Pom Poms: rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat

Looking good though Warren

Thanks Russell.

Slowly but surely getting there. Yesterday I got a bit done. 1st up was a little frame for the front of the guns which only needed a few easy bends..



After attaching it to the frame I added the cylinder to it. That's it on the right of the base. I also added the front shields..



Then I bent the main mount for the guns and placed it on the base..



Then this afternoon I decided to add the railings at the raer of the base. First they had to be curved then attached..





And I forgot another set of tools I use for PE. These items are used to curve parts by either just wrapping them around the various dowels or placing the part in the aluminium forming tool. Sometimes to get a good curve you need to anneal the PE. To anneal PE you heat it until it changes to a rainbow colour on the surface then let it cool down in the air. Don't whatever you do plunge the hot metal into water as it will just make it stiffer than it was beforehand..

Cheers
Warren

Nice tutorial Warren.

Will keep this in mind when I start on one of the big beasties.

Cheers

Si

Thanks Simon

Just a very quick one. If you glue all your PE together but decide you are not happy with it but it is too delicate to crack apart, or there is too much glue there, never fear you can take them apart easily. No need to buy that debonding agent either! Just go to your local pharmacy/supermarket and but some nail polish remover. Not the woosy one with no acetone in it but the powerful stuff. Put some in a small container, preferably metal or glass as it may dissolve some types of plastic, then put your parts in it. Leave them 5 or 10 minutes and when you remove them you will have no trouble taking them apart without lots of damage.

I was not happy with my first lot of magazine assemblies so I gave them the acetone treatment last night..







And this one was damaged previously but I am going to fix it before I glue them together..



Cheers
Warren

And here are the finished magazines..

Warren,

Welcome back, you definitely know how to make a grand entrance with your return.

Amazing work, love the level of detailed descriptions your giving with each step of the build. I strive to reach that level of detail and explanation with my build logs.

Amazing work.

Looking forward to seeing more

Dave

Nice progress Warren,

The magazines look really good.

Cheers

Si

Thanks Dave and welcome aboard.

Thanks Simon.

Does anyone have pictures of both sides of the Rodney in her camo scheme? I have received the colours I need now I need a poroper diagram as the Trumpeter one is not even close from what I can gleen.

I am thinking o fusing a bit of artistic licence and using the camo scheme with the natural wooden deck... or maybe I will do this one in overall grey with natural wooden deck as the Rodney was when it tangled with the Bismarck and build another Rodney later on with the camo and camoed deck.. two 1/200 Rodneys won't take up much room..

Warren, I am a little enviuos that you can display not 1 but two 1/200 ships!

Now, Onto Camo:

1. Never trust Trumpy painting guides (but you knew that already)
2. Yes, May 1941 is a good time period to model her at. AP507B for vertical surfaces, Deck grey for the horizontal. Simples. Colourcoats have an excellent paint chart guide and colours used and also provide info on the camo colours used on Rodney in 1942 but unfortunately no diagram.
3. You might just have to "wing it" when it comes to doing the camo scheme as there doesn't seem to be too much reliable info around. I will have a look tonight for you in my Refs, RA Burt's battleships and DK Browne's Nelson to Vanguard but I don't hold out much hope.

Thanks heaps Russell.

The Hataka paints I ordered came the other day. I will take a piccy of them tonight.

Here are the Hataka paints I need for the camo scheme on the box cover..



From the left..
MS1 RN Blue-Black
507C RN Light Grey
MS2 RN Dark Grey
B5 RN Dark Blue

The only teensy weensy problem is that if I paint the model in this camo scheme I need to camo the deck as well. This would not normally be a worry but the Pontos detail set comes with a lovely wooden deck and it would be a huge waste to paint over that.

Next option would be too use a little artistic license, saving myself lots of time, and not camo the deck.

And the final option would be too paint the ship in the colours it was in when it took on the Bismarck, which IIRC is 507B grey. Only problem then would be that I would have to leave off many of the lovely radar items installed after the Bismarck action.. which again would be a waste of all that lovely Pontos PE.

Luckily I don't have to make a decision as yet.

Next up is a photo of the pom pom assemblies before I made a big decision..



Notice how many of the magazines are not lined up properly on the breech assemblies? I did and it drove me to remove all the magazine assemblies and replace them with the plastic kit ones which I lined up very easily, and with a lick of paint they will look fine.

