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10/12/05 - The anti-skid strips that surround the 88mm Flak gun
were a bit tricky. I needed thin, uniformed texture strips. The texture needed to
be raised and rough. After trying several items, including sand paper
that was backed with CA glue, and
making and impression on sand paper and casting that up in resin, I came
up with an idea. I took styrene strip .010 X .060, spread CA glue on one
side, and sprinkled resin dust on top. [ The resin dust is the sanding
dust that accumulates when I sand down a resin piece. Instead of
throwing out the dust I save it to mix with CA glue and Epoxy resin in
place of micro balloons. ] The resin dust gave the strips the texture of
sand paper in the right scale, and the styrene strips gave an uniform
look to the anti-skid strips. I then printed out a pattern that I
generated in Visio. Rubbed black charcoal on the back of the print out
and turn the pattern into "carbon paper". Traced the
pattern on the hull, used my compass to draw three concentric rings, and
then glued the strips down. (Sometimes I actually impress myself.) |
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| The plastic figure is in 1/35 scale the small
capstan is Accurate Armor, the larger is 32nd Parallel. As you can see, I
didn't like the scale of the capstan that was supplied with the Accurate Armor
kit. However, after a little reshaping I was a bit more satisfied with the
look of the 32nd parallel one. I used the same anti-skid strips from above to surround the capstan. |
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The hatches that came with the kit were too flat - no dimension.
So I cast up a new one, duplicated the hatch and inner bracket, made a new
hinge, took a brass tube and wrapped copper wire around it, and CA glue
the whole thing together. The red an white dots on top are common pins.
After the hatch is painted - ah much better. |
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(to calculate scale I wrote a program that you can use at:
SD
VENTURE, click SCALE CONVERTER.) As previously mention, the jig for the brass rails was
laid out and all parts solder together. Each brass rod was cut and shaped
to the angle of the railing. Holes were dilled on the deck using a bench
drill press. CA glue and Epoxy inside and out was used to secure
the railing. I used .065 brass rod (2.08" scale) instead of .045
(1.44" scale). I figure since the boat will be handle in and out of
water the little beefier brass rod would wear a bit better. If this was
going to be a static display I would have used the .045 brass rod.
A small problem with scale arose. The
deck is 1/32, the tower is 1/35 - that equates to 0.03125 verses
0.02857 a difference of 0.00268 - not a big deal, right? Wrong. Because the tower is slightly smaller, I had to move the railing forward
about an half inch to accommodate the position of the high spot in the
railings. If the tower was in scale with the railings - the tower would
sit back about 1/4" to 5/16" of an inch. Thus making the railing
high spot line up the conning tower. (Just keeping the perfectionist out
there honest). |
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| I'm not 100% satisfied with the bollards; however, for the
time being they're adequate. It would be nice to have the bollard top as photo etched
and you solder on a brass tube - I may tackle that task some other day. A small
panel was placed under the bollards to show two things: that's how a
reference picture had it and it looks a lot better than the bollards just
sitting on the deck. The chocks are supposed to be the closed ones;
however, the closed ones that were part of the kit were way to big, even for 1/32nd scale. |
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Been working on a lot of things, but it feels like I'm not getting anything
done!!! Been re-scribing all the deck lines. This has been taking most of
my time. Very slow process. Been cleaning up several blemishes, prime and
sand, prime and sand stuff. Also scratch built an access grate.
It took me a four days to put together the 88mm deck gun. Everything! I
mean everything need to be "pinned". No two piece are joined
with just CA glue. A brass wire runs between every piece. I used .015
wire and a #78 drill bit to do most of the work, .032 brass rod was used
in other places were a more robust connection needs to be made. Additional
brass tubing purchased from PSME
had to be cut and placed to ensure a solid fit. Several of
the piece were duplicated for a "just incase" problem. I broke 6
drill bits drilling into this white metal. ( Click on the picture below to
expand )
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Afterwards the gun was painted Dunkelgrau 58.1, and "leather"; the gun was dry brushed
with rust, grease, and silver to give that "used" look. ( Click on the picture below to
expand )
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I wanted the teak wood inside the conning tower to look real, many
models of the conning tower wood looked too plastic and fake. To achieve
this I found a package of HO 1" x 6" scale lumber at my local
hobby store from Northeastern
Scale Lumber. I then painted the lumber with Raw Siena with a drop
of Burnt Siena. Then a wash of Oils, Black and Brown. I laid the pieces
in a straight edge jig with plastic .020 square spacers. Used
transparent tape to secure the bulk together. After trimming to size I
use Gel CA glue to secure the planks to the inner wall. After the glue
dried the tape was removed and the remainder was secured. ( Click on the picture below to
expand ). I think the final results look like teak - do you think so? The
picture below is taken after a clear gloss coat had been applied. The
next step is to add an interior wash to the conning tower to tone down
the Hellgrau 50. |
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Speaking of Hellgrau 50. Grabbed a tin from Randy Short
at www.shipcamouflage.com,
took it to an automotive paint supplier and had it turn into a
automotive urethane. By the way Hellgrau 50 is the same as FS36375
(light grey on the USAF Ghost scheme), and
1994 Chrysler Ascot Gray. I thought that was kind of funny. Also note
that the two pictures above were taken with the same digital camera with
the same lighting - yet one looks more blue than the other. |
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| Just from years of use the nose
of the boat was severally damaged. Here I have removed the old nose
piece, built a new one, inserted the antenna anchor, and re-shaped the
nose of the boat. It was then primed several times and wet sanded with
400 grit paper. Hellgrau 50 was then applied to give the ol' boat a new
nose. Additionally, the conning tower deck was completed. Here you have
the colors of the conning tower. The forward section painted Hellgrau 50
(same as the interior), the UZO and periscope painted Dunkelgrau 5 (same as the hull), and the hatch an
20mm stand painted Schlickgrau 58 (possibly leftover from the shipyard),
and the wood floor painted Blaugrau 58.1 (the black wash on a teak
deck). The contrast helps identify the individual parts, this prevents them from
getting "lost' is a sea of light gray. ( Click on the picture below to
expand ) |
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| Also if you notice the UZO is a
little bit taller than the one picture in part one. I added about
1/4" to the UZO base to accommodate it's low statue. I found a
picture of the base of an UZO, the UZO is raised a bit from the deck
with sort of "toe kick" area underneath with the grab bars
running up on both sides. I cast up the original, made two, took parts
of one and glued them to the other, then made a casting of that one. A
30 gauge wire was added to the signal light, a Black Sharpie was used to
color the cable. |
It is not often that you get 70-degree weather at the beginning of November in New England; any way the
warm weather prompted me to leap ahead a few steps and spray the final color. It is nice when you can
spray outside or even open the windows up. I can touch up paint later.
