Academy 1/400 RMS Titanic Centenary Anniversary Edition
lots of portholes to drill out
over 800 of the little buggers total
drill out the hole for the Howser cable
propeller mounts added
holes for the stand
soaking some plated parts. the props would have been brass, not gold, and a few others. They've been in bleach for a week and no sign of coming off. Some good plating I guess !!
more portholes to drill
crane bases and some walls built
removed the molded on benches and things to make room tor the wood decks
all the deck parts cleaned up
I left the stairs for now just in case the PE gives me trouble
The hull on the stand. I drilled down through the stand pedastals for the switch wires for the lights
OH ! that doesnt look right.
I hadnt noticed that the legs on one side were nearly broken off
So I put some Testors cement around the cracks and let it set for a few monents,,,,,
,,,,then pushed it straight. There's also PE parts for this.
OK ! Here's the first mistake I noticed in this kit. A wall joined together in the middle of a window???? SERIOUSLY! You must be joking, why not make that section like the rest of the wall joint, on the corners! HELLO<<<<ANY BODY IN THERE?? OUT TO LUNCH?
Clean up the sprue tabs and seams on all the little pieces.
Misc stuff
life preservers
crane booms. They are also in PE, but figured I'd do them just in case things go wrong with the PE. These have nubs to snap to crane, the PE ones dont!
the cranes
motorized vents ???
more vent funnels. I want to drill the fronts to give them a hollow look, but I haven't tried any yet. That will be a project in itself.
Mistake #2, WHY couldnt these have been one piece like the rest??? Now there's a seam you can't get rid of. They are just like the others except for the bottom. WHY?????
the life boats & covers
winches
motorized somethings ???
put together some small walls
there are PE ladders for here, but I haven't tried any of them,,, YET
Stairs, PE for these too.
Lifeboat davits, also in PE
Some of the sprue tabs are extremely close to the parts. very tedious to remove and I did crack a few ladders doing it. There are PE ones also. But these are ok with a bit of repair. REMOVE PARTS W/EXTREME CAUTION !!!
more close sprue taps
The instruction addendum shows removing those platforms from the smokestacks
,,,,,,not so hard to do on the one half, but on the other??? Are you joking??? How do they expect that to be accomplished neatly?? perhaps these should have been re-cast???,,,,,,
,,,,, BUT in their picture of the finished build,,,, THEY DIDN'T REMOVE THEM !! WTF,, OVER !!
obviously still there!
Anyway, stacks glued together and ladders cleaned up.
OK,,,, another goof. That wall is obviously too long and will have to be trimmed shorter.
AND,,, obvioisly the end wall is too long also, it fits between the side walls. Everything MUST be test fit !!
This one went together pretty well,,,,
not so good overhang of the roof here,,,, well,,,,
,,,,,overhang is a bit off here.
,,,,until you get the front. There's a large vent that goes there, so hopefully that wont be so noticable. The jion was not in the middle, so not much to do about that, except maybe cut and widen it a bit. OH WELL !!
Here's a good one !!! A wall joined together in the middle of a window !!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????? What a joke~!
more extremely close sprue.
OK,,, What's up with this????? Britannic??? Why is the Britannic even mentioned and the Titanic kit shown??? Britanic Crankshaft????? WTF??? JUST PLAIN STUPID
A bit out of focus,,, but those "windows" on #23 &24 look to be centered vertically,,,,,,
I guess I should have studied the pics closer. They have them near the bottom,,,,,
mine are near the top!
huh. oh well !
From different kit instructions, even in this pic they look centered! ???
glueing up as many wall sections as I can so that I can putty and fix the joints. Some will show and they are pretty UGLY.
painted the cargo holds
Another flaw ! Pin marks and no window frames on the outside wall that shows. Frames are on the inside that doesnt show!
,,,,. frames are on the inside that doesnt show!
OK, someone forgot to put windows in a section of the wall !!
The FIX,,, add part #C14,, just glue it on top of the wall with no windows. !
FLASH! There are still no windows, DUMMIES
More on this next set of pix
So,,, looks like I need to open up that wall behind the windows so we can see through them! BUT,, after carefull measuring I discovered that will make that wall so thick that now the wood deck wont fit around it. ?????
Then a brain fart hit me! DUH !!
Lets just cut that section out and replace it with a wall with windows!
the black parts painted, I used satin, not flat. They all say flat,,, but the real thing would NOT have been flat paint. Flat is NOT weather & salt resistant paint. I dont give a hoot about "Scale Effect" If the sun is shining it will reflect light.
That looks pretty bad, but its just the wall is warped. The little section on the right is glued in. It IS square and should be fine once the walls are glued to the deck.
a few more sections glued together.
Another good one ! Door on the inside wall,,,,
,,,,but not on the outside!
same here, door & window frames on the inside !!
and yet again !!
