Wow! We made the news in the big smoke eh? lol

Thanks for the wishes Russell.

You are doing a very nice job on her Warren......Cheers mark

Thanks Mark.
OK, here we go with another update. Between spurts of outside work I have been busy with CA-38's mid-ship bits and pieces.
First up we have a little PE project to replace the Mark 3 radars supplied with the kit..

They got the basic shape of the antenna correct, but look at those pin marks in the middle of it.. argh!! But fear not gentle readers as GMM provides the solution to this problem..
First up we have the mount for the antenna.

I have already done the few bends necessary to bring it to this shape and attached a piece of plastic rod to act as the mounting mast.
Next up was getting ready to bend the antenna to the correct curved shape. First up was finsing a suitable sized item to bend it around. This piece of metal rod was just the right size as taken from the original plastic antenna, as here..

Hmm I have never noticed those score marks on that rod before... but I digress.. Then you remove the two antennas from the PE fret and anneal them by heating them up with a flame and letting them cool to room temperature by themselves. This makes the brass much more flexible and therefore easy to bend around the rod.. And you get the pretty rainbow colours as a bonus!!

Which you can hardly see in that picture.. Next up the currrrved items..

Then after a short visit to the bending tool to straighten the edge a bit you cut out some small pieces of stretched sprue, or tubing or rod to make the small supports at the ends of the antennas..

Sorry its a bit off centre but you get the idea..
Then you attach the antenna to the mount et voila!!

A vast improvement on the kit antennas I am sure you will agree.
Now for a few general piccies. Here is the completed searchlight tower. Luckily the L'Arsenal life rafts came today as I needed three of them for this tower after I mucked up a few of the ones supplied with the kit when I was removing the bottoms of the rafts. These resin and PE replacement ones are very nice and I would recommend them to anyone.

Then we have the hanger..

And that is all for today folks.
More news as it comes to hand..
Warren

Looks great - i´m sorry to say, but you still have a little gab on the corner of the platform - maybe a tiny drop of CA will fix it ?

Fixed.. you will have to trust me here..
I found an extremely interesting website with the Gunfire Damage Document for CA-38 after the battle of Guadalcanal.
http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/CA38/GuadalcanalDamageRpt.html
Lots of good photos here.

Looking Good Warren,Keep up the great work.

Si

Warren, looks good so far, but the close-up of the 20mm shows you put the sights on backwards. The small fixture was the rear sight and the large round spider web was the front sight for elevation and deflection. The GMM instructions are not clear, but you need to cut the molded radar off the small rangefinder and mount the PE radar ln it. I don't like the kit aircraft because the clear plastic is brittle.

I figured the model builders would like that report. The post-Guadalcanal (1944 kit) builders might want to read this recent addition. I have another one about her mast I'll get to in a few months.

Is OK as I realised it and fixed it after I took and uploaded the photo.. best laid plans...

Back again.
It does not look like I have done much over the past few days looking at the photographic evidence but the forward superstructure has taken a few days to complete while waiting for paint to dry etc.


Just needs the guns added etc..
I think I have worked out why I have very little success with Lifecolor paints, my usual airbrush has a small tip but the pigment concentration is so dense withe the Lifecolor paints it keeps clogging and unclogging using the fine tip. I tried the paint with my old Paasche Airbrush which has a much larger tip and it doesn't clog. Anyone got any ideas for using the paint with the fine tip airbrush?
Another piccy is the stern that I finished a while ago but forgot to post it..

Hmm.. that hose reel needs a touch up.. Anyone know what colour the hoses were?

My guess would be light kaki/hemp.

Coming along very nicely indeed Warren. The Hoses on the Reels would have been a Canvas Colour......Cheers mark

Thanks for the tip Jan and Mark.

I had a eureka moment today with my railings.. There are no custom railings provided for the San Fran's shorter runs around the top of the hanger etc, so I have had to make up my own. At one stage I saw a small part of one of the railings I had trimmed off and said to myself, "self, why not use that to imitate the bracing post that is missing from one end of that run of railing?" I then moved on further and started using the same material to make stanchions to place at the end of trimmed of railing runs and it seems to have worked well! I will post some piccies once I have all the railings painted.

I am up to the final assembly now. Cranes and catapults were easy to bend for a change..

More photos very soon..

Cheers
Warren

Seeing as I might be moving house in the next year or so, and I don't mean around the corner or across town but about 1300km away I am not going to do any rigging on any ships I finish as it will just be destroyed in the move.

SO here is CA-38 sans rigging but otherwise finished, for the time being...



The improved 5 inch single mount.

As you can see the GMM yardarm even had the weather station wind measuring thingy included, anerometer I think they are called.

Much simpler build than the Bismarck was with about one 10th of the PE. The GMM set for CA-38 is a good investment as it adds very much to the Trumpeter kit.

Until next time,
Warren

Even without the rigging, great job Warren.

Thanks Simon.