Thank you very much, Todd and Russ!!

Yes, it seems quite brave to start with those pianos, but hands down, they are great!!

I took a whole bunch of photos while I did my first two - Russ, it's two for the Belfast, but I am more and more likely to discard my first one. I'll just walk you through the process, step by step during some posts (not much time) and show a few things that I think are important if you want to try them for yourself, and to show what I did wrong...I think you'll agree that I should not ship the first one in the end...

So let's get started.

Here's the starting point once more.
The kit is to build four. Two different length barrels are supplied, and some resin parts and one fret PE. The metal is rather thick and a little bit sturdy, but the etching is really good. So it is quite easy to handle, not really fragile, but this comes with a price: make sure you bend it right the first time. reversing the bend is likely to destroy the part...
On a VERY positive note: there are surplus parts for all the very small parts, PE and resin. The barrels are exact number, though.



Some PE origami
This is going to be the central part of the gun, basically the eight breeches.



When you are cleaning the part, make sure that you don't cut useful things. All those in circle are needed!!



First building the main body





The overlapping part gives a very neat thee dimensional structure around the barrels (arrow).









The individual breeches, all resin parts. Two times twenty provided for two times sixteen needed. Good. Already lost two...





Those little plates will be the joints later on. The little gaps (arrow) find their counterpart on the sides of the breech-block...



The cradle for the ammunition.



Folded.







Those four distinctive holes will find their counterparts in the circled connecting links of the ammunition.



The ammunition boxes are only one pice (vice four individual boxes for Eduard), but they are open in the middle so you can look through and once in place they don't look like just one piece. Nicely done.





Ammo box in cradle gives you this - but, even though it is said in the instructions, I highly recommend not building that assembly yet!! One of the things I learned for my second piano. I will show you why later...









All right, let's call it chapter one. Chapter two will follow soon - I try tomorrow but I don't promise

I hope you like this little rund down of the build, maybe it can be helpful for something. Or just fun watching....

Cheers,
Jan

Wow, Jan!

My head's hurting just thinking about this

Great work Jan!
I love your tutorials and though I have no need for 8 barrelled pom-poms in any of my builds I will keep this in mind for some future RN build.

cheers
Michael

Thank you Russ and Michael! Well - toward the end, my head was hurting as well. At some point you only see gold and it becomes tough to focus on some details...but anyway. A little madness helps for our hobby!!

Chapter two.

The gun mounting.

Well, this is the part I really messed up in my first PomPom I built...and still fumbled something in the second.

Starting point for the middle section:





Again some PE origami required...



...and this one has two basic options. Do it right or do it all the way wrong and don't even realize it. I chose number two to start with



No big explanation needed, this one is inside out...as can be seen with all the structure marked by arrows. The two circles to the left, tow arrows pointing on two very tiny parts that need to be bent upwards to hold the gunsights later on. Don't bend them to early on, best leave the folded down until the very end, immediately before installing the gunsights.



I did not and lost both of them... and, honestly, this schoolboy of bending the thing inside out, I did not realize before I looked at my pictures and saw it magnified on the screen. Oh well...

Second gun, this time the structure is outside. Lost this gun sight things once more - this time I cut them when I cleaned the part initially. Ok, next time...



Left and right 'wing' of the platform.





Make sure you don't clean away all the circled parts - they are all needed, the tiny one outside being a little step. And more origami, best to start with bending the triangular 'half step' platform.





Now instructions call for the 'platform wing supports' to be installed like shown. Don't do it! (This is my first, inside out one again...)



Install the wings first, they have really nicely engineered connecting links that fit into the middle part, so you are able to align them properly. Only after that, install the four supports underneath. You'll end up with something like this:





The circled part is another step that needs to be bent outwards. I realized that a little late, but did not break it...



The platform should look a little bit like this. In the upper right corner you can see that I haven't glued the after part of the right wing yet. You can see how the still open connecting link smoothly fits...



Now it's down to only this few parts to be assembled... (metric scale in the background)



So much for chapter two, I hope to get chapter three up tomorrow. Again no promises

Thanks for looking and cheers,
Jan

Jan, this is awesome!! I have a kit or two in the stash that will need these and your step by step instructions w/ photos make them look almost easy. I am no longer afraid to give these a try. I look forward to the next installment.

Cheers,
Greg

Jan,

Thank you for what is a great tutorial for this AM kit. I am going to look into that company and see what they have for the IJN ships.

As far as your Belfast, great work. She is coming along splendidly. I have enjoyed watching this build and look forward to seeing more.

Dave

Epic work Jan,

They make the Pontos pompoms look simple.

Looking forward to the next instalment.

