Trumpeter 1/350 USS Texas BB-35

[wbill76]

Nov 5, 2015 14:07:52 GMT -5 wouter said:

Ah man, this looks so great...amazing skills, and above all, patience! Those railings...are they photo etch? If so, if you put them in place, while the rest has been painted...how do you prime and paint them? Handbrushing the primer/paint?

Been looking at some kits of a 1/350 BB like the Kongo and Amagi and really itches...won't happen though I think, but looking at this build is sufficient for me at the moment ^^. Keep it comin' Billbo

Cheers

Thanks Wouts! Patience is definitely a core requirement for this baby. Lots of time goes into little stuff all over the place. The railings are photo etch, some of them have bends marked into them, some are just one-piece affairs that have to be shaped on your own. I hand paint the railings off the ship, install them, then do touch-ups as needed. Enamel paints + Optivisor and a fine detail brush do the trick.

Glad this is satisfying the itch! I'm sure playing WoW also helps.

[tigrazor]

Im slightly speechless. Very well done so far!

[armorguy]

You keep on fitting railings and guns Bill, and each one looks just flawless !

[wbill76]

Thanks Lucas!

AG, that's the only way to go on this beast, one part/area at a time! I still have to do over 30 more of those 20mm guns for example.

[wouter]

Nov 5, 2015 14:41:28 GMT -5 wbill76 said:

Nov 5, 2015 14:07:52 GMT -5 wouter said:

Ah man, this looks so great...amazing skills, and above all, patience! Those railings...are they photo etch? If so, if you put them in place, while the rest has been painted...how do you prime and paint them? Handbrushing the primer/paint?

Been looking at some kits of a 1/350 BB like the Kongo and Amagi and really itches...won't happen though I think, but looking at this build is sufficient for me at the moment ^^. Keep it comin' Billbo

Cheers

Thanks Wouts! Patience is definitely a core requirement for this baby. Lots of time goes into little stuff all over the place. The railings are photo etch, some of them have bends marked into them, some are just one-piece affairs that have to be shaped on your own. I hand paint the railings off the ship, install them, then do touch-ups as needed. Enamel paints + Optivisor and a fine detail brush do the trick.

Glad this is satisfying the itch! I'm sure playing WoW also helps.

Yes playing WoW helps a lot... especially the Japanese line up suits me well...guess it's because I'm grinding for Yamato. Somehow both Kongo and Amagi are my favourites so far...so I guess a Battlecruiser suits me even more than a pure Battleship.

So I guess I learned something new, correct me if I'm wrong, but if I understand correct you can immediately apply enamels over PE without priming? That opens up a whole new perspective ^^

In any case, I checked this thread before from time to time, but I must admit I'm now into completely re-reading each and every update

Cheers

[wbill76]

Nov 5, 2015 16:21:57 GMT -5 wouter said:

Yes playing WoW helps a lot... especially the Japanese line up suits me well...guess it's because I'm grinding for Yamato. Somehow both Kongo and Amagi are my favourites so far...so I guess a Battlecruiser suits me even more than a pure Battleship.

So I guess I learned something new, correct me if I'm wrong, but if I understand correct you can immediately apply enamels over PE without priming? That opens up a whole new perspective ^^

In any case, I checked this thread before from time to time, but I must admit I'm now into completely re-reading each and every update

Cheers

Yes, you don't need to necessarily prime PE before using enamels, although it can't hurt. For delicate stuff like PE railings it's not a big deal as it isn't going to be handled much after it's installed. If the enamels are just touch-dried and not fully cured, the paint can still chip off so that's why some touch-ups are needed. But once the enamel has cured, you're pretty much set. Now airbrushing coats is a different story...for that I would always recommend priming if at all possible simply because the coats are so much thinner usually vs. a hand painted application. HTH! Glad you're getting the most out of the thread. I'll have another update later on today...been working out a way to get the seaplane catapult to play nice with everything.

