Thanks All,

I appreciate taking the time to look and comment.

Serhan, I do agree that posing the various weapons systems to represent a different outline to a ship is a good way to give it a bit of individuality. In this case, I will be putting the Oyodo onto a base representing it as an "at anchor" scene. So mine will be all "parked" in an out of action mode.

I am working on adding railings and rigging and once I have a bit of progress and some pictures I will continue on with another post. Of course, being that tomorrow is my "Monday" at the salt mines, it will be a little later.

Hi All,

After a couple of evenings to work at the Photo Etched Railings I have managed to get them started and ready to apply. For me the easiest way to go about running the railings is to get the proper sized pieces cut, trimmed and bent more or less to shape. To run around the Light Cruiser Oyodo it took five sections of Tom's Model Works IJN Railing to do the deed.

I cut and formed the bow sections, trimmed the forward parts for clearance over the raised portion and fairleads then formed the two places where the platforms project out from the sides of the ship and the cutouts for the bollards. This left a smaller section to get to the forward gun tubs for the 100mm Dual Purpose mounts. Another small section to go between the gun tubs and then a long run aft that required cutouts for the bollards. Finally one more small section that had to be bent to go around the fantail. Even though I measured as best I could, a little trimming was required here and there as I mounted them. This is what I started with.



Since the ship is for the most part base coated with paint, I don't want to apply these without painting them first. But painting them is just the beginning. Handling the sections once painted, getting them to work around things like the small boats and davits and such is going to knock off some paint, but such is life. Once I get them all mounted I can go back and hit the bare spots. I brush painted them after cleaning them with water and dish soap then a quick soak in alcohol to make sure the oils from my handling them and anything that may have been on them from manufacturing. From that point on, I only used tweezers to pick them up and hold them for painting. As with most paints I use for brush painting, it was diluted just a bit with some thinner to help the paint flow better as I brushed it on.



So now the next couple of nights I get time to work at it will be spent applying the railings.

HI All,

Having a nice couple of days off from the salt mines definitely improves one's outlook in general and makes time at the bench enjoyable. I worked my way around the ship applying the railings first.. Having all the pieces more or less sized and bent to go in specific places makes it relatively painless. I used a clipped off needle's eye to apply sections of super glue to the edge of the deck then laid the parts of railing to the spots. Once they were tacked down, it was a simple matter to go back over the joint at the bottom of the railing with the needle and secure them in place.

Once that was taken care of it was time to go on to the rigging. This is one of the parts of a build that I like best, it makes a ship model look like it should and with the Morskie Monograph showing where the various sections are placed it was simply a matter of stretching a couple of sections of sprue to a fine line, trimming off the end and then stick it in place with some super glue. Once one side is anchored, laying the opposite end up to where it should go for trimming then glue that end up. Starting from the inner most rigging, in this case the flag lines that ran from the forward mast cross bar down to the railing on the flag bridge is where I started. I made the flag lines up by using the smallest cable reel ends from the Tauro Cable Reel and Hatches PE Fret for pulleys and applied two bits of stretched sprue to each. Measuring the individual runs with the Mark One Eyeball and trimming them down then adding the opposite cable reel end to terminate each line gives you a twin line that you can add signal flags to later. Gluing each set starting at the innermost pair to the outside pair provides all six runs. Next up came the rigging from the "B" Turret mounted rigging tower to the forward edge of the bridge and then to the outer tips of the cross bar on the forward mast. All the other sections went on easy enough and soon I had them all in place. Rails and Rigging Lines only took a couple of hours to add. After letting them all set up for a couple of hours I applied a heat source to the lines to tighten them all up. This is the part where having brass rod rather than the original styrene parts pays off. The rod does not give as the rigging lines tighten up and everything stays where it should.





I still have to blacken and add the anchor chains and anchors to the bows then a little washing with some thinned paints to add some depth and for weathering effects. I also have a plane to build and paint to place on top of the launching trolley mounted to the forward section of rail on the after deck house. It is getting close to the end of this one and time to start working on a base to add it to.