Cheers,
Si

Greg and Dave,
thank you very much!!It makes me really happy that my little tutorial is of some help to you. Greg, you don't need to be afraid - the kit is complex and you will need your time - but it is really nicely engineered, as to support your building effort!

Thank you Si - I haven't tried my hand on the Pontos ones yet, but since I have some of their kits and the Warspite has PomPoms I will get there sooner or later. But those kits are remarkable!

Chapter three.

Next would be the slide for the spent cartridges. The sides are created by bending the triangular shape outwards - which was not clear to me from the instructions. You will create an edge to the outside of the slide, the slide will then 'sit' on this edge once in position in the gun base.





Time to test-fit the breech block. The cartridge slide above must be installed only after the breech part is in place!! The breech is held in place by the slide. I did it wrong the first time with the result that I had to spread the whole construction to force the breeches in. It worked, but not well - I did not manage to get it really straight and the gun is not turnable.

So here's my second gun that worked better. Breech-Block without ammo first.





Breech block out again, and now adding the ammo. Now it comes handy if you have not yet installed the ammo into the ammo cradle. The cradle can be fitted snuggly into the square shape on the outside of the breech block.









Now fitting the whole construction into the base -







The mechanism remains fully turnable, you can set the gun in any desired angle!

Now it is locked with the slide, but remains turnable.



The only thing I really modified - I drilled the wholes for the barrels to .5 mm diameter - they are a little to small to hold the barrels after painting...



Pretty neat how the ends of the breeches fit into the gun base when you set them to a very high angle...



Last steps - okay, no detailed step-by-step pictures here. The front railing needs to be erected, the after railings need to be bent and installed, and the ammo boxes added. Especially the circular shaped after railings are a little complicated to install, but that's nothing particular to this kit...
The gunsights come on top - that part is tricky since the parts are so small. Even with magnifier glasses it was almost impossible to see.









Now it's time for color - I sprayed the gun barrels black



and one of the guns in dark grey 507a, the second in light grey 507c. Inserting the gun barrels with a small plier was straight forward.

So here we are with two pianos:













One last impression of my first gun prior to painting, with some of my fumbles highlighted.... The gunsights are upside down, the bigger one should be on the left. The 'arch' that sticks out from the gunsight and connects o the breeches stands out high as it should, but it can't reach the it's connecting point on the breech block (arrows) because I improvised with the gunsights. You can see the cartridge slide 'resting' on the edge in the gun mount, but it's all not really straight. That is because I installed it to early on and had to force the breech part in. Well...all in all I think I will build a number three and consider my number one as a training unit...



Okay, that was my tutorial on the eight barreled PomPoms from BBB. Last touch ups to the guns still have to be done, I haven't painted the open gun mounts yet on the light grey one.

Right now I am not entirely sure whether I will do the next PomPom right away or continue with the ship first. I almost think I will finish the PomPom, so that would mean no updates for some days until I am finished with my 'night of the PomPoms'

But work on the ship shall continue soon, the last missing dockyard workers made it back the other day, so stay tuned!

Thank you very much for looking, and if this was any helpful to anyone, that would be great. Feel free to copy anything you like of course - that's the main intention for writing this little tutorial!

For now,
Cheers

Jan

Wow Jan!

Exceptional and spectacular!

And yes, my head is still hurting just looking at the pictures. I can't imagine what it must have been like to actually build them, but well done!

Your dock workers definitely deserve a few !!!

Thank you very much, Russ!!

Well, finished the third - and for now final PomPom yesterday. Pictures will follow sometime tonight... Third one came out pretty good, however still room for improvement. But now it's time to move on...

More later!

Cheers,
Jan

Alright, here's the last part of the PomPom Story

I tried to avoid all mistakes I did while building the last two, and I was not too bad. But, sure enough, I invented new mistakes. But smaller ones I can live with

Frist improvement, painted the inside of the breech-block black. Simulating some barrels going through sounds interesting, but then again, that would have called for two new weapons. One with and one without seems silly.



So here's the breeches installed:





Next improvement, I managed not to kill the 'sight supports', here still bent down.



And in position:



And one of the most frustrating parts, getting this bar (circled) in a position above the breeches...



The gunsights completely installed.







And all painted in 507c. With the dark color, the tiny mechanism of the gunsights is a lot better to see. Maybe I should consider blacking agent next time - it is really hard for me to work with those really small parts 'gold on gold'...













But I was talking about some new mistakes... So, obviously I did not bother about the angle of the gunsights... would have been fairly easy though - but not now anymore... The second one, not sure if it shows in one of the pictures, I was somewhat confused when I installed the breeches opposite of the barrels, so the longer ones are in the middle vice outside. Again too late to fix. Oh well...

So here with barrels, and clearly I would not really hit all that many aircraft...



And just for fun a few very last impressions (barrels still need some touch ups, of course).











