Trumpeter's Liberty Ship in 1:350 scale

1
February 21, 2020
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February 21, 2020
I have at this point already scraped the holes larger at the bottom, but I suspect the top side of the holes, are too high.
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February 21, 2020
I put down a strip of masking tape to better help keep the photo etch parts on a line. Mostly successful. I wish I wasn't distracted by inaccurate modlings. in the future for similar things, I will use tape to hold parts down.
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February 21, 2020
I had some fun scraping the prop blades thinner. Ship props are usually more solid than plane props, so thinning the parts went was easy to do without snapping any of the blades off.
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February 28, 2020
I used a bit of styrene rod, in two pieces, to create another shape at the front openings. The one little gap I can deal with. I have since created a straight edge on the bow.
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April 21, 2020
I became demotivated, once I realized that adding a rich amount of superglue around the PE was a mistake. Cleanup is difficult on bare and hard to look at plastic, but it helps having a layer of primer on. Now I can more easily see what I am cleaning up.
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October 9, 2020
I "finished" sanding here and will add some vallejo putty, and scrape the surface flush, to try make the surface smooth, and then sand again. 🙂
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October 9, 2020
There is a seam here in the deck, but not easily noticeable, which is nice.
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October 9, 2020
Adding some vallejo putty and scraping the excess putty with a piece of strip styrene helped cover the seam. Will have to airbrush with primer over this and re-check.
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October 9, 2020
I had some pits in the sides that annoyed me and made me not want to work, but ofc it only took me a few seconds to fix. :|
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October 9, 2020
I have checked the hull today and it looks ok, but some tiny pits on the deck seams will require some attention and filling. I will have to finish that and airbrush on some primer again, to re-evaluate the result. I must remember to glue on some photo etch railings and maybe some other stuff before I add another layer of primer.
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October 9, 2020
Not sure what to do with the holes. They are too large. If I am lucky, the holes are at the wrong place, in that case I can fill them, and just drill new holes beside them. 🙂 Will have to take another look at photos. Update: Because there are several holes down the side of the ship, and all probably a little too high up in relation to the deck, I don't see how I can fix this.
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October 28, 2020
This is imo the best way to fill a large hole with Vallejo white putty. Just fill it and make sure the hole is topped. The putty will shrink, but because you have the top going up and over the level of the cavity that you are filling, the putty still fills the entire hole. After it dries a little, you can cut off the top of the putty cone, and let it dry some more. Then, you can use a sharp blade to cut off some more putty, and then, go over with a finer sanding stick. 🙂 Coarse sanding sticks are best to sand down Vallejo putty, but cutting off putty with a sharp flat blade works nicely if you are careful keeping the blade level with the level plastic.
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October 28, 2020
I sort of think that the sides of the ship is a little too high. Presumably, the woman on the photo isn't very tall.

What I could do, is sand down the edge, and then also add a piece of styrene strip to add the flat surface on top of the sides. Unsure how tricky it would be though to add the strip styrene where the hull starts curving. Optionally, I could glue on square strip styrene and sand down to flat, but that seems tedious and something prone to making mistakes when it comes to sanding down the styrene to a particular thinness.

Hrm, instead of relying on the 1:350 figures I have, I guess I should at least convert 180 cm to 1:350 scale and compare. Hm, sides of ship kit is about 3mm tall from a flat deck level. Equating to 5.14 mm in 1:350 scale for 180cm tall human person. 5.14 Seems to the red colored figure I have in 1:350 scale. So.. 3mm shipside = 105 cm tall sides.
15
October 28, 2020
I have three pieces of photo etch railings, and they all are lower than the kit ship sides. Compared to the figure, I think I can safely lower the sides of the ship to better match the photo etch railings. And ideally, the ship deck is probably supposed to be curved, but I can't/won't try fix that. 🙂

Hrm, I just checked using .010 x .010 strip styrene, and it won't do, nearly same thickness as ship side, and if sanding ship side lower, ship side will perhaps be even thicker.

