I am starting a new project. The Japanese battleship ISE after its partial transformation into an aircraft carrier at 1/350.
The ship kit is from FUJIMI. I like this brand for its quality and the nature of its plastic. For the wooden deck, it will be the one from the Artwox brand and for the detail kit the one from Flyhawk.
For the doc, I had in my library the book Japanese Hybrid Warships from Trojca. Very good as a book. For the book from Kagero, you have to take this type of book with a pinch of salt. Because the drawings are 3D interpretations of the designer.
I also took a lot of products from Black Cat Models. I spent a good week removing the supports and cleaning the parts. But they are really great products (quality, finesse, etc.)
The first step is to put the hull in waterline version.
For the staging, I haven't made a choice yet. I would like to make the ship at the dock and in the background the crane of the Kure arsenal. I have quite a few photos of this crane. However, you have to be careful because between the photos from the 40s and the photos of the current crane, there are quite a few differences. I will already model it in 3D and I will see then.
This is my occupation for the next 12 months.
Fujimi favored its parts injection problems rather than reality.
So I'm going to completely redo the ship's rear deck in PE
I have just finished the drawings of the Photo-etching board for the rear deck of ISE. As many people ask me how to create your own PE, I will explain how I do it.
First, I start from a reference such as a photo of what I want to reproduce or a scan of the part where I have to do the PE. In this case, the scans of the rear deck of ISE.
To do the PE, you have to draw two sides, the FRONT and BACK of the Board. Then there are two colors that are used:
Black. At this point the acid will not attack the metal.
White. At this point the acid will make the metal disappear.
If you have white on the Front and Back sides, you will have a void on your board.
If you have white on the Front side and black on the Back side, you will get a hollow on the Front side.
I mark the folds of the parts by making a line of 0.17 to 0.2 mm depending on the thickness of the metal. Normally the line will be white on the back side. However, if your fold exceeds 90�, the white will be on the front side.
On an empty surface, you should not make a line less than the thickness of the PE board. In my case, I will use a 0.16 mm board, so I do not make a line less than 0.2 mm. However, it is possible to cheat. For example, on a ventilation hatch, I would make lines with a thickness of 0.1 by making white on the back side.
That's it for the basic principles. As you can see, it's very simple.
I start by making a drawing including both sides of the board. To do this, I use a color code to make my task easier.
The elements in Blue, which are the supports, will be black on the Verso side and deleted on the Recto side.
The elements in red will be white either on the recto side or on the verso side.
Then I make both sides. It is from this moment that the most boring phase of creating a board begins. On the other hand, you have to be very careful, because the final result of the board will depend on your attention and concentration. Do not forget to vectorize all the texts at the end of the process.
Once both sides are finished, I save them in pdf. These will be sent via email to Hauler. The delivery time for the engraved plates varies greatly. Before Covid, as a general rule, the delivery time was 2 weeks. During the covid period and after, it took 2 months.
On the other hand, Hauler is a service provider. It does not check your drawings. If you have drawn anything, you will get anything. I speak from experience (LOL).
I will take advantage of the production time of the PE board to do the 3D modeling of the crane of the Kure arsenal
Best regards.
Alain.
