Friday, April 29, 2016

Painting of the Walkways Complete

Finally completed painting the sides of the deck and the walkways surrounding it. Been a long but fun month painting this part of the kit. This is the type of detail work that I enjoy very much...





Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Painting the Walkways

Been painting the sides of the deck Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey for the past few weeks along with the white life boats... After verifying some reference photos I decided to also paint the walkways around the deck the same color. While the actual ship walkway floor appears to be the same color as the deck I have decided to paint it the same sky grey color due to the complexity and very small scale. Masking the walls within the walkway at 1/800 scale just was not realistic... Here in the photo you see me using Tamiya masking tape in preparations of painting the walkway.

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Gluing the Hangar Lights and Deck

I glued the electroluminescent light to the top of the hull using Micro Kristal Klear glue so that it would not fog up the transparent plastic and added a few Tamiya bottles for weight and temporarily added tape while it was drying.

Once the lighting glue was dry I glued the deck to the hull using super glue. I clamped it in place and once again added some Tamiya paint bottles for weight.



Lights in Action!

With everything hooked up, I plugged the 9V battery in the base and flipped the switch. From a simple idea I had when I bought this kit, the moment I have been waiting years for has finally come to life. I am very proud of what I have achieved so far...





Friday, April 8, 2016

A Proud Future Owner


Took a photo of the future owner, my 3rd son Andy with this classic WWII US fighter. He is currently 3 years 2 months old which gives me a bit less than 2 years to complete the kit for his 5th birthday (January 30th, 2018). Have been able to give my other 2 sons (Casey & Terry) the same type of gift on their 5th birthdays and plan to keep the tradition with Andy.

Purchased for $90 cdn

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Wiring Woes & Anchor Improvments

After the difficulties that I experienced getting the wiring thought the hull, I realized that the wires would not pass behind the wall of the hangar. I tried shaving the inside of the hull but it was pretty evident that this was not going to work. So I snuck the wires back underneath the hangar deck and with some tweezers managed to pull it out from underneath.

I also read an article in FineScale Modeller where a division was added in the hull so that light would not pass through where the anchor chains would pass. Found it was a good idea so I glued a small piece of styrene and gave it a quick coat of grey paint (just good enough so that it would look dark inside.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Wiring the Midway

Started wiring the ship in preparation of lighting the hangar deck. Unfortunately I underestimated the width of the two wires and did not drill a large enough hole underneath the hull. Lets just say it was a very tight fit but after a lot of fiddling around (and a bit of cursing) I managed to pull the wires through... I then injected hot glue underneath the base so that the everything would stay in place.


Friday, April 1, 2016