Love how the rafts came out... lots of great detailing and ditto on the photography! look forward to the rest, cheers

Barry great work your painted deck detail with the walkways is another tip for the note book cheers for the offer on the decals will be trying out some of peters tips and see how I go

March 18: I've have had only a few minutes here and there to work on my Ellyson model, but have made some progress on the finishing details. While I was thinking about how to build 1/350 depth charges (got some good advice ultimately), I decided to put on the hull markings. I used the kit decals for the bow and stern loading marks, but had to patch together individual numerals for the hull number. Getting these aligned properly was more of a challenge than I expected. Here are the results, bow and stern.




I also worked on finishing PE details on the superstructure. This was my first time working with 1/350 railings and it helped a lot that I had the other builds in the group to learn from. With the railings, anchor chain, 51 and 52 mounts attached, and life raft supports, the forward superstructure is pretty much completed.



I'll mount the forward life rafts after I get the bow railing installed, which I'll do after I attach the foredeck to the hull.

I added the radar, fighting lights, and some ladders to the mainmast.



I also added the railings and some stays to the mast on the stern deck house.



Finally, here is the foredeck dry fit to the hull.



My plan for the rest of the month is to continue with details. I am going to build the depth charges and racks and mount the K-guns and their racks. Then I'll get the decks attached to the hull and work on the rigging.

March 22: Depth charges - as beautiful as is the Dragon Buchanan kit's design, there are some problems. One that jumped out at me was the the molding of the depth charge racks. Although they are nicely detailed, the two parts are cast so that the joint falls right in the middle of the depth charges resulting in a very noticeable and very hard to fix (at least at my skill level) seam. I decided to replace the depth charge racks with PE, which in turn, required scratch building some depth charges. I puzzled over this for a while before posting a query over on modelwarships.com. I got several good suggestions and the method I used and describe below, was provided by Gordon Bjorkland.

Starting with some styrene rod (I used 1/16") I cut some pieces to the rough size needed. I just rolled the rod under a razor blade to get a nice square end.



I aligned the pieces along a straightedge. I used the bottom of the PE rack as a guide for length.



Once aligned, I glued the pieces together.



Finally, I trimmed the pieces to the right size - as shown here dropped into the top of the PE rack.



Now, I'll just touch up the ends with some sandpaper and paint. I'm thinking of punching out some really tiny disks to simulate the depth selectors on the depth charge ends - something that is molded into the kit pieces. I've also got to do the K-gun racks, which on Ellyson were racks rather than the pedestal types provided in the Buchanan kit.

March 25: Mounted the stern DC racks and added PE railings and ladders to the rear deck section. I think I'm going to defer the 300-lb DC racks, life rafts, floater net baskets, and a few other details until I attach the deck to the hull. I need to look at this for a while before doing that, but certainly this week. Here is a photo of the rear deck as of last night.

Nice work!
It's really coming together now!
Cheers,
Guido

March 26: While contemplating attaching the decks to the hull, I decided to return to the depth charges. As mentioned above, I'm going to use PE racks rather than the kit-supplied pedestals. Instead of fabricating the 300 lb depth charges from scratch, however, it occurred to me that I could use the ones in the kit. I'll also planned to use the mortars (k-guns) supplied with the kit. The photo below shows the basic idea. I cut the depth charges off the kit pedestal assemblies and glued three together. I inserted these into the folded PE racks. Finally, I added the PE davit. When I test fit the rack against the mortar, I found that the kit mortar was too short for the rack, so I'm going to extend the base of the mortar by attaching some 0.040 x 0.40 square styrene as shown. The mortar base only needs to be about an 1/8" longer.

5 points from me, Barry, beautiful paintwork, and good to see you catching up so fast.

Keep it going.

Peter F

March 29: This is finally looking like a ship (to quote one of our colleagues). I have painted and attached the bulwarks (in retrospect, I should have done this when I originally painted the hull), attached the decks to the hull, stepped the main mast, secured the signal flag halyards, mounted the 300-lb depth charge assemblies, installed the railings aft of the bulwarks, inserted the chocks that fit into the openings in the railings, and mounted the jack staff. Because the 300-lb depth charge racks run right to edge of the deck, I had to cut the rear railings to fit around them. I'm hesitating on the forward main deck railings because they too need to be trimmed to fit over the chocks and meet nicely at the jack staff. I'm not sure how much (if any) more work I'll be able to do this month because of some other obligations. This photo should give a sense of where I am at present. I chose the port side because in the process of mounting the rear railings on the starboard side I messed up the stern hull numbers and haven't gotten to repairing them. In the future (no pun intended) I have to remember to seal the decals with Future before handling the model.



Beside fixing the hull numbers and mounting the forward railings, there are a bunch of details that remain to be attached (life rafts, floater net baskets, anchors, motor whaleboats, propeller guards, etc.), then I'll touch up the paint, spray on a coat of clear flat, and tackle the rigging. I hope you guys get going with your rigging so I can see how its done!

Barry, she looks beautiful! I really like the depth charges and your excellent weathering. Great work!

Session 10 Closed!

What an amazing update! love the work on the charges and the paint... looks really nice. Lots of pointers and good technical tips for scratchbuilding.... great update! Cheers

April 16: As always, thanks to all for the complements and encouragement. It really does help when the model gets to that "I wish I had done ... differently" stage.

