun base until it had the right outline.

I then removed a much from the breech as possible to still be able to drill a locator hole. If the original gun was 3037mm, the whole should only be 7,6mm. I got at least to 9mm. But only the barrel part passing through the gunshield really matters.

I tried to place the shields, but some can go a bit lower.

To make it perfect, a visor slit should be added to each shield, but I thought this would make it prone to ripping apart.

The 37mm guns have all lost their unprotected resin barrels. A roll bar or separate packaging could have prevented this.

A good thing I didn't dump the Very Fire 1/350 kit parts for the Dunkerque double 37mm guns.

I didn't change the calibre, they are probably underscale for 1/350.

All you get for searchlights are these buttons on stands.

There should be one small light at the rear of the smokstack. I did have some from Eduard, but I replaced the PE stand for ABS rod.

The four 120mm lights would best be replaced by some Very Fire Birmingham plastic and their resin replacement parts. These have the correct supports.

I don't know what L'Ars�nal had envisioned when they designed some strange telemeters looking like library lamps. I found this clear reference pic showing a simple tubular design with a narrow base on some sort of gimbal.

So I decided to scratch this from brass tubing.

If the 1939 deck markings are used, this has some consequences for the environment around the deck crane. A covered hut was placed on the gallery behind the stack and a sponson was added behind the island structure to support the starboard AA fire support unit. This had a telemeter and a firing computer inside a round tub. I made something resembling this from afar. Later I also made one in front of the stack, where L'Ars�nal only gives you an ammo crate.

The pictures show railing around the fire support.

Some Essex railing was added to the stern. I had added two doors but this seemed only necessary at starboard, so the port one was removed again and replaced by a round hatch. I hope that was not a 1946 addition. The cable guides L'Ars�nal had indicated to glue upside down on the deck, were redirected to their correct position.

A funny colockwork-like arrow was scratched for LSO purposes.

I can also announce that the showcase for B�arn was ordered this week. It is measuring 65x20x20cm and will be identical to the USS Princeton showcase. that one is fitting in my Ikea DVD-closet.

by **marijn van gils** » Mon Aug 18, 2025 3:03 am

This kit looks like a lot of work, and needing a lot of persistence...
Great job Steven!

by **StevenVD** » Sun Aug 17, 2025 5:29 pm

The boats still needed some detailing on the deck. I found some Dunkerque woodgrain deck cutouts that had been primered and the open boats did fit in. A selection has to be made between the 2 shown types.

The other ones show a canvas top, so I painted these white.

The ship's deck was coated gloss, to use a Mig brown wash. Like that, the wood color would be darker, more like on pictures where you see contrast with the white lines.

The deck markings looked a bit yellow so you can't make the deck tan. After the wash I used Pledge until a shine was visible.

i started with the most impressive decal of the 1939 option, the front one. By nature this will split in the four corners of the compass, extending to all sides. I managed to reunite all snippets and after a while the thought of having to paint the lines was abandoned.

Actually the decals are very useful if you get to master the application problems. You can't touch them with your fingers once they are put down, or be attached to them. They are longer than they should, so you should trim them on the elevators and deck edges. They pass over the tie-downs on mid-deck so I used Daco Sol to soften them. Sometimes a ruler is needed to check for linearity along the deck.

When all was done, I also fixed the island and the elevators. This may create the impression that it is almost finished, but there's still no AA guns, searchlights and rigging.

by **StevenVD** » Fri Aug 15, 2025 8:14 pm

The airwing is painted Gunze 306.

The decals for the airplanes have a common carrier film, necessitating to cut out all roundels. At the same time the deck decals are printed separated. And you don't get the white tricolore strip for the ailerons, you have to trim the blue and the red. It's even easier to paint...

Half an hour later, the roundels were put on. The upside was easy.

It appears the underwing roundels for the Levasseurs are not reduced in size. They do not fit there as indicated on the hand-drawn instructions.

It's a good thing the underside will not be visible. Now the hull red is put on the ship.

The shadows are indicated with red brown.

I tried to deconnect the resin sloops with a nipper. Though the casting block is thinner, one boat broke and some others were pitted at the bottom. Some CA glueing followed.

Each of them needs a tiny boot topping.

Wit a small offset I then added the grey camo.

The ship got its own topping prepared.

As the tape was removed, the hull red had oversprayed on the camo.

The anchors were masked and painted black.

The overspray ribbon was softened by spraying Gunze 305 again.

Later it will be moderated with light gray, after the wash.

by **StevenVD** » Thu Aug 14, 2025 3:39 pm

According to the instruction booklet a third anchor was included in the kit resin parts set, as a part cut from the casting block. I did not find this and moreover, four anchors are needed in total. L'Ars�nal seems totally oblivious to the existence of the stern anchor. It's a lucky strike that I have lots of anchors from Very Fire, that had included about 8 extra in the Birmingham kit. These only need to be trimmed down to the B�arn size. Here the left anchor is trimmed and the right one is original. Its out of focus but you can see the width difference.

These could then be mounted.

On the stern a nameplate is missing. The Aber PE lettering set is very useful here, applied on a piece of bent spare PE.

One of the strangest omissions in the kit are all the missing davits for the boats. You get one set in the PE parts, but you should get ten to provide all boats with a means to launch them. You only get the supports to place the boats, and these are very simplified like they were massive blocks. It has taken me hours of referencing, cutting and drilling to get this right. The booms at the bow and stern were made from styrene rod, but you should leave out the overly thick 0.6mm diagonal bracing on these booms. That should only be ropes.

I used Gunze 305 as commended in my modeling store as a replacement for the used Humbrol number. I considered this too dark. After priming, one scratch catwalk section did not have any supports, so I made 20 extra.

I decided after modulating with NATO Black, that I had to saturate this with light grey Vallejo primer to get anything like on the B�arn pictures. Then the deck was covered with Dark Yellow 2, wood brown and deck tan.

It would be easy to place the deck striping before fixing the island structure.

by **StevenVD** » Fri Jul 25, 2025 9:59 am

I'll check if this is a worthwile change, because it means a lot of cutting, sanding and resetting. Now, some work on the hull is shown. The port galleries were drilled out but not refurbished. I used spare PE for this. It should have been T-profiles with beams bending inward but that would have been too hard to make from the exterior.

I proceded to bend these railings for the catwalks. The missing ribs on the underside have been replenished.

But then I realised that I misunderstood the quite sketchy instructions and had made an error in the port catwalk placement. This was also the cause for the missing level change. I have to remove the long part and then place this further back. I did this carefully to preserve the PE ribs on the underside.

Only a few ribs came loose with the removal of the catwalk. I do need to make a lot more for the short part that will tak its place under the galleries. The long part is restored to the kit form by adding the two cut halves. Because it will now take position on a slightly curved edge, I snipped the side at two locatons so it would follow this curve.

A ridge of CA glue is milled from the hull.

After restoring the catwalks, the railings can be put back. The ladders are spare from former projects. L'Ars�nal has failed to add enough of these for all the level differences.

by **FFG-7** » Thu Jul 24, 2025 9:44 am

Jim, when trying to upload the picture to this site, the upload bar swings back & forth for 10 minutes or more even for a file less then 1mb in size by which time I cancel the upload & edited the post. tried jpeg, png, tiff(original file format) & bmp.
here is a crop view but not as good as full size as numbers cannot be read properly if at all.

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