¹⁄350

Water-line Conversion of Injection Molded Full Hulls

"MSW crew-mate Kym Knight (Rab) shares a treatise on his technique of converting full hull model kits to water-line style, in this step-by-step tutorial feature!"

Introduction

Many of the recently produced kits are released as full hull only, leaving the water-line/ diorama builders in a bit of a bind as how to show them 'at sea'. I've used a couple of different methods, including the little rotary saw on my Dremel, but the completed cut line always ended with unsatisfactory results.

So after some thought, I think I've come up with a process that, (though may take a little longer - the Yahagi hull took me 1.5 hours, not including glue drying time) adequately solves the straight cut problem and the constant danger of using a X-acto blade scalpel knife to repeatedly score a line. So here is a basic step by step on what I did to cut down the Hasegawa's Yahagi hull.

...shoving off!

The two hull halves fresh off the sprues. Notice the internal hull bracing locator holes. The water-line is located somewhere between the two upper and lower points and as I have to know where to cut the bracing pieces, I will have to mark the line.









On this hull and many of the Japanese kits, there is a very faint but raised water-line and using a sharpened pencil, carefully run it along this rib. On other kits without a discernable line, I use the 1:350 scale colour chart supplied to measure and mark it onto the hull, then lay Tamiya tape along the upper side of the line. Once I am happy with the finished result, I'll drill a 1mm hole at each bracing point, thereby able to see where the internal braces must be cut.