Things definitely are coming together. Since my last update I've fixed the decals I messed up earlier, added the rest of the PE railings, the propeller guards, the floater net baskets, the anchors, the stern ensign staff, attachment points for the foremast stays, and touched up the paint. Of course, the farther you get into the build the greater is the potential for disaster, and this project isn't an exception. I had to take of my glasses to search by desk for a missing piece of PE. After I found it, I absently reached for my glasses and ended up hitting the model's foremast, bending the top section over about 45 degrees and springing the bottom attachment points for several of the signal halyards. I had already trimmed the halyard so there wasn't much to work with to get them reattached. I really didn't want to take them all off and try to re-rig them, so they now appear a little slack (to my eye). I was able to straighten the mast, sort of, but it doesn't have the rake I was aiming for. Again, short of pulling the whole thing and fabricating a new one, I'm not sure what more I can do. Maybe I'll change my mind when I get to the next step of rigging (something I've been dreading). The last thing I'll do is attach the motor whaleboats. Almost every builder of the DML Buchanan model who has posted has complained about mounting the boats. Hanging off the side, as they are, they would be too easy to knock off when doing almost anything else.

Anyway, here are some shots of the model before I apply a coat of clear flat (perhaps another opportunity for disaster).

Starboard side view:



Closer views moving fore to aft:

Barry,

Thats a mighty fine looking Ellyson. I've enjoyed the build and appreciate the detailed "process". I've got the Buchanan in my stash and it gets eleveated higher in the "wait list".

Sure like to see some photos of the finished build in some "light"...... Too good to be shown in shadows.

Regards
Steve

April 18: Hi Steve! Thanks and you're absolutely right that my photography leaves a lot to be desired. Its partially laziness - my work desk doesn't have a lot of light and I often just want to take the pictures without bothering to move to a better location, and partly being not yet facile with the new digital camera. I will try to do better.

Speaking of doing better - I applied the clear flat yesterday and ended up with a problem. For some reason the clear flat clouded in a couple of areas of the model. See photos below. The first is the model ready for spraying and the next two show (in poor focus, I'm afraid) the cloudy areas.





Well, I thought to myself, I'll just have to touch up the paint and re-spray. Then, in the process of touching up (insert "dope slap" here) I wasn't paying much attention to where I put the masking tape along the boot topping and ended up pulling up the starboard side bow number decals (again!). I think I'm down to my last "4" and "5" in the right size, so I'd better get it right this time.

Hey Barry,

I never never said your photo skills were poor. Just the lighting. You had EXCELLENT focus and light when you were shooting the smaller 'thingies". I use just two kinda standard desk lights that cross the subject. Dont even have to use the flash normally.

Not sure about your camera. I'm SURE you have macro since you got very closeup with the 'thingies". My camera has a 2 step shoot button, focuses on 1st step, then shoot. Works well for the most part. It's a point and shoot type.

Keep it up. Good lookin ship.

Regards
Steve

April 21: Rigging Part 1. I never thought this was going to be easy, but it turns out to be even more difficult than I thought. After fixing the paint and decals messed up in the last installment, I started on the rest of the rigging. Beginning with the foremast stays I used both stretched sprue (back stay) and 7X tippet. Inspired by the beautiful work done with sprue, I thought I'd give it a try. Although stretching the sprue use the light then end, stick to a card, and pull method worked fine, I found the stuff incredibly delicate. I must have snapped the back stay connection to the mast a dozen times. I find the tippet pretty easy to use though it doesn't seem to have the nice feature of tightening when heated - as a result some of the stays (and the halyards I commented on earlier) are more slack than I'd like them to be. Anyway - here are a couple of pictures. The remaining rigging are the antennas that stretch from the foremast along the stacks to the rear mast. Once that is completed the only thing that will remain on the build is to set the motor whaleboats. Finish line in sight and still over a month to go!

She's progressing well Barry. Good focus on the camera. Nice detail. Me-thinks I'm not going to enjoy rigging time when i get there.

Regards
Steve

Love the camo Barry. BTW - I believe when you have dull coat frosting, the best way to attack that is to gloss coat the model again, then re-flat.

April 22: Rigging, Part II. Forged ahead with rigging the antenna lines. The rigging plan, though much simplified, is derived from what I could see in pictures and from Alan Raven's article on building USS McCalla. The lines are 7X tippet darkened with permanent marker. I experimented with different adhesives and found that slow-setting CA worked best for me to attach the lines to the model though I did use Gator Glue to form the insulators, which still need a little work and touch up with paint.

Excellent work, Barry! She looks great and I really like your base!

Barry,
Your USS Ellyson is a great looking build and I look forward to seeing the completed pictures.

I have started working on the USS Buchanan and I am going to try to replicate your search light railing.

Keep up the good work.

Gordon

April 30: Pretty much done, I think. I've finished the rigging, added a flag, and mounted the whale boats and the associated PE details. I used a variation on Peter's clever method for mounting the boats - other builders have complained about the difficulty attaching these in the Buchanan model. Rather than use clay or putty to hold the boat in place along side while it is attached (hard to do in my case because of the height of the pedestals), I rolled up some low-tack masking tape and accomplished the same thing. I could position the boat to the proper place under the davits and apply a drop of CA to the attachment points - when the CA was set, I just removed the tape - worked fine. Here are a few pictures, showing the overall model as of today and the whaleboats. Next month will be devoted to final touch up, but I think I'm pretty much finished - thanks to all for following along, for the encouragement, and for the great advice. Barry

Session 11 closed.