Hello everyone

Here goes...I'm finally taking the plunge and thought I'd jump in feet first with my first ship model build. As stated in the topic, I'm a beginner as far as ships are concerned, so I thought that showing my build on here:

1) might be inspiration for others who have never done this before.
2) take advantage of the incredible knowledge and suggestions from the experienced modelling community on this site.
3) and actually have me finish the kit with some encouragement from others.

The inspiration for building this kit comes from my Great Uncle who was a Machinist's or Boiler's Mate on the ship during World War 2. My Uncle is in his early 90's so I'm hoping I can complete the kit soon to show him.

Besides the kit, I've purchased some WEM photo-etched sets, the "Ultimate King George V" photo-etched brass set, RN cable reels, and Fukuya replacement barrels for the 14" and 5.25" armament. Any other additions I'll add as I go.

Pictures will follow once I can convince my photographer spouse to help with taking some images for me. Let's just say she'll need some convincing!

So for those that may choose to follow this build, welcome. I hope I can make it enjoyable for you, and don't look like a complete newbie! I welcome all suggestions, tips, information and critiques...Ultimately I hope to become a better modeller from this experience and look forward to the challenge.

Thanks in advance

Joseph

Bon voyage, Joseph! It should be a rewarding build.

--Karl

hello Joseph,
Welcome to Model Shipwright .
There are some of the best ship modelers here and are quick to help you any way they can.
I am going to enjoy your build.this Ship is on must buy list,so i will learn from you if there are any problems with the kit.
What Kit are you using and what scale is it?
Again,Welcome to MSW and heres to a great Build .
cheers,
Bruce

I'm looking forward to your build Joseph.

Kenny

Quite brave with all that PE on the first model, good luck!

You'll do fine Joseph,... waiting in anticipation for the first set of pics!

Frank

Welcome aboard Joseph. While the KGV may be somewhat ambitious as a first foray into ship modeling, it is a good choice as the ship is well documented and there are a ton of references available.

I can foresee a lot of laundry and dish washing in your future as picture taking may prove to be rather time consuming, that is, if the wife plays her cards right.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

I can't help being a little overwhelmed, but I'm up for the experience. One step at a time as they say. I have a number of ship projects on the horizon so this will be good practice. Future projects are: Tamiya's 1:350 Bismarck, Revell's 1:72 U-Boat VIIC, Revell's 1:72 Flower Class Corvette modified to H.M.C.S. Sackville, and Hasegawa's 1:350 Akagi.

Bruce: I'll do my best do provide an informative build for you. The kit is Tamiya's 1:350 King George V.

Jay: That's one area I've been struggling with so far, is finding good reference material, maybe I'm looking for too specific information. Most of the books I've looked up are out of print, or used copies that are too expensive. Any help in pointing me in the right direction would be appreciated! There was a DVD set on the Royal Navy that had an episode on this class of Battleship, I wish I had picked it up now, went back and of course it was sold!

Progress to date has been limited to drilling out the portholes on the hull with a twist drill, 126 of them for those who are counting. I ran into a little trouble near the bow, some of the molded portholes there are more elliptical than round, so a few came out looking too big with the angle I had drilled them. I'll fill them and try again, only two so not too bad.

Also I've started removing the molded on chain from the bow. I've got two sizes of anchor chain to replace it.

I'm off at lunch to pick up some brass rod for the propeller shafts, and some styrene rod and such. I'm hoping to tackle a lot of the drilling and removing of molded on detail this weekend. Drilling out the holes in the deck for the anchor chains and anti-aircraft gun locations are another goal. I'll also be looking for a wooden base and some brass finials.

Pictures soon to show progress so far, and whatever I accomplish over the weekend! I'll negotiate for some from the better half, I'm guessing I'm Mr. Domestic all weekend Jay!

Joseph

Beginners KGV
Saw your post and as I was sizing up my construction of a POW, I wondered about your choice of Fukuya replacement barrels. Before you brought the name up I had not heard of them and had been looking at B&D barrels or BMK. Would you kindly advise why you chose Fukuya and where they can purchased. There wasent a lot online about the Company and I'm wondering if you had a special reason

Thanks John Mills

Hi John,

I just ran across them by chance with a google search. I ended up seeing their products on Hobby Link Japan's website and took a chance and ordered from there. I did see references to B&D and BMK products after I had ordered from HLJ though. I notice too, that a few of the guys here like the Fukuya barrels as well, Dade for one I believe. So really to answer your question, just found them by chance, and at the time with the Canadian $ they seemed a good deal pricewise. I was impressed with HLJ's service and the barrels came within 3 weeks or so.

Joseph

Joseph:

You are building a really sweet kit. It is probably one of the better ship offerings from Tamiya. I had no problems with mine and used a GoldMedal PE set on her and it came out just super. The WEM is a lot more extensive and with the brass barrels should be mighty fine. Just keep the brass set instructins out and build the stuff in as you go and you shouldn't have any problems. You can tackle the Akagi with all the supersets after that

Looking forward to seeing some pictures, Joseph! I'm with ya on Fukuya... they make good stuff-- about half of my "navy" is armed with their barrels.

PS: I also like Burkhardt's stuff too (my Yukikaze is armed with his barrels), but Fukuya's been in the business for so long that I've gotten used to their quality and price-- at one point they were the only makers for much of the stuff I needed (1/250 guns for my Musashi, etc.).

