Another update:

My little tug is now fully built. I must say it was an interesting experience working with a fully resin/PE kit. I would say it was about 80% fine and 20% sheer frustrating to build.

I did make some small modifications to her to make her a bit more detailed. Added fine wire to the winches to simulate the rope normally found there. I also drilled out some holes on the lower hull just below the railing. Not sure what they are in real life?
Lastly I used some styrene rod to get more tires for the fenders. Kit came with 6 tires and I needed at 13.

Now onto paint

looks great Rory. Like the faux tyres, a good idea to hold for some future use. Looking forward to the colour going on.

cheers
Michael

Very nice result, I am also curious how it will look painted

Tidy work, Rory. The extra tires are a nice touch - strange that the manufacturer didn't provide enough of them.

Now let's see that super bright paint job!

Rory,

Nice PE work, she is going to look great under a coat of paint.

Mark

Ask and ye shall receive....







I am calling her done. I am really pleased with how she came out and while I am not 100% happy with the base I think its a pretty good effort for a first attempt.

In my head she is steaming as fast as possible through choppy seas to take a vessel in distress under tow. Hence the large bow wave and wake

Pics are in the gallery!

Rory,

Very, very nice paint work, she is a fine looking tug.

Mark

Beautiful work Rory. And for a first effort... WOW! That brilliant paint scheme doesn't disappoint, and your sea effects are first rate. Well done indeed!

Great outcome Rory!
The seascape is really well done and the colour scheme looks spot on for a tug.

cheers
Michael

Looking great Rory! The seascape turned out really well. A good impression of it powering through the water.
A really interesting little model, what scale is it?

Really need to get cracking with my builds, hopefully will have some time over the weekend.

@Stephen - She is the 1/350 scale Orange Hobby kit.

Thanks. It would look nice in a harbor diorama.

I was finally able to start on my pick for this campaign. As a reminder this is the Shell Welder coastal tanker 1/130 scale by Ark Models. I must have been on drugs or out of my mind to pick this kit. It is so poorly molded that nothing fits without major work with a sanding stick and putty.

Starting with the hull took quite a bit of Mr. Surfacer and rubber bands and masking tape to get it aligned and remove the seams.





This is the first ship kit I seen where the sink holes were outside on the decks and they were nice an deep. So after four or five fillings with Mr. Surfacer 500 I was able to get sink holes flushed with deck and scribe the wood planking back. Of course that didn't go as well as I like but I think I can work it out during painting.



I purchased the after market PE so I have to fill in all of the holds in the main deck for the molded railings that came with the kit. Also had to remove those four molded stair and fill the large sink holes in front of them.



The forecastle deck took hours of sanding and putty to get it to fit somewhat to the hull. There was still such a gap that I had to use strips of plastic as a filler and to add attachment points to attach the deck to hull.





So after two weeks of work this is about as far as I gotten with her. Once I get the superstructure together and all the odds and ends that can be placed it should be ready for paint.







Until next time

Mark

Mark,

That's a lot of hard work put in and it shows. Shes looking good!

Mark,

That looks like it's a challenge! Keep at it I'm sure it will turn out great. I wonder if it was originally a Frog kit?

I'm continuing with my little builds. I found some davits that looked suitable for the Sub-Chaser in my spares and added them after some careful measuring. Not sure if they're exactly the same as fitted to the real boat, but looks a lot better with them than without.

Rory, that tug looks great. Well done.

Jim

Mark,

Sorry to hear you're having to do a lot of extra work on your tanker; however, I think a model of a small tanker like that is pretty cool! It's a vessel that most people wouldn't think of, either in real life or as a model. I look forward to when you get it completed & painted. Which reminds me, any chance you post a picture of the box art for this tanker?

Overall, your build makes me want to go out and buy one of these guys!

Look forward for more to come!

Cheers,

Tim

hi! There's really some awesome work going on here! I was wondering if theres a little fudge room in the 1000 tons limit... i want to maybe enter a 1/72 Gato ( 1,525 tons) I dont know if its acceptable in the campaign rules. If not fine, just asking. Again some awesome builds here!

Timothy,

This kit is a real pain. There is so much flash and sinkholes that I have spent hours sanding, filing and puttying that the only assembly I been able to do is what you seen in the last post.

There is good news is that I just finished cleaning up the last of the major deck parts and now I can focus on painting and assembly.

Here is a copy of the box art. It is also displayed on the page 1 of this post. Should have new photos to post this weekend.



Mark

Ezra, I believe after much back and forth before the campaign, the 1000 tons was set as a hard limit.

Hi Mark,

For some reason, (and I think I just found out why - there's no forward slash within the brackets of the leading "img" for pasting an image)your image didn't post, but I went back and found the original picture you posted. When I first saw the box art, I thought maybe this was a fishing trawler or something, but now I know! Thanks for updating me!

BTW, about how many paints do you have in your paint rack? Myself, I've got just a fraction of the paint collection you have!

Thanks again.

Tim

Alright Thanks Rory! Just wondering!

Still working on my trio of IJN auxiliaries.
I scratchbuilt the missing anchors from some plastruct U-channel I sanded to a more curved profile and cut little slices. Certainly looks better than nothing.


All three more or less ready for some paint. Hoping to at least get a primer coat on by the end of the week as I'm on holiday next. Which will give me a week to finish when I get back. At least all the fiddly work is done. Remind me again why I torture myself with 1/700?

Stephen,

Because we will never admit defeat as long as we are the master of the Exacto knife. Nice progress.

Mark