Finally, the aftermath..



After doing all that yesterday I decided to sort out all the turned brass bits and pieces and seperated them into seperate resealable bags.

Will make it much easier to find pieces as required.

Cheers
Warren

Warren,

Your organizational skills do you credit - and will probably save your sanity as things progress on this awesome build!

Hi Warren,

Do wonder with aftermarket manufacturers sometimes, etched ammo boxes are great if you wanted to show them empty, or if the kit parts are bland, but in this scale... do the rounds look a bit two dimensional?

What Tim said about your organisation. I spend far too much time hunting round the bench for which little box / tub / pot I have put something in.

Cheers

Si

I was thinking more as a safety issue. More than once I sat a bottle of glue or something on the edge of those metal trays and launched assembled PE parts all over the work bench and floor.

Mark

PM sent Warren

Thanks Tim.

Hi Simon.

Now all I have to do is hunt through lots of little resealable bags for turned brass bits..

And yes, the rounds do look a little 2D but again, the scale makes that the reality. A dab of paint on the shells will make them pop later.

Cheers
Warren

I have been known to knock over CA accelerator bottle before.. tall, narrow with a heavy top.. Now I am careful to put it and CA glue out of the way totally.

Cheers
Warren

Hello everyone.

SO what was wrong with the site? Wouldn't load for a couple of days. Anyway..

Next up in the fabulous Rodney show is the construction of six small winches. Each winch in just over 10mm in length and abut 5mm in length but they have more than 15 parts in each of them. First step is to glue too pieces of PE together to form the base of the winch..



After this you need to assemble the motor from two pieces of PE and one of the plastic kit parts after you have put two small bends into the ends of the motor assembly..



Then they get attached to the sides of the kit's plastic motor..



As you can see the PE parts increase the detail markedly. Next you need to curve some PE to place over the outside of the motor. To make it easier to curve this slightly thicker PE you need to anneal it first. This is done by heating it until it changes colour. See the one on the left has changed to lots of colours..


20180624_122413.jpg

After that you can curve them much more easily using the curving tools I showed earlier and you get a cover for the motor that goes on the outside and adds more detail to the little winch.





Next is what looks like some sort of control item part way along the shaft which gets folded in half and the threaded onto another plastic piece from the kit and after adding a couple of tiny spacers the whole lot gets pushed through the motor and attached to the base plate.



The you find the brass winch pully, trim it up a little and add it to the plastic part..





Next up is an assembly that folds up into a couple of boxes on a bracket that pipes go into from the base.



You attach that and the little control wheel to the control piece in the middle and the box to the end of the motor..



Next up you cut the tiny pipes off and add them to the box and base and it is finished. The pipes are a little two dimensional but I am sure it won't be noticeable once the winch is attached to the deck.



This item is a great example of how PE can enhance the details of an item far above what can be provided by just plastic parts.

That's it for now.

Cheers,

Warren

Back again to update everyone for today. Yes I had a day at the bench as I have had salmonella food poisoning for the last week but haven't told anyone except my Wife that I was unwell, Problem is I wasn't getting any better so I went to the doctors. Feeling much better and don't have to attend the throne every hour or so. Has a day off work and decided to make the most of it at the bench.

I continued on following the instructions and folded up one type of the numerous ammo boxes and lockers..



Next up were the 0.2in Quad Vickers guns. Oddly Pontos provide no brass for this in this set but the HMS Hood set has four of them provided. I put them together except for the PE..



Then looked so lame I decided to have a look online and Shapeways have beautifully printed sets inline. I ordered a sit and we shall see how good they are. I didn't do anymore on the plastic ones. Shame on you Pontos for not providing at least brass barrels!

Will continue tomorrow.

Cheers
Warren

Warren,

Those winches are AWESOME! Little kits in themselves, really - I hope they don't get lost among all the other details on deck.

Hi Warren,

Great work on the winches, they will look excellent in place.

I am reckoning Pontos are correcting a fit error in the kit, I am fairly certain the quad 0.5" were removed in when she finally got to the US, certainly before she had all six pompoms fitted. Pontos, I believe provide parts for the AA director platforms that replaced them.


Personally I am glad they Trumpy included them and their platforms, if ever get one of there the plan would be build her as she was on 27th May 1941. (If I can find the pictures of her on or before that day.

Cheers

Si
Cheers

Si