Gentlemen,

thank you all for your kind comments and for following along!!

Thomas, no, not like a hawk, more like a fish meanwhile, I can't do anything without proper magnifiers. And my accustomed ones simply weren't sufficient to do the job, so I got those here a week ago:



Needs a bit training and especially with this hot weather not very comfortable but the lenses are good and combined with the LED it helps me getting along. And I, too, would wish for a 1/350 scale kit, but I doubt we will ever see one. Anyway.

A little more progress today, before there will be the next break. I started with the BUSTER boats.
Once again, the resin and etch parts are just amazing, everything fits together perfectly so far, so despite it's size this model is fun to build!







Detail is amazing. And somehow I ask myself, while I am happy as a modeler, is it a good thing that a Chinese company knows everything down to the propulsion (two water jet engines) of the boats? Hm...











Test fitted on board, looks spot on.





And with the huge dime...



That's it for now, one or possibly two weeks break, I hope you are patient as always with my builds.

Thank you for looking and cheers,
Jan

Absolutely gorgeous work Jan!

I remember just how difficult 1/700 was, so hat's off to you my friend!

funnily enough, I too, just bought a new optivisor with an LED light in it, since my young bloke broke my desk lamp and lighting had become a problem

Hm, we do have to wonder just how much the "Chinese" do know about us. I heard rumours there was even an unrelated security "scandal" involving Huawei!

Hi Jan,

Very nice optivisor, I could likely do with something like that.

Great work with then tiny etch mate, the Rhib looks great in it's bay.

Cheers

Si

Jan,

As before your PE work is great, nice to see you made progress. Look forward to your next post.

Mark

Beautiful work Jan especially in the Madness Scale.....Cheers mark

Gentlemen,

thank you so much for your kind comments and even more for your interest in this ship / build log! Thats really appreciated, I hope you'll help me to overcome the challenges sure to come up with this tiny model.

But I managed a little progress - just a little bit at a time, I spent an hour with the optivisors today resulting in some headache, I should not do more than half an hour or so at a time...

But here's the results from the last days:

All four BUSTER boats.







The 5"/64 main gun from Leonardo (before Oto Melara):





Test fitted on board







And together with the other finished parts. The gun and the barrel have very nice details, really fun to work with!



Then the 27mm MLG (Marine Leichtgeschuetz - Naval Lightweight Gun, this is basically the nose gun of the TORNADO aircraft navalized). Now it gets really tiny...

















Again, very nice and crisp detail that I can only see with magnifier glasses on.

And the first of five HMG - referred to as Heavy Machine Gun, which is not really correct, since they are LEONARDO weapons named "Hitrole Machine Guns", and we added what we call a Virola that allows to tilt the guns over the side as to minimize the "dead zone" around the ship and enable engagements almost directly next to the ship. The guns are .50 cal heavy machine guns, fully automated and remote controlled.









Somehow I managed to bend the "barrel" a little during installation, I'll try and fix that. I just saw it on the pictures. And, only four more to do...

This kit continues to be fun, the PE is excellent and easy to handle, the resin parts fir excellent. If it only was a little bigger, like 1/350...

Cheers,
Jan

Jan,

Sweet, very nice work with all of those tiny parts.

Mark

Jan! OMG! Everything is SOOO tiny!

But you've handled it all with skill and dexterity, my friend, and she's coming along very nicely indeed!

Fantastic progress! Tiny details!

Gaz

What the guys said!

even with an optivisor I would struggle with those tiny details.

Great work Jan.

Cheers

Si

Gentlemen,

thank you very much for following along and for all your kind comments! That's really encouraging - and yes, it is struggling with those small parts, and optivisor allows me only rather limited bench time at a piece without getting a headache. But still the model is great and fun to build!

Ok, here's the latest progress:

All five HMG .50 cal machine guns done. One a little shorter than the others - the one sitting above the flight deck does not have a tilting mechanism. I just sanded one of the parts a little down...





And the two 20' containers, I choose the PE parts. Very fine detail, and I like them better than the resin alternatives offered in the kit.
Those containers can be used basically for anything you can put in a 20' container that you can think of - right now they serve as deep freeze storage for or food supply, since the original deep freeze storage of the ship is not ready for use yet.



















That's it for today, real life is taking over again for the next weeks, so I have to apologize for another pause here...

Thanks for looking in,

Cheers

Jan

Jan, this is nano-engineering at it's best mate!

Still can't believe how tiny this stuff is as it deceives the eye with it's accuracy!

Now the enemy will know where to fire first - containers lost; crew is starving

Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach, do sailors sail on their stomachs?

Mark

I think so Mark - an old german speech from an unknown soldier but known by everyone inside the german armed forces is called "ohne Mampf kein Kampf; ohne Verpflegung keine Bewegung". That means roughly "without meal no fighting; without provisions no movement.

Cheers

Don't you just love Braille Scale. Beautiful work so far my Friend.....Cheers mark

Wow Jan that scale is very challenging, congrats on the work so far. Nice to be able to use your working knowledge of the ship too.

Dear all,

thank you very much for your kind comments!
This kit - apart from the subject, that is very dear to me - is really fun to build, so nicely done and the fitting so far just absolutely excellent. However, the scale makes my eyes watering...

I have to ask for some more patience, another weekend with real life business ahead of me...




Hey Thomas, nice point...and everybody nows in Germany, "ohne Mampf kein Kampf" - however, if somebody would try to shoot our deep freeze food containers, that would be a case for police prosecution, not for war fighting. We're still far from commissioning, so we are (by law) counting as a civilian ship for the time being, not as warship. Completely normal procedure for pre-commissioned warships. And we won't be commissioned with deep freeze containers on the upper deck .
Actually, my goal is to commission the 1:700 before the 1:1 - I hope I can manage... (which not means to postpone the commissioning of the 1:1, but rather be a little faster on my model ship yard this time...)

Cheers

Jan

Jan,
Nice to see some updates. Fine work on those tiny parts.

Wow, six weeks since my last update...

Thank you all for commenting and still looking in!

I have a very small update, but been pretty busy with real life over the last weeks, and that's going to continue for a bit.

But here are some pictures:







some minor parts on the foc'sle installed and the 'roof' of the pilot house, which is a resin part (and the first part that needed some sanding and corrections to fit).

And I tried to find colors. Within the blue circle, to the left is original ship color from an older frigate, on comparison on board the F225 is slightly more blueish. So I mixed the color on the right, which I think is pretty close to the original.



I darkened the light grey (RAL 7000) down with some black as non-skid deck color, but spraying it, it seems to dark on the model. So I will lighten it a bit.
Spraying the model is basically to give it a base and to reach all corners and hidden places. It will get a second coat, with masking and all that, and I'll install some of the small stuff. Most of the details I will paint on it's own and install after painting, but I have to see how exactly that will work out during the process.














So the next two weeks break, but I should get one more - hopefully more substantial - update this month...

Cheers and thanks for looking

Jan

Jan,

She is looking great! Thanks for keeping this thread updated! Its an inspiration!

Glad to see progress!

DITTO!

Mark

Gentlemen,

thank you for your kind comments!

Well, progress is slow, but there is progress - and I'm not frustrated with the kit, despite it's small scale. It's just that im really busy with real life things these days. I should get some bench time over the last weekend in October...

Cheers
Jan

Nice progress Jan,

nice to see some paint going on.

Cheers

Si