[wouter]

Oh looking forward to that...tomorrow morning I'll be sitting in front of me screen

Cheers

[wbill76]

So I finally decided to tackle the number 3 turret and the seaplane catapult since I had the tripod mast assembly to work with and see how things would play out. The first thing I noticed right away is that Trumpeter cheated a bit, instead of designing the catapult to sit at an angle, they instead created the PE parts as sitting straight with the edge of the turret. Blueprints show that the angle wasn't severe, but it also wasn't straight.



What also became apparent from both the blueprints and looking at reference photos is that there isn't supposed to be a deck railing at the end of the 02 deck where the catapult overhangs. This makes sense, the angled back of the catapult has to clear this area and it can't do it if the railings and floater net baskets that were added in Step 28 are in place. Trumpeter's additional cheat for this is to just have the turret installed rotated at an angle so that it's not a problem!



I didn't like that though as it spoils the alignment and clean lines of the ship. There's also the accuracy issue in that unless the ship was launching a seaplane, the normal position would be for the turret to be lined with the others and the guns centered on the deck. That meant my first order of business was to see just how bad the clearance issue was, so I bent the main part of the PE catapult into shape so I could check it. A word of caution here, it's important to bend the sides down on the correct side so that the angled supports sit properly on the front of the turret. Ask me how I know it's possible to do it the wrong way...

As you can see, the turret can almost, but not quite, sit at the correct angle. Those pesky railings are in the way...and it's not enough to just remove the floater net baskets either. The whole section has to go.



Fortunately, I was sparing with the CA when I installed those railings, so I was able to pop them off without damaging the deck. Voila! Now the catapult will clear the 02 deck and the turret can align straight as intended.



Step 32 deals with the all the different catapult components to the base I'd been working with. I used some Gator Grip extra thin to mount the front extension as it has to sit just so to line up properly and I wanted a little extra flexibility there. The rear railings were added with regular CA. The PE part that goes around the base of the turret includes a ladder that leads up to the catapult itself and this is very delicate. Why Trumpeter included it as a one-piece instead of a separate ladder is a little strange, but I guess someone felt this was the best way to go. The ladder has to be nearly vertical in order to match up correctly with the little side railing piece too, making it a real exercise in patience.



Now the moment of truth, I used the same method as with the other turrets to replace the plastic barrels with the Master aluminum barrels. It's a tight fit but the barrels do clear the catapult properly and everything plays nice together.



A quick check with the turret in position shows how tight everything fits together in this area along with the tripod mast. Not a lot of room for mistakes!



All of the turret parts, including the catapult, are just dry-fit now so that they can be painted separately to incorporate them into the Measure 22 scheme. It's definitely 'special' when compared to the other 4 turrets.

[Leon]

WOW....Really nice work removing the railings and catapult assembly Bill! I like how it looks.

[wbill76]

Thanks Leon! A full day's work to get it all sorted out but worth it.

[tigrazor]

Wow I say, just WOW. Wish I could bend PE parts like that some day. My PE bending tool and me arent friends yet.

[wbill76]

Nov 5, 2015 19:14:26 GMT -5 tigrazor said:

Wow I say, just WOW. Wish I could bend PE parts like that some day. My PE bending tool and me arent friends yet.

Thanks Lucas! Having a good bending tool is the first step but I also use flat nose pliers of different sizes, tweezers, and other 'normal' tools to work with the stuff as needed. The bending tool is often good for starting the bends on stuff like that catapult but then to finish it off you have to use other methods to get it to do your bidding.

[wouter]

That's a great update, and what a stupid way of Trumpeter to get around their 'mistake'. Glad you could solve the issue without damage though.

And what a strange place to add a catapult, but then again, not much space on the ship to place it elsewhere

Cheers

[wbill76]

Nov 6, 2015 0:12:23 GMT -5 wouter said:

That's a great update, and what a stupid way of Trumpeter to get around their 'mistake'. Glad you could solve the issue without damage though.

And what a strange place to add a catapult, but then again, not much space on the ship to place it elsewhere

Cheers

No argument there Wouts! It's something that Trumpeter could have addressed relatively easily, just don't install the railing! But no, they got lazy.