OK, the instruction sheet sprue diagrams. HULL? WHERE? E50 are 2 railings not used i guess. F14 &15 are the masts and not on F but a new K tree. And not a spool of thread, but wrapped on cardboard.
Another one ! or was that the same one??? I'm getting confused! lol
door on the inside but not the outside ! WTF
heres that one section w/window frames on the inside
craziness!! but maybe a lot of it wont be noticed anyway !
Another good one. The 2nd class entrance. You can barely see part of the door under the little wall
Here's how "they" did it, cut halfway up between the windows and opened the wall! WRONG !!
I can't find a pic of the door. Here's the real thing, but it doesn't show the door
here's someone's build from Google, hard to tell what they did, sut there's something there.
you can see the partial door in this pic also.
there's a few places on the inside deck walls that have pin marks that may show if you look close.
the wall along the top is on the boat deck and will definitly be seem. Must Fill !!
most sections together ready for paint. The wall at the top of the pic has another long section, but I figured it will be hard to handle that long. So I'll have one join that may show. It's between decks, so I doubt it.
Not sure what I'm gonna do here. Sand off the partial door and scribe one in or cut it out completely????
Ok both bottom pics both say ssembly of lower hold. ???
Next issue, The forecastle kit part,,,
Pic on left as seen from an angle like the kit part, pic on right from above.
part # 62 is a ladder, 53 a stairway. Seems youd bump your head on the stairs while climbing the ladder!
The little PE benches. GEEEEZE these were a pain, took me 3 days to do them all, and theyre not exactly as they should be,,,,,
,,,,but from a few feet away youll never know it
Well,,, 1 short as I ruined it figuring a way to bend them. I'll put the best ones on the side thats displayed
NEXT, the PE decks under the stacks
after cutting them from the sheet they just bowed,,,, A lot
,,,
Now the stacks do not contact the plastic, so another CA glue join
No holes in the PE part
Had to clamp them down hard, one side then the other. Hope they stay put.
on to #2 stack
the PE covers parts of 3 mounting pads of vents/ducts?
the 3 items in question
thats not going to work too well
the wood #17 doesnt have those pads cut out either, but the next section #14 does !!
My solution chop off those ends, that will fix the 2 on the end, the other I'll just have to put a notch in.
one of the PE roofs
Like I said I sure hope the CA holds over time, or sooner or later we'll have a nice mess
Next issue, note the half round little windows on top of the larger frames
will they even show after the wood deck is installed,,, doubtfull!
and a HUGE gap that will be seen
note the doors on the inside of the wall,maybe those will be seen ???
But the pin marks are on the outside of the wall !!
This side raised,,,
this side sunk
some pin marks on the inside wall will be seen near the ends and on the boat deck inside walls
the boat deck is supposed to fit into the uppermost groove on the wall. Do you suppose it fits in there??
NO !!! Had to sand the crap out of the deck to get it to fit in !!
another nice little gap !
just a hair over 33mm,,,,,
,,, but the wood measures 34+mm so it might just take up the gap if I move the pieces out
My fix for the covered doors. .010 styrene sheet cut to shape and glued on.
Not perfect, but better
Komentáře
18 March 2018, 18:32
Robert W MartelSince I can't paint yet I decided to start a long term project too. This will take quite some time !!! I did get a cheapo light kit for it also.
Also bought Toms windows & detail sets. The kit comes with a lot of PE, but no window frames !
I'm not sure what all the rave is. Everywhere I read says they are a MUST HAVE, but I don't get it. Firstly the directions say to remove the window frames from the kit. RIGHT. They are pretty small, some are tiny. I tried 1, and it would be near impossible to do without making a mess of them. Then when I tried to match the PE ones to the windows, They Don't Fit !! they are either too big or too small. You'll either see plastic inside the PE frame or see gaps at the top or bottom. You cant really just put them over the windows, you will see the plastic frames under the super thin PE ones, not much point in that! So I'm supposing I'll have to try painting them one way or another. The Toms frames may be accurately scaled as the full scale ship, but they don't fit the Academy kit very well. You would think they would design them to fit the kit better. After all that's where the are being used. Right???
18 March 2018, 18:59
Thomas MayerI have the 1/350 scale edition, also collected some of Tom´s PE and a wooden deck from Scaledecks. Will follow your build; I am sure there is a lot to learn!
What about those strips of Tamiya tape on the hull on the first pics?
18 March 2018, 19:23
Robert W MartelHi Thomas.
LOL the tape was just to keep track of where I was drilling the holes. I did them in sections. It really did take quite some time to drill them all and clean them up as you get ugly burrs on the back sides. and all together with the deck sides there are over 800 holes. I'm also planning on filling them with Window Maker. I did buy a cheap light kit for it, so that will also take some extra time & effort!
