Ahoy Julian

Looking very very good thus far.

Well done.

I like the weathering.

Cheers

Sean

Hi Julian,
Once more your paintwork looks really great. I also noticed that you scratched the small hatches on the foredeck. I don't want to be rude but I'm afraid you should have rotated them 90 degrees. But then, unlike you, I have an unhealthy obsession with details

Groet,

Arjan

Thanks Sean, nice to see that there are some "Kiwi's "on the board. I am quite happy with the outside hull, the aft bulkhead with the helmet racks is a bit OTT, looks like someone has been bashing it with a sledge hammer (must remember to make the chips even smaller).
Arjan, I could tell you some amazing Bravo Sierra story about the Japanese potters who say that perfection is for the Gods and make a mistake in the glazing on purpose to prove that their porcelain is man made but the truth of the matter is that I pooched the inspection hatches in a right regal manner, realizing about 30 minutes after super glueing them to the tube casings that I had managed to do just about everything wrong. The good thing is that most people will not notice so I'll leave them as they are as permanent reminder to myself to do my research properly
cheers,
Julian

Hi Arjan,
what about your stanchions? Are you sure, they were riveted to the deck - 3 rivets per stanchion? I would prefer they are bolted, so its easier to make 3 countersinked screws with the "MDC rivetmaker" (a tool I normaly use for my aircrafts).
... and I'm still waiting for the Archer rivets...
So I have time to extend the 3,7cm-gun shield; I think it has to be extended on both sides before adding the side armor. Looking at the pics, it seems that the width of the shield between the cuts for the gun and the sights is nearly the same width as between the sight-cut and the left or right end of the shield!? So lets try with card...

regards to all the guys worldwide having fun with that extraordinary BEAST

Michael

Hi Julian/Michael,
Julian, if I were you I would change them regardsless of the extra work involved. I've been retracing my steps quite a few times during this build. I removed my homemade rivets twice ( nearly three full days' work down the drain ), I made about 4 sets of struts before I got them right, I filled in quite a number of holes I had drilled in the model, I've removed my speechtubes for the third time etc. I've come to regard this build as a Zen exercise in patience and endurance Brian's bridge pic also involved a lot of extra work, e.g. I removed the attachments for the swivel seats which are completely wrong (so are the supporting frames themselves). This wasn't easy because I had already assembled the pilothouse ... By the time this build is over I will probably be a Zen master
I think the stanchions were bolted but I doubt if these were countersunk (I hope not, that would be another few days' work down the drain). I 've been using my beading tool to make rivets/bolts (at any rate, bits of similarly sized plastic) for the stanchions. I use black plastic (packaging material) which is easier on the eyes. I agree with your conclusions about the gunshield extensions. I compared some pics of the standard gunshields and there appear to be some small differences in width.

Cheers,

Arjan

Postscript: By the way Brian informed me that there will be an article in which a salvaged Kalotte is closely examined (by John Murphy) in the next issue of Model Military. It might be wise not to start painting your Kalotte for the time being....

Arjan -

You were right - the gun shields are bulkier than my 2nd attempt. So, here is my 3rd attempt:









I think the third time was the charm - thanks for feedback!

Chris

Hi Chris,
Spot on! I'm glad you had the courage to have a go at it for the third time. Besides, now I can also use your pics as reference Could you please give us the approximate dimensions of the top panel, that would save us quite a bit of work.

Cheers,

Arjan

As requested:



Please realize that I took the measurements after putting it together!!

Chris

Thanks a lot Chris, great service I'm sure I'm not the only one who is grateful for being able to save some time on the build.

Cheers,

Arjan

Hi Chris, I'm a bit late reacting to this posting Thank you very much, this is excellent and will save a lot of squinty measuring from screenies. This combined with the metal 37mm barrel should make a very impressive piece of hardware on the near stern of the boat.
Cheers,
Julian

Hi guys,
here's my extended gunshield for the 3,7cm Flak; I think, this part is really matching the original shields you can see in the Squadron-book on page 28. And there's a cut on the lower edge of the side-armor and the opening for the sights are round and not flat.
...but it's not yet ready - a lot of filling and sanding is still to be done.







Maybe the sketchwith approx. dimensions is helpful!?

Michael

Great Michael, now we have the agony of choice You are obviously right about the rounded openings for the barrel and the aiming devices . You are also right about having increased the width of the original shield. I wonder though if you haven't made it slightly too wide. In pics it would appear that the three cuts in the shield resulted in four "parts" of equal width. I measured the "four parts" in the pic on page 28 (bottom right) of the Lang boat and they appear to have exactly the same width. But then I assume you tried the shield on the model to see how it measures up with the striker rail in the same pic.

Cheers,

Arjan

Michael -

Nicely done - good catch on the clipped corner and the rounded opening. You may be right about the wider shield.

Chris

Did some measuring, not what I thought.

Brilliant work! Superb.

MArtyn

I've been working on bridge detail for some days now. It was not until today however, that I noticed an error that was once more inherited from the Revell kit. It's quite stupid that I hadn't thought of this before because it's a mistake I corrected when building the Revell kit some years ago... It concerns the position of part 3 F, the wood platform in front of the torpedo targeting device. This platform sits much too high and should probably be on top of the bridge floor itself. To my disgust I had to dismantle part of the bridge in order to address this mistake. It took me about an hour to remove the platform without causing damage, I was, once more, not terribly pleased with the Italeri people who designed the kit The "door pic" (Schnellboot site) I posted earlier gives a good view of the starboard side of the targeting device.

Cheers,

Arjan

Arjan -

Perhaps it was a field modification to accommodate a short commander ?

Chris

Hi Chris,
In Holland we have a saying that says "there is no greater pleasure than malicious pleasure" , I trust you haven't assembled your pilothouse yet By the way, Brian's bridge pic also seems to show that the bridge doors had three hinges instead of just two . I really hope Italeri will do their homework properly for their next 1/35 scale boat. Since it concerns an Italian PT boat I assume it will be much better than the S-Boot kit .

Cheers,

Arjan

Is that hard info that the next Italeri 1/35 ship will be the Italian MTB Arjan? Pity they are not yet heading for the Vosper MTB.
Julian

Hi Julian,
Of course I don't know which will be first, perhaps the Biber will be issued first.
http://data3.primeportal.net/models/thomas_voigt3/italeri/images/italeri_28_of_30.jpg
http://data3.primeportal.net/models/thomas_voigt3/italeri/images/italeri_27_of_30.jpg

Cheers,

Arjan

Hi Wojtek,
The M.A.S. model will be about 53,5 cm so that is pretty small compared to the S-Boot model
http://www.regiamarina.net/arsenals/ships_it/mas_vas_ms/mas_vas_ms_data_us.htm

Arjan

Okay that is good news that 1/35th series of small warships will continue and the "Beaver" should be a very interesting build. Maybe they will eventually get round to the Russian MTB and the Vosper. Thanks for the info Arjan and Wojtek. I've been buying some more oil colours and will be trying some "oil dot" weathering on the underwater hull red part of the boat tomorrow (with some trepidation, easy to mess up the whole build here I would think ).
How about some more photo's of all the rebuilding you are doing Arjan, it would be interesting to see all the scratching and modding you are doing.
I thought I had found some difference between the Lang and HaJu gunshields yesterday but closer examination proved that they are very similar if not exactly the same. This is a bit of scratching I will be doing.
cheers,
Julian

I will post some pics tomorrow. Don't expect too much , though, because it was once more a matter of trial and error (mostly the latter).

Arjan