As for the catapult placement, not a lot of choices available. The 5 turret layout kind of precludes it going in the usual spot on the stern or on the #4 turret ( like on Arizona) due to the tight spot with the aft tripod. mainmast.

[wouter]

Got an extra question for you: are you going to include figures?

Cheers

[wbill76]

Nov 6, 2015 0:45:48 GMT -5 wouter said:

Got an extra question for you: are you going to include figures?

Cheers

There are 1/350 figures out there believe it or not. But I don't have any plans to use them here. I did use a couple on the Z-28 destroyer once though.

[dierk]

What can I say? Stunning result and worth spending a day on.

[TRM]

Beautiful! Not much else too say! Just love watching your clean work my friend!! Top notch!

[wing_nut]

Glad I got back here before she set sail. Really looking great Bill.

[mrt51]

Outstanding all around!

Terry

[deafpanzer]

That must have been a scary moment... it looks so great now!

[wbill76]

Dierk, it was a fun day, no question about it! I thought I should give it a try at least to see what could be done to incorporate it into the build before deciding ultimately to abandon it and go with a clean turret.

Todd, thanks as always my friend!

Marc, nothing to worry about just yet...she's probably at about the 75% complete mark now, still plenty of time before she's ready to hit the high seas.

Terry, thanks as well!

Andy, I'd had my suspicions about the catapult for a while. It's the reason I'd saved it until last, I couldn't really know how best to handle it until all the other elements were also in place to give it a full evaluation. Fortunately, none of the more painful options like trying to trim the PE or having to go with that awful turned-turret business were called for.

[JimD]

Checking in. That catapult is some serious PE enhancement for sure. Gives me nightmares, but it certainly spices things up.

[wbill76]

Nov 6, 2015 16:31:26 GMT -5 JimD said:

Checking in. That catapult is some serious PE enhancement for sure. Gives me nightmares, but it certainly spices things up.

Thanks Jim! Trumpeter did a nice job with the PE here despite the 'oops' on the angle/alignment, so I wanted to do what I could to include it since it came with the kit after all. Glad you like how Texas is coming along!

[wbill76]

Every build has its tedious or repetitive elements and today involved one of those kinds of efforts. Since the C turret is now ready for paint, I decided to take advantage of that and also tackle all the different small components like the ammo lockers and ventilators that need Deck Blue. Most of these come from Step 23 while some of the others are from the turret and tripod steps. The downside to all the AA guns on Texas is that they all need their own ammo locker. The small 20mm lockers had 2 connection points on either side that had to be carefully cleaned up and the larger 40mm and 3-inch lockers had 2 points and an ejector mark on their back that had to be dealt with.

While it may not look like much, there's exactly 50 pieces on that strip of masking tape.



Another round of airbrush time with the Deck Blue and all of the turret components and those little details got their dose for the Measure 22 scheme. The catapult PE parts and the barrels were primered first with Italian Dark Brown to provide a solid base for the masking needed before the Deck Blue was applied over the primer coat.



Haze Gray round will come next after the appropriate masking so I can get the turret together and start placing some of those small details on the main deck.

[TRM]

Look at that...shiny brass one day, painted the next! Gotta love ship building! Piles of tiny pieces to paint! LOL!! Keep it going!!

[wbill76]

Nov 6, 2015 21:29:28 GMT -5 TRM said:

Look at that...shiny brass one day, painted the next! Gotta love ship building! Piles of tiny pieces to paint! LOL!! Keep it going!!

Sometimes I think the ship designers deliberately made things complicated so that bored sailors would always have something to do in the painting and maintenance department.

[TRM]

I remember reading something about a captain spouting off about "if it doesn't need to be painted, then it needs to be shined"

[S e r z h--Rest In Peace]

I have never seen a large ship construction, step by step,
and could not imagine how it is laborious and long way.
Bill - great work! Respect!

[Leon]

The AB is sure getting a work out Bill! Your doing a great job.