Thanks

Joseph, welcome to MSW! I fully understand the “spouse picture” part! My spouse banned me from using her nice new Dig Cam because (yet again!) I left in on my workbench… have to sneak some pics of my builds due end of month! Do check out Fleet Maneuvers, we have a few interesting and exciting group builds in progress and coming up! Looking forward to your build

Joseph, I keep forgetting to tell you that Shinsengumi makes a beautiful wooden deck for the KGV and PoW that you may want to check out...

http://hlj.com/product/SSGMCP017

Check out my Kongo build log for more on Shinsengumi decks. They cost a decent amount of money but look amazing and save a ton of time not having to mask and weather the deck...

Sorry, just trying to get this image thing figured out.

Hi everyone, I think I have the images figured out, so here are some pictures of progress so far.


Tamiya's 1:350 KGV Kit.


Don't ask!


My work area.


White Ensign Model's "Ultimate King George V" photo-etched set, RN Cable Reels set, GMM's 20mm and 40mm gun detail set, anchor chain (which is too big!) that I'll need to replace. My main reference by Chesneau, and an interesting little DVD set that shows some detail of the ships guns, decks, railings and other details around British Navy ships.


Showing the portholes drilled out (126 on the hull) and the propeller shaft supports.


I used 1/16" brass rod for the shafts.


I ran into some problems with drilling out some portholes. Some portholes were rather elliptical as opposed to circular, so when I drilled them out with the twist drill they appear too large and not circular. I tried to fill them with putty and re-drill them, but the putty I used was more a filler type so crumbled when I re-drilled. I'll try again with Tamiya's epoxy putty and try again. Same problem occurred on some superstructure parts. It seems if the portholes are on an angled part, the mold created an ellipitical shaped hole and not cirucular.


The bow minus molded on anchor chains, and holes drilled out for the insertion of real chain. As stated my chain is too large, it doesn't fit around the capstan well...so I'll look for a smaller size.




Holes drilled out for the placement of the 20mm Oerlikon gun positions. Also the molded on cable reels will be removed and replaced with photo-etched ones.


Showing the porthole problem on the superstructure.


Some photo-etched covers added, I have immense respect for the 1:700 PE users...tiny! I've decided to replace the doors & hatches as well, just ordered the set from GMM.


Showing all the superstructure side parts with portholes drill out (57 portholes) Total number of portholes drilled out was 183!

Once I get my porthole issues resolved, I hope to have more substantial progress on the deck taken care of for the next update, and more PE added to the superstructure pieces. Once again, any comments are welcome!

Joseph

MMM...okay.

You sure you're a beginner? Nice work on the details so far.

JtD

I'm a ship newbie, modeled for years though mostly WW2 AFV's. Although as you can see, I do tend to buy more than I build.

Joseph

You are not alone there mate! I just sold over 200 1/72 planes but still have over 300 kits left!.. Luckily I have a partner that understands my addiction.

Don't sweat the PE stuff. First ship model I made last year, the Tamiya 1/350 Tirp[itz, I used the Eduard Super Set and didn't have too many troubles. As someone said, just make sure you have the PE instructions out all the time. I also go through the kit instructions and mark all the places where PE is used. Lots of little pencil marks to remind me where it is used.

I will be following your build closely as I want to discover more techniques for ships.

Dade, those wooden decks are just too expensive for me. Coming from someone who just bought 2 of the 1/16 Trumpeter King Tigers that is saying something! But I am sure I will try one one day..

Almost forgot, I used the BMK barrels on the Tirpitz and was very impressed that I got to talk to the person who actually makes the barrels to discuss accuracy etc. He will also make special barrels for you, for a price..

Smooth sailing Joseph...

Wow, it's been 2 years since I first posted about tackling this project. Sadly, I'm embarrassed for letting things lapse for so long. Modeling time is something I have not had the luxury of for quite some time, but it's time to get back onto this bad boy and make some serious progress. Not having ever done a ship of this size and detail before, I also admit to being completely overwhelmed. It sits on my model desk taunting me daily.

One issue I ran into at start was not enough research into the period of the ship I was going to model. I'm going to still model the late war version, but I've come to realize some issues I'll have to fix. First off, the second row of portholes were plated over in a refit so those will all have to be filled back in. Also, I've drilled out too many holes for the 20mm Oerlikons tubs. I'll have to decide whether to fix this or not as I'm not looking forward to filling and having to scribe in new planking.

I think detail wise I have everything I need in photoetch and have accumulated the necessary scratch building supplies to further the planned extra detail. I'll show a completed 5.25" turret to give an example of what I'm trying to achieve as one example.

Anyway, this ship project is being raised from the proverbial dead and I'll start posting new progress picks shortly. My apologies to those that posted with their enthusiam for the project and have been disappointed with zero progress.

Good luck on the build Joseph, and wow that's a lot of models in that cupboard!

I've just completed my first build in over 20 years which was also the King George, was fun working with PE parts, airbrush, weathering, rigging for the first time. Much to learn, need to improve my technique with applying super glue to small areas.

Hope this loads ok

Very nice start my Friend. I have built this Kit before and it does not have too many Vices.....Cheers Mark