After I spayed the vertical areas with Hellgrau 50, I went back and brushed on a coat of Burnt Siena
mixed with a bit of Raw Siena to the top deck, then sealed it with clear coat. This gave me my teak deck.
The next day I sprayed the deck with Dunkelgrau 2. After that setup for a few hours I went back and
rubbed the deck with 400 grit sand paper. As I lightly “scuffed” up the deck, the “teak” color deck showed
though giving me the worn appearance I was looking for. |
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| I needed to establish the position of the Wintergarden railing and how it was
going to sit on top of its platform. This revealed a problem. I realized my original idea wasn’t going to
work. The question. How will I mount the deck to the tower and how will the deck stay secure? The front part
of the deck slips into the grove in the tower – no problem there, but the rear deck lifts
up and flops around. I think a long
screw would work. The screw that holds the deck gun in place (via a #2-56
nut) also helps secure the tower in place. The
plastic gear in the picture is actually a #4-40 nut imbedded into a resin gear – the teeth of the gear help
in turning the nut. Something I over looked before when doing a test fit, the rear deck didn’t align with
the tower. Dang! Son-of-biscuit. Golly gumdrops, this is a big oops. |
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| I should be applying the final coats hear and I’m back to re-shaping the tower.
Anyway, I shaved off the problem areas and built up the areas that were a little short. I placed a piece of
glass on top of the Wintergarden area to give me a flat surface. Glue styrene strip around the edge and use
PC-11™ epoxy putty to re-contour the area. Sand and prime, sand and
prime..... |
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11/12/05 - Where to begin, there still a lot to be done yet some things are
completed and need to be finalized. Case in point, the deck. I weathered the deck using and oil wash of
black and brown then dry brush gray enamels for the highlights. Afterwards it was time to insert the deck
into the conning tower. Now it was time for the Wintergarden. I had started assembling the rails a week
or so ago and ran into several problems. The way I was doing assembly just wasn't working. I tried a few
more attempts and they kept coming out looking totally retarded! They looked like a blind man with one
arm was doing the work. (no disrespect to anyone fitting this description).
Thoroughly discouraged - I turned to drinking. After several vodka drinks, I had an idea. I’ll work on it
tomorrow. The next day it seemed so simple, why didn’t I think about it sooner? Instead of building the
railings as one piece from solid stock – build it in two pieces, upper and lower, and build it out of
telescoping tubing. Then sandwich the upper and lower halves together. Duh. As I did before in my other
attempts. Brass tubing was bent using my template and railing holes
(.032) were marked and drilled according to my template.
I used the standard K&S brass tubing with the .014 wall thickness. |
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| I inserted .032 brass rod retaining pins at the
bottom, then bent them upwards at the corresponding angle. Next I cut 11
stanchions at about 1 1/4" from .063 tubing (K&S #1251) with
and ID of .035. These stanchions slip over the retaining pins. A .032 hole was drilled though
the brass tubing at the height of about 13/16" from the bottom. A
drill press with a stop guide was used to help in uniform hole alignment. This
hole will be used to thread wire through to hold the center rail in
place. After all 11 stations had the bottom shaved at about a 30 degree
angle, 90 degrees to the just drilled hole. |
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| A .095 x .014 brass tubing (K&S # 1268) was
made into a ring and drilled to accept .032 brass rod. The rod was cut to
about .250 inch lengths and solder in place. The rod was then bent inward
using the angle guide. The upper half was then sandwiched or slid into the brass
tubing stanchions. Hey! It almost looks like a Wintergarden. My 1/35 scale tank guy
says that the height is good. |
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| Remember I have the stanchions drilled with a
hole -
brass tubing was bent in a circle and then cut to size - a solid copper wire threads
the tubing together. After a little patients and a few choice cuss words
- it worked. |
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| A .032 hole 1/2" deep was drilled into
the aft vents - this accommodates the .063 brass tubing which telescopes
into the .093 brass tubing. Next a curved .093 brass tubing was cut and
inserted. Because the brass tubing is telescoping all pieces went
together like Plastruct
piping. How cool. Remember the brass tubing inserts into more
tubing which inserts into solid stock. This Wintergarden from start to finish took less
than
8 hours to build. All that I need to do next is solder the joints
together then file smooth. |
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