Ship Diorama Build Blog : HMS Rodney : Pt15

So, I'm literally scared of rigging... It scares me.  I therefore try to keep my technique simple, a single pair of sharp scissors, a single metal tweezer, my hands and superglue.

I then let out a pool of superglue and let it cure a little whilst I unfurl a length of rigging elastic, I'm using mig's here.

Then I use a cocktail stick to put a dot of partially cured glue at the start and end points... The start I then let the rigging rest in the dot of glue and hold with my left hand and then my dominant right hand can move the rigging into place and let it sit at the right tension (or slack) in the end dot of glue.

If I use fresh glue it simply takes too long to cure, partially cured already going and it's just right, but you can end up with thick layer upon layer of it, specially when doing multiple runs - we will look at the stern of my ship in part 16 maybe....

However, for now here are some pictures of the rigging to the signal deck and bridge wing struts.

Ship Diorama Build Blog : HMS Rodney : Pt13

Well, it's been eleven months since I started her, and now it's been nearly eight since I last touched her, but finally, after a tumultuous period I'm back at the model making bench... Working on finishing the Rodney, the first task was to remove the dust which had gathered.  Then to start to fit the out rigger boats.

I took the ship off the weighted base, and the turrets off to dust her.

The waves were the worst thing to dust.

I spotted this section of the deck, behind the middle turret mount needs painting.

The first starboard side boat, the cleats added with poly cement and left to set, then the boat gun with super glue.

Close up of the port-side boats through my new magnifying boom.

And a general look at my work bench.

Highlights are the use of my new magnifying lighting boom... lovely.

Ship Diorama Build Blog : HMS Rodney : Pt9

I've had a very long pair of sessions, between walking the dogs and doing some other stuff, and in those two sessions I've done a little detailing of the first turret, worked on rigging, painted the rear mast and build the other main turrets and half the secondary turrets.

The rigging is Mig's 0.03mm stuff and I've had a wild time with it, lets look at some of the other lines I ran.

Initial attachment was fine.  A dot of superglue on the relaxed line and leave it to set for a good five minutes, then pull straight and stretch (for it is elastic) and drop into another piece of glue... but... Oh my, what a struggle.

I then set the aft flag pole... with it actually, unnoticed sagging and being a pain to set straight again... but initially I had it perfect, so that annoyed me.

With the rigging drying and this pole, I thought I also had a chance to play about with the flags.

So with foil down on masking take I started to try and paint a white ensign.

And I hated how it came out....

I also tried to make tiny letter signal flags, this is an X.... 

I was basing these on white matt acrylic paint, letting them dry and then using fine-liner on them.

To give you an idea of the size of these flags the main ensign compared to the side of a match head.

This came to naught.  So I decided it was time to fix the rigged super structure island.  Not wanting to get the glue leaking through I lined it up and started to see how it fit.

Not well....

It took a lot of holding to get the structure glued flat.

I then decided to build the secondary port-side battery.

I am very bemused by the range of rotation on these turrets, they would have been nearly useless on the actual ship....

I then had a piece nearly get lost... A15, the antennae...

Vanished.... I was manipulating it in a pair of tweezers and it flew off.

After stretching a piece of sprue I made a replacement.

Only to suddenly see the antennae was stuck to the starboard side of the bridge structure!

I was getting rather tired by this point.  I therefore picked a couple of low-hanging fruit items... and built the forward 16" turrets.

And as I'm writing this very post and uploading this image...

I see that the structure is not down right, so I've just pulled everything back out and added a line of extra thin glue and held it down, fingers crossed.

But, lets had a gratuitous shot with the turrets in place.

And then on the base!

Ship Diorama Build Blog : HMS Rodney : Pt7

Today, for it is a glorious weekend (for real, not just when I scheduled the post to be published) I had a good three hour stretch to work uninterrupted, I therefore started to spend time doing little details, a turret and getting ready to detail the superstructure... But along the way, I also had a self inflicted cock-up.

The funnel needed a white band around the top, and so I started to add some white details elsewhere.

A little of the black was added to the super structure in my last session, so I started to flesh things out with more of the white.

Then I got a little bored and decided "GUNS"

Using a little piece of blue-tac I elevated the guns, this set is going to be fairly highly raised and then a dot of glue to hold them at that angle.

While it dried I added the life boats to the roof.

This was done by placing the boat, turning the turret over whilst my finger was on the opposite side and giving it a touch of the extra thin cement.  And this technique, which I was using so well, would come back to bite me very soon....

These little runner like things need to sit on the deck in two holes, one at either end, either side of the fore and aft turret.

So just like the boat on the turret I held the skiddly little thing in place and inverted the hull, touching a dot of the cement on the two pins.

It was at this point I realised the tooling, and perhaps even this stamp, of the model was four years older than me, but with confidence in my old friend I dropped the second of these skips into place.

I put my finger on it and flipped the hull over.

Two dots of cement... AND MY FINGER IMMEDIATELY FELT WET.

This is bad, this means the cement has wicked out the holes, up and around my finger tip.

Which of course means that cement is melting both the plastic deck AND my lovely paint job on it.

PANICK!

I cleaned it up, with a little thinner, then scraped the flaky dried clods away and cursed myself, for this is the port-side, the main side which will be closest the viewer when displayed.

I went to do something to calm my nerves, the funnel...

And when everything had had twenty minutes I got the ocre back out and did a fine coat.

It looks worse in the picture, once dry it was fine and below the temporarily fitted gun turret it's hardly noticable, unless you know, or read this blog.

I added a few colour details to the deck and decided to leave things there for the day.  Unnerved.

The turret however needs a dark coat to the roof, and I'm yet to pick the shade... Solid black seems perhaps wrong.