HMS Prince of Wales

One of my co-workers asked me to build this model of the Prince of Wales for his son. He gave me the model with no directions and missing pieces so this was basically a challenge I couldn't turn down. I added a dazzle paint sceme, made a dry dock out of balsa wood, added 1/450 brass photoetch railings and bought a trumpeter model case. I also had brass name plates made up at the local mall. The model kit is made from Revell Germany and is 1/570 scale. The model fits together extremely well but take it real easy when glueing the pieces together. I find Revell kits use a softer plastic and have a tendancy to melt easy. I started this model by glueing the two halves of the hull together and then adding the one piece deck. After I had all three of the main pieces together a started to paint the hull. With a small scale model like this one I find it alot easier to paint it after. Reason being is that you can sand and fill around the deck line and not worry about ruining the paint job... You can do that all later. If the scale is larger and there are more pieces, then you have to change you game plan a little bit. Now when I say paint it all after with the smaller scales, what I mean is the large sections only. For anyone just starting out DO NOT put the whole model together and then decide to paint it because you're going to run into some interesting problems. I always like to put the hull together in sections. I'll build the hull and superstructures seperate and then put it all together later. When I painted the hull I used a spray for most of it including the dazzle paint. Some of the dazzle paint required some brush painting but not taking more than about three coats max. Dazzle paint was used during the War to confuse enemy submarines of the size and direction the ship was going. To this day they're not sure if it worked but it boosted moral for the crews anyway. The deck was easy using one coat of tan and one coat of wood. The superstructure and gun turrets were all sprayed and the camouflage was brush painted. Afterwards I added the photoetch railings and dull coated the entire model. I highly recommend spraying painting the pieces if you can get away with it. Spraying allows you to apply an even coat with no brush strokes. Options include Airbrushing or Spray Cans. If you are going to use a spray, there are lots of great options out there and I really don't have anything bad to say about any of them. If you're going to be brushing I highly recommend Humbrol. Testors makes a great spray ( I use it all the time ) but find the brush on doesn't cover very good even at the best of times. Also remember not to go cheap on the brushes either as they can make all the difference. I also like to dull coat the entire model when I'm done as it makes everything uniform and helps hide any brush strokes you might have. As far as any missing pieces are concerned it's real easy to take spare pieces out of old kits or make them from the tree's holding the pieces in your kit. Overall Revell makes a great kit and I highly recommend this one.

Revell Queen Mary II Hull Construction

Here is a view of the bow thrusters and cover installed. Unfortunately you can't see the bow thrusters because they do look great when you look inside. My girlfriend Jayme painted them and is pretty disappointed that you have to look pretty hard to see them. When It came to installing the bow thrusters I did it after I put the hull together. The directions say to do it when you put the hulls together but personally I found it much easier afterwards. I also found putting in covers afterwards a lot easier too. I used Zap it glue to put the cover on so I didn't ruin the paint job on the hull. The glue stains will disappear when I dull coat it. I've had to do a little touching up so you'll have to excuse the tape in the photos. I attached the Azi Pods and cemented them all in and won't attach the propellers until last. I do that so I don't break them in the process of building the model and it's a bit of a superstition for me as well. Revell gives you decals for the red on the bottom of the hull and waterline but I highly recommend painting it yourself. Again you want it as real as possible so try to avoid decals where you can. I attached the stabilizers and still noticed a little light through the opening. I used bondo and filled in behind and around because you don't want to see through the ship and you want to give the impression of it being the real thing. I attached the inner cabins to the inside of the hull. I primed the pieces, painted them white and glued them in place. As you can see in the picture the back of the cabin is painted black. I glued clear styrene plastic to the back and painted them black. By doing this it gives the illusion of windows when you look through the spaces in the hull and you won't be able to see inside the ship. I actually used more clothes pins than what you see in the picture to make sure it was secured all the way along. Next on the list was to get the two stern decks ready for painting and securing. The bottom deck was painted grey and the walls white. You won't see it when you install it in the stern but I like to know I did it. Next was to paint the stern deck and the pool area. In order to do this I removed the grain by sand it down flat. I did this because the actual stern deck of the Queen Mary II doesn't appear to be wood, but painted steel. There are also ledges around the stairwell and pool that are not there in real life. I removed them as well by sanding them down and what a difference it makes just in scale alone. The picture of the stern deck you see is only the beginning. I still have touching up and detail to add. There are also a couple decals and photo-etch parts that have to be applied but I'll get into that later.

