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[ballastanksian]

I am so pleased that your efforts on this have paid off Bob. The smoke ejection looks very effective.


Onwards and upwards 

[Bob K]

Firing Turrets

That is the four firing turrets done.  The RH (LED) barrels proved interesting as the mountings were entirely inside the turrets.  Started off with Plasticence then recreated the shapes in wood, fixing into the ply structure and positioning the barrel holes.

Worked out OK, with a bit of fiddling. Ultra bright wide angle LED’s fitted in the barrel ends, with wires through.  All wiring has to be routed down the outside of the barbette inners. Will be glue-tacked, then sealed in place with 48mm Gorilla Tape.



Next job will be the three non-firing turrets, which should be easier as it will be just mounting the alloy barrel assemblies into a shaped wood inner core.  These will only have LED wiring passing into the hull.

[ballastanksian]

I can't wait to see the full set  They look good.

[Bob K]

Thank Iain.  I do like them 

Currently working on the three non-firing turrets.  Hit a small snag.
The actual turrets will be fairly straightforward, just a central rib of wood for the hood fixing, and a transverse wood block for mounting the barrels.  Underneath will be a short tube of 75mm acrylic capped at each end with 1.5mm styrene flanged caps.

What I needed was some flanged bosses with grub screws to mount the bracket-supported stepper motors.
These have 5mm shafts.  Ordered from two suppliers, but both appear far-East with a delivery up to early June.  I may have to improvise something else if they will not arrive before Wicksteed. 

No lathe.  So thinking cap on.  Suggestions?

[Geoff]

Bob,


Post a picture of what you actually need and we may be able to figure something out.


Cheers


Geoff

[Bob K]

Geoff,

Something similar to what you made for the four firing turrets.  ie:



Does anyone in UK make them?  6 to 8 weeks delivery for an ex stock item seems silly.

5mm motor shaft with two flats, hence two grub screws.  I could maybe use a 10mm shaft with 5mm hole & screws, to expoxy into wood turret base cylinder, or even a brass plate with suitable cutout that could be glued to base cylinder.

[Geoff]

Bob,

So another three identical ones would work, yes?

Geoff

[Bob K]

Geoff:  Eh, yes.  But you have done so much to help already I would not want take up more of your precious time that should be spent on Invincible.

I should have four firing turrets for Wicksteed, and hope to have them auto-training.
All seven training would be Wick-ed 

[Geoff]

Bob,

No problem and I can easily make up another three for you.

I'll let you know when they are done.

Cheers

Geoff

[Bob K]

Greatly appreciated Geoff.  Thank you.
2 months delivery from far East is a pain, especially at this time. 

Non Firing Turrets

The upper turret structures of the three non firing turrets were relatively straightforward after the firing turrets.  Two shaped blocks of wood in a T.  Turret hoods on, then drilling through for the barrel assemblies.  I am going to have LED’s in both barrels on these, so only two wires exiting the hood assemblies.



Next stage will be to cut 30mm slices from a 76mm acrylic tube, capping top and bottom with flanged ends made from 0.5 and 1.5mm Plasticard.

[Bob K]

Non Firing Turrets

As per my last post, 76 mm acrylic cylinders cut 30 mm deep.  Flanged end caps of 0.5 and 1.5 mm Plastruct sheet cut to size.  Centres of circles found by old draughting technique of drawing two chords and connecting their ends with intersecting lines.





Hole to go through cylinder near inner edge for 8 mm Plastruct tube.  This will take the LED wiring through the inner barbettes to the TARGET control box.  Only other thing to do is fit M3 nutserts in ply spine to retain turret hood. 

Bases of all seven turrets are now ready to mount flanged bosses for stepper motors.
Next job is to create some light alloy plates to mount the steppers to the fixed outer barbette tubes.

Good progress I believe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Timewise I need to start painting the ship, although quite a bit of external detailing still to do.
Should I now build the Admirals Walk at the stern, or leave that till after Wicksteed?

[Geoff]

Good question, stern walks can be notoriously fragile. On ID I drilled holes in the hull at strategic points and inserted 1mm rod super glued in then soft soldered the bottom rail 1.5mm which gave me the base outline. The rest of the structure was built up spot soldering and this gives a surprisingly strong structure which looks light.

Good luck, its always a fun part.