So much for my personal 'nights of the PomPom'

I still think those little weapons are worth the effort, somehow I always had a weak spot in particular for the eight barreled Pianos... Finally, number three took me about three to four hours to build and paint, number four would be faster. Would be! Now it's time for something different... all workers are back, and I think I should start with the midships part, the catapult and the funnels! I should find some time during the next weekend!

For now, thank you all for looking and commenting!!

Cheers,
Jan

Jan, Way to go!!! Those look great! I am now looking forward to trying to put some together for my next British Warship.

Greg

Great job Jan,

They look even better than the Pontos pompoms.

Cheers

Si

Night of the Pom Poms, episode III is the best yet, mate

well done!

Greg, Si and Russ,

thank you so much for your kind words!! Well, that was something interesting to start the year - fun to build on hand, but glad that I'm done on the other.

Today was cleaning day - the airbrush, ok, nothing special, just a little more attention to detail compared to the every-use-cleaning; but the compressor needed to get rid of some water and surplus oil that was collecting in a kind of 'waste tank' - always tedious and a little bit of a mess but done with that also and ready for the weekend!!

Cheers,

Jan

All right then, all workers are back and the shipyard is busy again

After spending a little more than a week with the PomPoms, it was about time to work on the ship again.
Somehow I didn't get around to work on the catapult and the shelter deck. I can't say why, but it always looked pretty complex, so I put it aside.
Well, until now. But it is quite complex...

First removing some plastic that is not needed for WEM replacement parts:



The walls, basically there are two separate structures underneath the shelter deck. Because these walls are almost invisible later on, I did not replace any doors etc. by PE, however, I opened the bullseyes.
Since the walls had to be painted separately, I could not build the structures by gluing them under the deck, so that was a bit fiddly to start with...









Then painting the walls, painting the deck inside and outside, some masking...





It is not looking as complex as it felt actually doing it, however...

Next I had to build the catapult, as it sits right in front of the shelter deck and must be installed before the deck is installed.
I choose the WEM replacement for the catapult, which as such builds really nice and smooth.



However, installing it proofed difficult in several ways...

First, the thing is longer than the Trumpeter one, and hence longer than the cutout in the wooden deck...





Second, the thing is wider than the original and does not fit between the foredeck and the shelter deck...



And this is without the support brackets that need to be installed either side of the catapult.

But nothing that could not be fixed:

Grinding down the forward end of the shelter deck by about two mm is possible without doing any harm and gives ample room for the catapult. Than, the support brackets that go underneath the foredeck need to be shortened.





This way, (and after cutting away some wood from the deck - that due to the position is almost impossible to spot!) the WEM catapult fits nicely.







Installing all supports either side of the catapult





and one more dry fit with all supports glued in place:







I painted the catapult - together with some columns and boat davids for the shelter deck - before glueing all parts together. I figured it would be tricky to paint afterwards. This way I could paint it in three different colors without masking - the middle part will be entirely concealed...





The catapult ready to be installed, in front of the shelter deck





and shipped



The shelter deck test fitted:





Well, it fits, but it is not entirely straight. Will see what I can do about that later...

Back to the shelter deck - now there are columns and pillars to install, and railings that through braced supports connect to the deck. So those can't be installed later on, it all has to go down in one piece...









I don't know if I'll regret that later on, but I had the certain feeling that now is the time to install the shelter deck permanently. Only the after part of the railing (very short one) with the after braced supports left out - I think I need to align them with the main deck railing. And I tried - I should be able to squeeze those parts in later.



The toothpicks push the catapult forward - I hope when I remove them later on the catapult will be sitting more parallel to the deck edges than it did before...





Now it becomes apparent that the wooden deck is leaning slightly to port. But the good thing is that there are 'torpedo tube sliding doors' which can be installed in open or closed position. Meaning, I can move them around a bit, so as to show the torpedo tubes, but conceal the supports and columns that don't exactly fit with the cutouts of the wooden deck...at least that's what I hope for...

And finally, here's where I am at (well, the after center HACS is missing - after knocking it down repeatedly I decided to secure it in a safe place and install it at a later time), only the shelter deck is fix, all other superstructure only dry fitted.









So much for now! I should able to find some time next weekend, we'll see

Thanks for looking and cheers,

Jan

Magnificent stuff, Jan!

once again a case of after market companies making things correct to plan, rather than to fit the kit, but you overcame the challenge, mate! Well done!

Looking forward to seeing more!

Russ,

thank you very much, mate!! It was a little bit of a challenge, but it was not coming as a total surprise. Warren's build log from around 2013 where he's doing the Belfast with WEM without paint is a great help and gave me more than one warning already before I would run into trouble

That being said - THANK YOU Warren!!