Jayme's M/S Batory 1/500 Scale Model

So my boyfriend Scott has entrusted me with the M/S Batory from Mirage Models. Aside from helping him out with the odd project on his models, this will be the first time I've ever had my own model to work on. I started by gluing the hull together and filling in any gaps along the edge with bondo, then sanding it all down. There were two cracks in the hull that needed to be glued together and there was a gash out of the stern. I sanded down the broken piece out of the stern and will have to find another piece to put in its place. I've also primed the hull and it is now ready for painting. There's been a little discrepancy about the colour of the hull. The pictures I've found on the Internet all appear to have a black hull, but the model kit says it was grey. Scott also agrees that the hull is grey and says that its sister ship the Pilsudski had the black hull, which may be the reason it is hard to look up pictures of the original. So I will be going with grey for the colour of the hull. As far as the rest of the construction goes I have only put together the two funnels and gotten the rest of the superstructure ready for priming. I'm also looking forward to putting together the columns that fit in between the hull and the decks with the lifeboats. I've taken a look at the peices for it and they are VERY tiny...should be fun!

Construction of the Revell Queen Mary II

Here is the start of my Revell Queen Mary II. I haven't added anything yet such as the bow thrusters, stabilizers and Azi Pods yet. After I put the two halves together I made sure I sanded and filled any imperfections. After that was done I primed the entire hull with Tamiya Surface Primer. By using the grey primer I could see any imperfections I missed along the way. After priming I sprayed the entire hull in Testors Matt Black. I then taped off the entire hull except for the bottom where I used Tremclad's Red Zinc Oxide Paint. This is the closest colour I could find to anti-fouling paint. I bought both the spray and the regular for touching up. With the entire hull still taped up I taped off the bottom and painted the red strip using Testors Flat Red between the anti-fouling and black on the hull. Once that was done I taped off that section and painted the white stripe on the water line and the white on the superstructure using Testors Flat White. As far as spray painting I find Testors a great paint to use. When it comes to brush painting I like to use Humbrol. I find Humbrol very forgiving and easy to use with no clumping and with minimal brush strokes. I do recommend spraying the large sections of this model. Not only does it save a whole lot of time but the finish is so much nicer. The rest of the pictures to come will be more detailed due to the fact I had already come this far before I discovered this whole blog idea (What a Hoot). There is still some touching up to do to the hull. This is the outcome after I had peeled the tape off. Next was to install the Azi Pods and bow thrusters and finish touching up the hull. I installed the inside cabins on the hull by first priming them and painting them white. I applied clear styrene plastic to the back and gave it about three coats of black. Remember, you don't want to be able to see through the hull and you want the illusion of cabins behind all those windows.

Trumpeter Seawolf Submarine 1/144 Scale

Here is the Trumpeter Seawolf Submarine as promised. Again no construction pictures but I am new to this and all the next ones to come will have the entire build. As far as the kit is concerned its Great. Trumpeter makes a good solid kit. I had the entire thing put together in a day. It does however need filling on both ends of the hull. The bow and stern pieces had a few small gaps but nothing to really worry about. I also strengthened the hull with sprue from the kit and spaced it out every two inches to add more strength. I didn't put any of the antenna's on the sail only because I wanted a sleek version of the sub. As far as researching the colour scheme I've seen quite a few different versions. I did learn however that there is no red on the hull of the Seawolf Submarines as they have in the model photos. There seems to be different shades of Grey and Black (If that's possible). I wanted to add some colour to this so I used Black with Euro Grey from Testors. Although I'm not the biggest fan of Testors I find their spray to be quite good. The Euro Grey on the sub is a lot darker than what is shown in the photos. The most interesting part of the sub is the decals. I probably did one of the stupidest things anybody can do when painting a model. I had the entire thing completed when I went to clear coat it. I accidentally grabbed the grey that was sitting next to it and started spraying the model. Now that I had ruined the paint job and the decals there was only one thing to do. Repaint it and get some more decals. Well, repainting the model wasn't a problem. Finding decals for the Seawolf was. You can make your own decals using decal paper from your local hobby store and a colour printer. This method works great and makes very strong and clear decals. Unfortunately you need a special printer to do white. I wasn't about to go out and buy a new printer so I went to my local hobby store and talked to the owner. Well let me tell ya, this guy saved me a whole lot of trouble. He handed me over some dry transfer decals and I never looked back. Don't get me wrong, I did pay for them before I left. The beautiful thing about dry transfer decals is that there is no decal out line. The difficult thing about dry transfer decals is lining up the numbers which is solved quite easily by using tape. All you do is line up and rub on. The great thing about ruining my original paint job is that I learned quite a bit about all the options you have if you do happen to ruin your decals. These actually turned out better than the decals the kit came with so I was quite pleased with that one. I wasn't impressed with the hatch decals so I left them out. Next on my list was clear coating the model and sealing the decals. That was obtained by three light coats of clear coat. With the bow I wanted the sonar dome to stand out only because it is all one colour on the real Seawolf. I did this by dull coating the entire bow section. I spent a lot of time debating on this colour scheme only because I have seen some great models of this sub. Each one has been a little different including ones with red bottoms and ones with black. I have also seen one that was modified into the SSN 23 Jimmy Carter adding 3 to 4 inches to the sub. The Gentleman who made this did a great job. I would've had a link to that but I haven't been able to find it since. So basically to sum it up I kept true to the colours but lightened it up to add some contrast. I'm now in the process of having a case made up for it and I can't stress enough on how important that is. Not only does it keep dust off but really finishes it up and adds a whole lot of professionalism to it.