Evergreen has some .010 x .030 styrene and even .010 x .040 styrene. The latter perhaps won't easily bend and is likely to twist I suspect if bent to the sides. I just checked and I think the .010 x .030 will work nicely. 🙂 Ofc, I don't have it.
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November 6, 2020
I first put down the photo etch railing next to the ship side and made a mark with a pencil, then I used a sharp blade to cut into the plastic on both ends as a more precise guide, to avoid "just sanding it all down". I used a large sanding stick to sand the rest, and it was important to get a proper curve. Then I glued on a piece of Evergreen 101 (.010x.030) strip styrene. This looks ok I think, and I hope it works equally well when gently bending the strip styrene for the bow/aft sections later. 🙂 The crude dimensions of the kit plastic makes it practically impossible to make it all look exact, but I am ok with this how the ship side looks now. A simple but fun and effective piece of detailing. It nearly did not work, as sanding the ship side, the lower you sand it, the wider the plastic becomes, luckily there is a tiny tiny gap left just under the new strip styrene.
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November 7, 2020
The trick to gluing on this piece of styrene strip under tension, is to glue the end first, then let that dry, then continue gluing on shorter lengths of the strip. After some massaging, the plastic starts to bond but can be pushed into shape. It is important to get the outside hull flush, easy as I just press the flat polish part of a sanding stick up against the side of the hull, and also pressing down from the top to make sure the styrene strip is firmly against the plastic. So far, so good. I think I might as well cut out the hull around the overly large holes near the bow, and replace it with strip styrene (before finally adding this top lying strip).
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November 8, 2020
Big oof when the moment came where I inadvertently mauled an important piece of photo etch. I will either try fix it, replace it with styrene, or look for spare parts in my stash(possible). Some clean up required. This was easier than I thought, as the thin strip styrene stuff is thin enough and bend more easily when in contact with glue, so no warping. I made the outside flush with the hull, pressing the smooth part of a sanding stick onto the sides, pressing a finger on the end on the outside, and another finger at the center of the curve on the inside. After a few moments the glue sets.
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November 8, 2020
I think this was a very fun way to add some detailing.
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November 8, 2020
Some clean up required. I think I will try insert folded strip styrene into the holes on the sides and try see if I can create more interesting holes that way, as I do not want to fix the holes as such. Note-to-self: I must learn to anneal the photo etch, to soften it.

Commentaires

9 21 February 2020, 13:55

Łukasz Gliński
I have to watch this

21 February 2020, 18:46

Clifford Keesler
I have this one on my wishlist, so will watch with interest.

21 February 2020, 19:59

Treehugger
Anyone wanting to do a more accurate build, have to be very careful with the "holes" on the sides. I think the openings are placed too high on the side, such that, the bottom part of each hole should perhaps lie flush with the deck, such that water can just fall off the deck through the openings. I made the holes a little larger so that they are flush with the deck at the bottom side, but, that is just enough to make the PE fit the new opening. There is another detail to watch out for. The PE itself, on the inside of the railings, will create an edge, which shouldn't be there, as I suspect the PE placement has to match the hole, such that water can roll off the deck unhindered. My guess anyway. So I ended up making the holes a little too large, but good enough for me.

I will buy a glassfiber pen next week, so that I can gently scratch off the excessive amounts of superglue around the photo etch parts. 🙂

21 February 2020, 21:44

Treehugger
I want to quickly point out that, cleaning up superglue with a glassfiber pen, isn't as easy as I thought. Half the issue is actually seeing with my own eyes if I have finished ceaning up or not. Also, the pen is an abrasive and will dig into the plastic eventually it seems.

28 February 2020, 18:18

Bozzer
Good tip, Treehugger. I'll keep that in mind, for future reference.

28 February 2020, 23:54

Christian Bruer
That looks like a ship and a clean and sharp start on it. Count me in!

1 March 2020, 19:31

Treehugger
Photo 6: I was worried I had messed things up by using too much superglue, but I see now that having added a layer of primer paint, it looks like now, it is easier to clean up the excess cyanoacrylate glue, using this glass fiber pen. Ideally I should have been more careful gluing on each piece of PE by using masking tape, but too late to change that now I guess.

21 April 2020, 10:07

Tim
Looks good

11 October 2020, 22:52

Treehugger
I am happy with the result so far, basically having worked on just the main hull part. I did so much tedious sanding that I lost interest, but looking at this now, I am very happy I spent the extra time on making the hull look smooth.

It is tempting to just airbrush on some primer, but I really have to investigate the photo etch instructions, and prepare to make it all fit, otherwise I risk ending up making mistakes by leaving plastic in place where original kit plastic should have been removed, or, failing to add required photo etch before adding the primer paint. Luckily there aren't that many things that has to be fixed before moving on. I will want to check the height of the hull sides above deck, as it looks like the photo etch railings a somewhat lower, that seems like the plastic is perhaps too tall all over the sides of the ship, have to look at photos for that and evaluate if I do something about that or just leave it as is.

I like using the 3mm Trumpeter chisel tool for cutting off plastic, especially on flat areas, as I can cut it off from the top, and not from the side like when using a sharp blade.

28 October 2020, 11:44

Project info

Trumpeter's Liberty Ship Jeremiah O'Brien with photo etch

20 images

1:350

En cours

1:350 5"/38 Single Gun (Veteran Models VTW35001)

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