I hope the Tom's fit better in 350 than they do for this 400. I'm not too happy about that. I'm going to have to paint them I guess, its gonna take some time! But then I did say it was a long term project didn't I. Longer than I anticipated I suspect. The wood decks aren't going to be EASY either! We'll see about the rest of the PE that came with it, railings and benches wont be too difficult I'm hoping.
I do really like the kit and it's one I've been looking forward to building. I bought it 4 years ago, it's been sitting in my closet! It will be cool when finished, I'm taking my time!
At this point I'm getting what little parts I can cleaned up and waiting for some Tamiya paint to get here, PE bender and a few other things. Also waiting for better weather!
I think the worst part about this kit is the lack of coordination between the original instructions and the new sheets that show the PE and wood. It's hard to figure what to do at which stage! Actually the plastic rails and such look pretty good and it would probably look fine using them, but the PE if manageable will probably look better. We'll see !!
Anyway, thanks for looking Thomas. The progress will be slow, and I'll be doing other projects along with this one.
Cheers !!
20 March 2018, 18:52
Thomas MayerHi Robert! Surely these are not kits to be build in a hurry. Mine still is up on a bokk shelf, waiting for the mood to start it. One day... 😉
21 March 2018, 08:07
Robert W MartelSO,,,,, after doing some of the basic parts cleanup and putting together a few things, and studying the instructions over and over, I'm noticing a lot of stupid errors with this kit. This doesn't count that every review says that the railings(plastic ones), and other things are Grossly out of scale. I don't care about ant of that! What I care about is FIT of the parts and does it look realistic when assembled!!
Do ANY of these kit makers have someone building the kits to check for problems BEFORE the are put into mass production ????? OBVIOUSLY NOT !!! These guys are absolutely OUT TO LUNCH! There are so many obvious F ups it's hard to fathom.
The instructions are the first obvious flaw. Extremely poorly done for this "Deluxe" kit. They really should have completely redone the instructions, not just poorly tried to amend them with a few sheets of pictures !!I'll try to describe them as I go along with the pics in the project album.
18 April 2018, 21:03
Martin OostromPE instructions can be a real pain in the ***
Just kerp thinking and you'll figure it out.
Good start 👍
18 April 2018, 21:04
RobbieGreat info. I have this kit in the stash. Even bought a ton of AM stuff for it. But what you have shown, I think this kit is going way, way back deep into the stash so far it might show up on ebay. I am getting too old for that kind of plastic anguish. I will still watch to see how you fare. Oh and to pile it on more, many sources say that the hull plates overlap in the wrong direction.
I even picked this up to help but so far your post has been more informative. amazon.com/Shipcraft..tannic/dp/1848321104
18 April 2018, 22:22
RobbieOne more comment, to strip chrome try soaking in automotive break fluid. That is what the Car model builders say.
18 April 2018, 22:45
Robert W MartelThanks Martin, I need some encouragement !! Yes it's going to take a LOT of thinking and planning. I'm determined to do it !! One way or another ! I am noticing the PE instructions are NOT so great! they leave a lot to figure out. But I'm a stick with it kind of guy, I'll get it done if it kills me ! Definitely not a quickie! Good thing I'll keep a couple other projects going on the side, so when I need some stress relief from this one I'll have something else going too. lol
Robbie, I getcha ! totally! I'm already too old for this kind of nonsense !! Yes, I read about the hull plates too !! AH, I'm not a big stickler for accuracy anyway, nobody that sees it will ever know the difference anyway. As a matter of fact very few will ever see it period, just ME ! As long as it looks good, I'm happy, inaccuracy doesn't bother me, it's detail of the little things, like inside out windows!, gaps between walls etc that bother me.
If I had only had a clue I might do the same. When I bought the kit 4 years ago all the reviews RAVED about it. Best Titanic ever,,,, bla bla bla. Obviously no one had built it yet !
You know,,,,, it could probably be just thrown together and look just fine, I'm just too picky for that!
The book would probably be helpful, especially for colors and part identification which this kit sorely lacks. I've looked at other kits instructions and no 2 are the same as far as colors go! But I'm not sure I want to spend MORE $$$ on this kit. I'm using the colors from the older Minicraft 1/400 kit instructions, they seem more logical to me, and they identify parts too. That's how I know what the 2nd class entrance is ! I've already bought paints, threads, misc "stuff", both Toms & Eduard PE sets, the windows on either one just don't fit! But on the plus side I have lots of spare railings and things. So far the kit PE looks the best of them all, but didn't come with windows! And why they primed one sheet and not the other is beyond me !!
Yea it seems some plating comes off better in different stuff. I have used brake fluid, purple stuff, bleach etc. some work better than others on different kits. Go figure. Actually when I took these out of the bleach the plating came right off with a toothbrush!
Thanks for looking & commenting guys. Everything is helpful. Do plan on this being a LOOOONG term project. Surely won't be done next week, next month, maybe even next year !! LOL
Like your logo btw
Cheers !
19 April 2018, 00:59