S.S. Oriana Model Ship

This is the C.C. Lee Oriana Model Ship in her Orient Line colours. My Uncle had sailed on this ship when he was a young man and I had to make it for him as soon as I saw it . Revell hadn't re-released this at the time but I had managed to find this kit on ebay for $10.00. Unfortunately I don't have any construction photos of this kit but I do have to say it took a lot of extra work to get everything to fit tight. I worked on this model off and on for just over a year and had made a quite a big mistake while I was gluing the main deck onto the hull. That had caused me to shelve it for quite some time. My family kept asking me when I was going to finish it for him so I had some pressure on me to keep going. The model is the smallest scale I had worked on at the time so there isn't a whole lot of detail on this kit. I did add 1/450 scale brass photoetch parts from gold medal models to spruce it up a bit. The moment I opened the kit I noticed it wasn't the best quality. A lot of the parts didn't quite fit together as I had hoped. From the upper bridge deck to the funnels has approx. 14 pieces if I'm not mistaken. It took a lot of sanding and filling for that section alone. When I started with the hull it came as one piece. (That was nice). I then primed the entire hull inside and out. I do this because you want the plastic hull to represent steel. When you hold a painted model up to the sunlight without primer you can see all the flaws in your paint job not to mention the transparency. I actually try and do this for all the pieces and then sand or file where I'm going to glue. Remember to lightly sand between each coat. The yellow I used for the hull is a bit darker than the actual colour. I only did this so it would stand out better. There weren't any lines on the hull to mark the water line so I pretty much had to eyeball that one. The only actual set back I found on this kit was fitting the superstructure. I used tacking glue in various areas so I could see where I had to sand and fill. Unfortunately when I was tacking the superstructure I had spilled glue down the side of the hull ruining all three paint jobs not to mention the main deck as well. That is what caused the model to sit on the shelf for a few months. So after that it was back to redoing the entire hull and fixing up the deck. I put clear plastic in behind the windows and painted them black on the back. Again, you don't want to see through the ship. I noticed when I had finished the model I could of done that in other area's too. (Next time). The build went pretty smooth after that. I built the structures separately for the most part. I used tacking glue when it came to gluing some of the structures to each other because it doesn't melt the plastic and ruin the paint. I only recommend that where you don't need it for a whole lot of strength. I try to use regular model glue as much as possible. The lifeboats were the easiest part of the kit. Only because I had my girlfriend Jayme paint and glue them in. According to her they weren't much of a problem. After I had built the upper decks it was time to fit it all together to finally complete my uncle's ship. When I went to do that I noticed a big gap between the two decks. No matter what I did it just didn't want to fit and if I glued it together the second funnel would've been on quite an angle. I ended up gluing it as is and filling in the rest. This required some more bondo and repainting the upper deck. I'm really glad I did though because it turned out the way it should've. I then added the railings and stairs and gave the model a couple of coats of dull coat. This hides the brush strokes and the residue from the tacking glue. I then finished it off with flags and decals which aren't shown in any of the photographs. I had a local plastics shop make me a display case for it. I then cut up about 15 balsa wood planks and stained them to make them look like actual blocks. I tacked the wood planks to the base and the model to the blocks. Needless to say my Uncle loved his new model. It's funny because the first thing he pointed out to me on the ship was the bar.

Please stayed tuned for some more projects I have on the go. Right now I have just finished the Trumpeter 1/144 scale Sea Wolf submarine and am working on the Revell Queen Mary II. Also stay tuned for Jayme's M/S Batory from Mirage Models.