The Ship Model Forum

The secondary battery is in place. Now, an another tricky part awaits - the signal threads on the foremast. If this will result in a happy end, the rest is a piece of cake.

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- David

That is one bad-ass looking battlewagon. Loving this.

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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

OMG! I Just noticed I somehow managed to damage the bridge. It seems like some kind of a heat distortion. I have no clue how I did it...but I did it.

- The damage to the low "nest" should be repaired quite easily. I'll just swap the port and starboard ones.
- The damage to the middle platform is hardly manageable. However, it's almost unnoticeable even on the photo.
- The primary concern is the damage to the top platform. It looks as it suffered a hit from an enemy fire Fortunately, I was able to remove the platform. I'll try to fix it...and if I won't be able to do it, I have spares. So I can just create it once again.

No big deal...but it just can't be easy

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- David

And of course, thank you, Martin!

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- David

The damage has been fixed. However, before starting with the foremast rigging, I decided to place the mainmast and its rigging at first. By the way, there should be a one more thread leading horizontally between funnels. Unfortunately, I was unable to install it with a proper tension, so it has been cowardly omitted.

What remains is placing the foremast + rigging, catapult, rear crane, 13 Oerlikon twins, whip antennas and the outer railing. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

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- David

Despite most of the above mentioned final touches are still to be done, the overall character of the ship is quite apparent now.
I will remove the plastic thing from the rear crane and will replace it by an etched structure.

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- David

In the meantime I tried to knot a replacement for the molded chain using the 0.2mm wire. Not sure if I'll use it, anyway, maybe it's still a little bit overscale. On the other side, the 0.1mm wire resulted in too little "chain".

Still, the result is better than the ridiculous thing that was included in the Artwox deck package.

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- David

Fantastic! Great job so far

Matt

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In the yards right now:
USS Utah AG-16
On Hold
1/350 USS Portland CA-33 1942
1/350 Trumpeter Texas with a twist

Looking good! You're on the home stretch almost done!

Thank you, guys.

A next step, I tried to install the whip antennas. Not sure, maybe they are still too apparent and should be even thinner, though.

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- David

I think they look great! Oh when oh when will Trumpeter release these in 1/350??? With exception of the Alaska's, I think the Big 5 was the most attractive ships in any fit that the USN fielded.

You are almost there, keep up the great work!!

Matt

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In the yards right now:
USS Utah AG-16
On Hold
1/350 USS Portland CA-33 1942
1/350 Trumpeter Texas with a twist

Great work and recovery!

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- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

Thank you for your support, it really pushes me forward!

Despite not a big fan of looking too far away, there is a tiny quiet voice in my head whispering "what ship will you pick up from the stack when the Fighting Mary is finished?" And another one is responding "most probably the USS California (1945)."

We'll see, onto the remaining Oerlikons now.

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- David

The knotted replacement for the molded chain has been installed. I decided not to scrap the molded original this but will do in the next builds, of course. A light weathering of the chain is needed yet. After that, the bow railing is next. The rear one and the Oerlikons battery are already in place.

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- David

Looks real good. What size did you use for your whip antennas? I'm not going to make mine for a while, but I might end up using .010" (0.3mm) rod styrene.

They are made of a stretched sprue. They are thinner than the 0.2 mm wire, probably around the 0.1 - 0.15 mm.

My suggestion is - once you'll think you made them thin enough, the opposite is true . Make even thinner and use those. They will become more distinct when painted.

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- David

Two pictures of the current state, photographed under an artificial light.

The jackstaff has been installed and I'll try to finish the remaining railing tomorrow. After this is done, only the foremast rigging remains. And maybe the Kingfisher.

A departure from the Puget Sound Navy Yard is expected in a matter of days

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- David

I was at a hobby shop that is near my doctor's office. I saw on the shelf spaces for brass wire with .008" and .006" which is less than 0.3mm. Maybe similar to the size you used, but they were out of stock. I am going to do some research if I can find it online or maybe even a smaller thickness.

Despite I planned to focus on the bow railing today, I decided to tackle my worries from the signal yardarm rigging.

I was still not quite sure how to fix the lower ends. Due to the current state of the build I left my original intention to drill small holes into the flag locker and to install the rigging loops there. Eventually, I decided to apply the presented solution.
- I have made a small bit of a stretched sprue
- Eight threads were attached to it (a simple knot fixed with a bit of a PVA glue) and loose ends were removed
- The sprue was then attached to the inner side of the flag locked (as indicated by the red mark)
- The individual threads were attached to the yardarm.

The loose ends need to be removed yet but I am quite mentally exhausted to do it right now.

The result is quite OK, I think.

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- David

Great looking BB! I cannot build them that size anymore.