Thanks everyone for your nice comments and words of encouragement.

David,
I am using the Lion Roar PE set.

Im currently building the 1/350 indy deluxe kit from academy. I am about 30% in. Is that ok to enter into the campaign and if so what are the requirements for the startup photo. As the kit was started over a year ago.

Hi Noraman,

Your Indy would be very welcome.

All you need to do for a start up photo is a picture of the build as it is today with something showing the date, mobile phone, newspaper, computer screen in the shot.

Also you should to to the "campaigns" tab, look under current campaign, click on he cruiser campaign and click on the enlist button.

Welcome aboard.

Si

Hello all,

Had a chance to finish up a few items for the Armorama side of things and am now ready to jump in on the campaign trail!
I have a USS San Francisco 1/350 Trumpeter kit with some extra goodies; Artwox deck, PE, and some replacement barrels. Looking forward to my first ship in a long time.

and a close up of the date


Cheers,
Rick

Hi Rick,

Welcome aboard, nice choice of ship. Looking forward to seeing her come along.

Cheers

Si

Thanks for the tip on the Tamiya masking tape! ...who knew something actually designed for models would work better than just normal blue painters masking tape, right?

Anyhow, that tape and this MIG masking putty (that keeps popping up in the adds on the right side of the page here ) are really going to help me knock off the paint job on the San Diego, and about 9 other tanks I have put to the side until I can properly mask and spray on some camo.

Thanks again!

Speaking of masking, I recently bought Samek's USS Nebraska on a HUGE discount. I think I'm going to throw in the towel and get the pre-measured Gator masks for it.

Wow - that would be a real challenge!

That is some dazzle scheme Steve,

hope you are going to blog that build.

cheers

Si

Forget the build, I just want to see that paint scheme rendered in that scale. Will be awesome!

Agree Bill, but I would be very interesting in the getting there!

Si

Well I am going to finally start this campaign albeit 5 months late. This is the kit of choice.

Not sure whether to do it out of the box or a late war build.

cheers
Michael

Nice choice Michael,

Looking forward to seeing her come on.

Cheers.

Si

Help out a novice day,

I have the Polly scale Weathered Deck Blue for the deck of the 42 San Francisco, should that be the entire deck or only the wood portions?
How much of the ship should be built up before I start painting? I am only attaching smaller fittings at this point but wonder if there is a consensus on when painting should begin.
TIA
Cheers,
Rick

The entire deck both wood and steel, and any horizontal surface. Like the top of the turrets,and upper decks, etc. So if you look down on the completed ship all you see is deck blue.

Thanks Greg!

Clarification help needed.
Maybe a better question is this...for the San Francisco the Deck Blue vs. the Navy Blue, is the Navy Blue for ALL the vertical surfaces? The painting guide from Trumpeter shows three views but the color call out on only one view, it almost looks like the Navy Blue is ONLY on the upper hull while the Deck Blue is on all other surfaces both vertical and horizontal. Is that correct?
Rick

Hi Rick,

This is from memory on USN schemes, as I can't find the book I am looking for, but Vertical surfaces Navy Blue and horizontal surfaces deck blue.

How much to build before you paint? with a scheme like that I build sub assemblies and paint them as I go along. Will you be airbrushing or using the old hairy stick?

Best advise I can give is have a browse through some build logs on here and see how others do it.

Cheers,

Si

Thanks Si,

I will be airbrushing all major components and using the brush for picking out details, etc.
After an internet search it looks like this is Measure 21, exactly as you described.
Looking forward to putting some paint on a few things. My fear was that I would get deep into it and someone would post that "x is wrong, if you had only looked in this obscure reference you wouldn't have made such a beginners mistake".
Thanks for taking the time to help out!
Cheers,
Rick

Rick,

Don't worry about making mistakes, just look back at some of posts on this thread on my Scharnhorst build, made the odd "schoolboy", but I try not to let it spoil my fun.

Make the best of the references you have, and those you can find on the net and enjoy you build. You may get advice and constructive criticism, but I have not known anybody be nasty.

To be honest, most research ends up with a best guess based on conflicting photographs, drawings and other documentary evidence.

In the end as long as I have found some evidence to justify my decision, it is good enough, especially building ships on war service. Remember; truth is the first casualty of war.

Good luck with your research and enjoy your build mate.

Cheers.

Si

Great to see some builds being started here in this campaign!! And I could not agree more with what Si says about mistakes, criticism and use of references!

As for myself, the dockyard crew could not be recalled in time, some still somewhere out and drinking I suppose...so I asked a sub-contractor to do a little work on some small arms.

Postman delivered this little kit the other day - I finally found a model shop that orders Big Blue Boy kits. Never had one, but saw some very appetizing pictures (e.g. a kit for the Roberts) that made me curious. And curiosity made me start this one here right away:

This stuff should be sufficient for four octuple PomPoms.



The instructions were not really encouraging, on a first glance I was not quite sure what exactly they want me to do...



Anyway, great stuff, different length barrels provided:



And that is the end result of my first try:









I had expected that it would be worse, I would not have been completely surprised if the first PomPom would have been for the trash - but it turned out ok. Well, I choose the dark (507a) color to conceal some not-so-nice parts, the second one will be in 507c. More details soon on my Belfast build log, and to come back to making mistakes, there are quite a few hiding in this one. Some I was able to fix, some that I only saw when I looked at the pictures - those things are quite tiny to the naked eye... (That thing is sitting on a five pence from my last holidays in the UK, and the scale in the background is mm!) I am preparing a more lengthy post on that one, over at the Belfast blog, maybe even as a brief tutorial, and I will show over there what all I did wrong...

Cheers,
Jan

Hi Jan, Looks like that will build into an excellent eight barrel unit, bad luck with the first try, sure you will crack it next time.

A bit more progress on the Scharnhorst. the big guns sprayed their base colour.



detail painting on the gun's done, including camo on the main turrets.



The armament fitted in place.



More soon.

Si

Armament is looking great Si!! Now it REALLY looks like Scharnhorst, the guns are making such a difference!

And you're absolutely right about the PomPoms. I am absolutely excited about the BigBlueBoy kit, those are the best 8 barrel units I have come across so far. More about that later in detail over at my Belfast blog.
The second one was done in about half the time with only very few mistakes remaining. After building the second one I am not that sure any longer that I will install the first one. Depends on how much it will be in plain sight or hidden under parts of the superstructure - will decide that later

Here are the two units - touch ups to the barrels still need to be done, of course:







Cheers,
Jan

Looking good, Si!

Jan, those pom-poms are great! I'm excited to eventually try out my Flyhawk 1/700 pom-poms. But, there' no way they'll look anything close to yours!

Thanks Steve,

Great job on the second pompom Jan, quick question, I am presuming the breeches are resin, do the barrels go all the way through the body to connect with them?

cheers

Si