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Continued assembling different items of my HMS Exeter. I added the railings and structures on the sides of the torpedo tubes deck and the boat racks, all PE. Racks are quite flimsy, you better bend them correctly the first time, they break on the second try.








Worked on the observation platform behind the rear funnel, this platform structure changed during the life of the Exeter, and some structures like the ladder interfere with other parts of the kit (like with the liferaft,which should not be attached to the rear funnel, I realized that too late). Did my best to represent it properly.


Before continuing with the details of the superstructure, i wanted to finish the water, don´t want an accident to happen. I painted the water with actrylics, different tones of blue, green and white, not finished yet as I had to fill some gaps around the hull.





marco

She's looking good, Marco!

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Agreed.

it has been a while... I wanted to try adding more volume to the waves, tried with cotton and Acrylics.





Worked on the PE Crane (Eduard), wanted to show it in the lowered position, and had to remove some parts under the base to lower the profile and avoid interference with the catapult. Changed the cables provided in PE for lycra. Added funnel rigging.





Secondary Armament was updated with metal cannon tubes, PE and scratchbuilt parts.





PE catapults, intricate but not so difficult to assemble.







marco

Catapults glued in place, sort of difficult as there is no guidance locating them, and Eduard´s instructions are vague, not really satisfying me regarding the final location of the catapults.







And started working on the Supermarine Walrus hydroplanes, one with extended wings, the other one with retracted wings.













marco

Those catapults look great!

And that are some tiny pieces of masking tape!

Thank you, Marijn, and yes, they are (tiny!). I went back to masking a Puma helicopter in 1/144 and it felt huge!!!

Marco

Looking nice! You can consult the Eduard product page on their website, there is a picture of the catapults.

https://www.eduard.com/out/media/gallery/5965/zoom/10.jpg

Thank you, Steven, I have been consulting, apart from the historical references, both Eduard and Infini models references, quite useful! So, I finished assembling and painting the two Walruses. Chose the aluminum paint scheme as according to what I found, RN hydroplanes remained in this scheme until 1940 when they started to get painted in camo. I omitted the big bow numbers and the red tip on the wing floats, as both should have been painted over at the beginning of the war.





Gluing the folded wings in place was a pain in the neck, two tiny spots for CA, while aligning the wings in 3D, not for cardiacs!


Maybe nobody will notice, but I bored open the wheel wells for the landing gear, wing didn´t look proper without them




marco

Those properly strutted and silver-doped Walruses look superb. A fine looking HMS Exeter.

Thank you, Donald!
Marco

_________________
Amen dico tibi, hodie mecum eris in paradiso (Lk 23,43).

As there is always chance for improvement, I improved the Walruses, adding rigging. The reason why I had not was that I did not have the proper thread. Ultra Fine Lycra from Infini came to the rescue!





I have been working on the boats, adding Eduard PE. A pity that neither the kit, nor the PE set, include both 35´Motor boats with cabins, clearly seen in the references. The profile of the motor boat with cabin only resembles the original ones, could have been better.
I could not find a good color reference so I went on with light Gray, Wood brown and white, plus a blue band for the 35´motor boat.





Not glued yet, the boat support behind the right catapult is empty, the 2nd motorboat should go in that position. I am intending to modify the remaining plastic motor boat, but I found an issue as it interferes with the catapult. We´ll see. Service platforms for the Walruses have been added.



And finally I assembled and painted the Vickers Quad 0.50" AAs. Used metal barrels and PE, and although they are barely noticeable, they are a nice touch!







Coming next:


marco

And I just realized why the 2nd motorboat does not fit on the boat racks behind the starboard catapult, and I can´t fix it at this stage: the rack is positioned too much forward, easy to notice in the comparison below. I followed the notches molded on the kit´s deck to locate it, and evidently the notches are wrong. Both the port and starboard racks behind the catapults should be closer to the rearmost rack. Ohhh crap! I I manage to get a good rendition of the motor boat using the plastic parts, no PE, I´ll shift it a little bit backwards to make it fit.



Marco

The moment came to glue the Walrus hydroplanes in place. No complications, and they look nice!


The base of the crane (Eduard PE) had to be modified to lower it´s height. As provided it is way too tall and would clearly interfere with the wing of the Walrus.


Representing one of the hydroplanes with the wings folded provides more interest to the area. Notice that the 40mm salute cannons have been already installed on the rear castle.






marco

Beautiful work. Love those Walrus seaplanes!

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Marco the Walruses are amazing, the rigging is unbelievable, very convincing, absolutely clean. And so are the catapults. Flawless, perfect assembly! On standby for the next update

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http://www.3xblackcats.wordpress.com

Thank you, guys, putting my best effort!

marco

Wow. Exquisite, incredibly clean work, Marco.

Worked on the masts, replaced the plastic ones with Infini metal ones, beautiful set and not so difficult to assemble. Main reason for replacing the plastic ones (which have an excellent appearance, thin, accurate) was due to the risk of bending them with the abundant rigging required on the Exeter. All the metal parts fit like heaven and are engineered in a way that they fit securely the main arts, not relying only on glue for strength.



Gluing and aligning the masts was quite stressing, but it ended up being easier than what I had expected.


Disproportionately tall, they look good on the ship, they give a vintage profile to the Exeter!




And worked on the second covered motor boat that is missing both from the Trumpeter kit and the Eduard PE set, a 30´or 32´ covered boat that is seen in all reference pictures. The kit provides only one very basic motorboat, which hast to be discarded according to Eduard instructions and replaced by PE added to a different boat hull. Net result is one boat. Anyway, I decided to modify the discarded boat and try to bring it up to a decent standard. I inserted an internal deck, halllowed the superstructure, opened some windows, added a square roof to the rear part, lowered the hull profile (in order to make it easier to fit under the hydroplane catapult), added propeller and shaft, and painted according to my best guess based on B&W pictures. Rear cabin windows were simulated with decals while the front cabin windows were hollowed open.



i think it looks decent enough, will add some details like ropes, lifesavers and other details.





And started adding final weathering. The HMS Exeter was an extremely neat-kept ship, wonder how often they painted it, but it is really hard to find any significant spot of rust or dirt accumulated on the hull. I applied gloss varnish to the hull and added some minor spots and tone variations using artist oils and pastels, nothing really beyond mild weathering specially around the anchors, what seem to be drainage pipes in the lower part of the hull (and even those look very clean in most reference pictures), areas around the boats positions and rings around the funnels. Will continue applying some minor weathering to the superstructure and to the deck.



Oh and almost forgot to mention, we cracked the bottle of champagne, my HMS Exeter was officially christened!



Marco