"Build Session 4 closed-Keep Modeling!"

Session 7 closed~Keep Modeling!!

January 1, 2009: New Year Resolution #1. Now that elbow has healed, GET BACK TO MODELING!!! Update to follow. Barry

Good one!
Go! Go! Go!
Guido

Can't wait, Barry!

great news barry!

hello Berry,
great news about you starting back modeling.i have miss your up dates and they way you do your builds.i am learning alot from you.
have a Good New Year.
cheers,
Bruce

January 10, 2009: Literally dusted off the pieces (lots of dust after 5 months of inactivity) and tried to remember what I was planning on doing next. Reviewed the blog and determined that I had intended to spray the 5" turrets and gun director with Future to prepare for wash. Simple enough - managed to get that accomplished. Also sprayed some Future on the hull where the hull numbers will go, though I forgot to do the places for the fore and aft plimsoll markings. Going to have to work some to get the momentum going again.

Reviewed the progress of our colleagues in this build - really amazing work. A bunch of great models are going to come out of this group - lots of inspiration for dawdlers like me.

Nice to see you back Barry hope injury is sorted looking forward to see your updates
All the best for the new year
Keith

Great to have you back Barry, hope all is well, cheers

January 28: Been working on a lot of detail parts - the chocks and bollards on the main deck, vents, and the doors. I painted the photoetch doors before I mounted them because I wasn't sure if I wanted to pose them open or closed. I ended up doing both, though most are closed. I'll have to paint over those when I finish the camouflage scheme. I had a little trouble positioning the closed doors. I put a little Gator glue on the doorway edges and tried placing the door on top. Getting them to line up properly was a pain.

Today, I worked on the stacks. Here is a picture of the basic kit pieces, which include the stack, the stack cap, the stack base, a photoetch ladder, and some piping. The kit instructions have some typos here (the parts aren't numbered correctly) but its pretty easy to put the right pieces together. We finally got a new camera, but I (obviously) haven't mastered it yet.



I put a very thin coat of flat black on the stack caps to simulate the sooty appearance seen in the photos. The outsides will be overpainted with the camouflage color. I also added extra PE for the railings around the stacks. and the antenna braces. The PE platform comes with the kit, but the railings are extra from the new GMM PE set.



Here is another view.



I'm going to spray a coat of base color on these next.

Having caught up on the entire thread, I must say this build is a thing of real beauty--it's good to savor the details in a progressive build-out.

--Karl

Barry! I'm so happy to see you back to work on this project! Your PE work is looking really nice!

January 29: More work attaching small pieces to the sub-assemblies. Starting with the forward deck house I added the PE door, ventilators, and 20mm a/a.



This will be topped by the bridge-gun director structures.



I attached the center deck house to the rear deck. There was a fit problem here and I had to do some chiseling on the deck to get the after section to meet the deck without a fairly large gap. When I cemented the deck house I forgot to attach the 20mm sponson support columns. I broke a few of the kit parts (A13) trying to squeeze them in and had to replace them with 0.030 styrene rod.



Finally, the rear deck house has the quad 1.1 a/a, which itself has several PE parts (only lost one!) and the rear mast. I debated about attaching the mast now, its pretty fragile, but I think it will be alright. I also thought about replacing the plastic with brass rod, as several of my colleagues have done, but decided my skill level isn't quite up to it. I hope this doesn't come back to haunt me when I start the rigging.



I need to paint the detail parts and I'm wondering about how to paint the a/a guns. Most of the photos I've seen show these guns covered - some show them painted the camouflage color, some show the gun barrels black. Hmmm?

Even more great stuff! Wow, you're flying out of the gate now!

Excellent!
Good to see that your coming back into the game!
Cheers,
Guido

Great stuff - this is coming along very nicely!

Great work.... love the stack detailing... real nice build!

February 6, 2009: Finished the basic camouflage painting, I'll need to do some touch up later, but I think I've done enough to clear coat and apply a light wash. I wanted to apply the wash to the superstructure before adding the railings and other really delicate parts. I use acrylic paint so I clear-coated with Future. I let the Future dry for a day and then mixed up a very light oil wash.



This is pretty thin - the effect I'm going for is a very slight highlighting of the corners and molded on detail.

Here is the forward deck house.



I attached the stacks to the midship deck house and a few other details.



Finally, here is the aft deckhouse after the wash.



I want to do more detail work before I attach the forward and aft deck houses to the decks. Ellyson had her K-gun depth charges stored on racks instead on the pedestals that are included in the Buchanan kit. I'm going to use PE for those. Also, I want to start the rigging on the aft mast before I install the search light tower, that I may be rebuilding again. The best picture I have of Ellyson shows her with a canvas covered railing around the searchlight - which is what the kit supplies. I may end up mounting that on a different tower.

February 23, 2009: Dithered a lot before deciding to tackle the life rafts. Ellyson carried hers in different positions from the Buchanan model so I need to modify some of the kit mountings. In the meantime I decided to replace the molded raft bottoms with PE mesh. Here is a photo showing the kit part and the steps I used to added the mesh to the bottom:



I used Gator Glue to affix the webbing by dabbing a bit on the raft bottom and dropping the mesh on top of them; I got a little messy with the glue, I'm afraid.



Here are the finished rafts.



I also got started on the mainmast. I dressed up the kit parts with some PE ladders and yard arm and started the process of rigging. This is the first 1/350 model I've rigged and I"m not quite sure what I"m doing, though it seemed as though it would be easiest to attach the signal halyards before positioning the mast. I used 7X tippet for the halyards and fixed them on the yardarm with CA. I'll add the SC radar later.



I hope I can get more done this evening. If not this will be my last post for the month - will be away from the bench for a few days. Happy modeling all.

It's all in the detailing isn't it Barry, and good to see your progress here. Are you looking for a finish in the time?

When I look at your build I'm sure that the kit parts are mainly templates for scratch building, and I rrreally like what you've done with the life rafts. Sometimes it's to easy to leave things second best and move on.

Good work mate.

Peter F

Barry, this build is awesome! Excellent photography and inspiring work! She's really cooking along and coming together fast now.