Cheers

Geoff

[Bob K]

Thanks Geoff.  They do appear fragile, especially overhanging the stern.
I will try it as you suggest.  Probably better to build it in before spraying the hull.   

[Geoff]

I'd spray the hull first as you are only drilling small holes which won't impact the hull finish, touch up anything with a small brush!

Cheers

Geoff

[ballastanksian]

When you start talking about things like Stern walks Bob, we know you are flying along. The turrets are coming together very well. Geoff's assistance in making the collars is a prime example of the generosity of friendship on this forum 

[Bob K]

I totally agree Iain.  I am indebted for all the kind help given, and I hear C-3PO is making excellent progress on the Arduino comms.

Thinking about painting has me considering all sorts of things, like ordering the Slaters raised letters (not vinyl) for ships name on the stern.

[ballastanksian]

I used these for HMS Ready. They look pretty good and you only need two of each letter with no repetitions. Once applied, you could gently sand them to flatten them out a bit if needed?

[Geoff]

Bob,

If you hunt about you can get a sheet of brass photo etched letters in all sorts of sizes. I've used these on a number of models including Iron Duke. If they are on a name plate fixing them is easy as you paint the name plate in gloss varnish and whilst still wet drop the letters on. Because the varnish is wet you can align them perfectly. Once dry another coat of gloss varnish further fixes them and protects the brass finish. It all looks very neat!

Cheers

Geoff

[Bob K]

Geoff,

Excellent idea !   I have just ordered a sheet of 5mm PE letters from The Model Dockyard.
Not entirely sure what letter style was used. I was originally trying to replicate the name from the prototype model, but I think the PE should look more elegant, and I can apply them after painting.

[Bob K]

Painting

Preliminary painting is underway, being conscious of how fast Wicksteed is coming up.
Another good clean of the surfaces, and a scrub with a light scouring pad.  Some minor blemishes tidied up. I am bound to find more later.  Incredible how much masking up is required, undoubtedly the most masking I have ever used. 

Nice weather so I used the Workbench in the garden, suitably covered.  Two coats of grey, several hours apart.  Halfords rattle-can grey primer is an ideal grey for this ship, as is the red primer for anti-foul.

As usual I found some blemishes afterwards, dealt with them and re-sprayed over.
Superstructure, still incomplete, a coat of sanding sealer before spraying.  The seven turrets were a separate operation, after masking the barbette inners and gun muzzles. 

After two days a ton more masking close to the waterline, with strips of bin liner to cover the grey areas.  The usual intricate masking of props, shafts and rudder shaft.
After 3 cans of grey I then applied two cans of red. When fully dry I will carefully brush-apply the black line between the two colours.

Now in my experience masking comes in two types.  Ones that don’t stick properly and allow under-bleed, and the other types that stick so well they lift the paint – Even after 48 hours.  Well, the masking tape from Halfords achieved both !!!!
Not too bad, just some minor touch ups required.  Finally I could remove the acres of masking from the decks, props, etc.



Hand brushing the wide black waterline will be challenging on a hull this size.

[steve pickstock]

Such an impressive model.


One tip I heard, but have never the chance to try - when spraying, for example the hull, having masked off the grey, but before spraying the red, give the join line a quick coat gray. This then seals the masking tape prior to laying down the red. Don't know if it actually works, though.

[Korp1010]

For masking I use 3M fine line blue masking tape like they use on cars as it comes in various sizes and easily sourced from ebay, painted 3 models using this tape so far and not had any issues with paint bleed or the tape pulling off the paint.

[ballastanksian]

I used the tip Steve mentions for the destroyer and it worked a dream. It worked better than my cack handed hand painting of the full red! I still managed to get hints of it above the boot topping  It doesn't show much which is good.


Your paintwork looks great Bob. Good luck with the boot topping. I cannot think of any easy tips for hand painting lines without masking except lots and lots of practice.

[Bob K]

I must have tried just about every type of masking tape going, none with total success.
They either bleed paint under, or pull fully dried paint off, or both.

As to the black bootstrap line, on my other boats I have used Model Technics Trim Line.
Fairly successful but does need a drop of CA at the ends.

This is my first attempt to hand-brush a 7mm wide "raised ridge" line approx. 4.5 m long. 
It will need slight touching up.

[Klunk]

I use frog tape. frim builders merchant or b and q. make sure you run a thumb along the edge. I did hear about sealing masking tape with hairspray. never tried it though. no hair and when i asked the other half i got threatened