Quick update - removed the toothpicks yesterday so that the glue had ample time to set. It did the job I would say. A few touch ups still required:







The weekend should bring another update - I hope

Cheers,
Jan

Really coming along now, mate!

Hi Jan,

Had great enjoyment following this build.

Have you decided which Funnels you will be using?

Can't remember if kit funnels are right for the year and the WEM funnels were meant for a post-war upgraded version of the ship?

Thanks a lot Russ!!

Thank you Dave - the discussion early on in this thread never came to any solid conclusion... For myself the take was that the WEM resin funnels better fir the later, post-war shape, and the kit's ones are fairly correct for the 1942/43 timeframe. But it could not be confirmed that the funnel really were changed or modified to that extend during refitting.

Well, I tend to use the kit's ones. But I'll double-check once more before I install them. I plan to put both in place and decide from the appearance once they are in position - dry fitted of course.

Cheers,
Jan

And here we go with this weekends output I think the workers did fairly well

Two main topics, the four platforms on the shelter deck, that separate the four inch AA's, and the two Walrus aircraft. Since there was some putty work involved with the platforms, the Walrus could be done whenever things had to cure on the shelter deck...

The platforms prepared and painted:



The sides of the shelter deck had to be sanded a little to allow the platforms in.



Trumpeter instructions call for all boxes to be installed first, which I think is not helpful. I installed the boxes to the left and right, but not the one behind, to be able to insert the platforms.





A tight fit, but it works. That the boxes don't sit perfectly straight will be absolutely invisible later on.



All platforms shipped:







This requires some surfacer and sanding before a satisfying appearance will be reached. And of course I will have to repaint and do some touch ups later on, but that was part of the plan - it seemed easier this way, at least to me.

Surfacer on:



Sanding:







And re-painted. Final touch ups are of course required. And I am not worried about the different shades (of grey...) on the hull: that's because I had secured the hull with some clear gloss, and the repainted areas are are lacking this coat. Since the whole ship will get some finishing coats in the end, it will all disappear.





The Walrusses were built in between...

One will sit inside the hangar bay, so folded wings are required. WEM is offering PE for a folded version! All in all, I have the impression that the PE support for the Walrusses is by far better in this kit than it was for Repulse. I have to check that with my old pictures, but I think I was pretty annoyed with the PE when I was building the Repulse. This time it was fine!!



The cut out engine part - I placed the cuts a little to close to the engine, need to give it more room next time to be able to install the engine supports a little easier - and the joints and the folded wings:









Both aircraft together, and with the catapult- or the handling cradle, respectively. One trying the catapult...













And finally, first coat of paint. I painted them light green with some darker green as camouflage - artist freedom... The bottom will be painted pale blue later on, and a lot of detail work with the hairy stick to be done - machine-guns,
rotor, engine,... The cockpit windows were masked, so they should come out clear once the tape is removed.
Ok, I cheated with the folded one. No machine-guns, no cockpit windows etc... it will all be concealed in the hangar bay and invisible, so I am paying attention just to the tail...











So much for today, next update should follow in a week!!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,

Jan

Great job Jan,

The Walrus's (Walri??) look impressive, the one with the folding wings to be sticking out of the hanger I presume.

Cheers

Si

Hi Jan!

This is really inspiring me to crack on with the Prinz as I see your Belfast take shape just need to finish the BP Defiant, which is nearly there now, then it's full speed ahead on the Prinz!

Those Walrus are a work of art and an exceptional aircraft for their time-a new tool by Airfix in 1/72 is at the top of my wish list along with a dozen or so other things but that's another story

With regard to the funnels, can I suggest that you chose the ones that best match the years in which she wore the disruptive scheme you've chosen to display her in?

Si,

thank you very much! Walri - I like that!! And yes, the folded one would be inside the hangar. I learned my lesson from REPULSE when I had to find out that the Walrus would not fit through the hangar door, so I placed it in front. For now, I have not installed the hangar - for two reasons, a) not to destroy all the fragile parts and b) to place the Walrus and than put the hangar on top. As how exactly that will work, i.e. how much will be visible outside, remains to be seen - trial and error.

The result will be a 'peep-tail Walrus' I presume:





Russ,

just don't talk about the wish-list, my could be very long this year. At least it's a good feeling to know that I won't run out of projects for the next ten...ahm, likely 20 years or so...with my light-speed building

Thanks a lot mate, and looking forward to some progress on your Prinz!! A beautiful ship!!

As for the stacks, well, that is pretty much the plan, however it was not 100% clear which stacks would be correct for which time... With dry fitting them and getting a whole ship impression I hope to get a better correlation to the AOTS drawings, or reference pictures from Raven and Roberts Cruiser book, to make my decision.

Thanks again,
Cheers

Jan