the Baron
Ich bin ja, Herr, in Deiner Macht
- Joined
- May 12, 2009
- Messages
- 1,961
Hi, everybody!
I don't know about you, but if you're like me, you've been outside more and more as the weather has gotten warmer and the days longer. I haven't been able to pop in here as much as I'd like to, but I'd like to show you what I've got going with the HobbyBoss Arizona that I reviewed in another thread in this forum (thread here: http://www.scalemodeladdict.com/forum/index.php/topic,715.0.html). I started this for our fellowship build over at AgapeModels, I think I got started in March, and I've meant to share the progress with everyone here, too. So, without more jawin', here's where I am!
First instance of putting snippers to the sprue was to detach the turrets, the stack and the foremast's fighting top, and clean them up and assemble them. Here they are, on my bench:
The turrets required only a little sanding to remove the remains of the sprue gates, and you can see a pretty ugly seam on the front of the stack. The fighting top isn't too bad, but HobbyBoss chose to mold the parts as layers, which you assemble like a cake. That's how they molded the openings for the windows. I'd rather have had front and back halves, and just drilled out the openings, but it is what it is.
Here is the next simple piece that I assembled, as I was getting myself acclimated with HobbyBoss' design:
They chose to mold the very foremost part of the deck at the bow as a separate piece! Why?! The rest of the upper hull and deck are molded as a single piece, which is eminently practical. But even a separate but complete deck, to be glued into the upper hull, would have been better than this, which leaves a visible seam right across the bow, and that will be difficult to clean up.
Having attached those bits, I detached components of the deckhouse and bridge structure and did some dryfitting:
and from the port side:
Another issue caused by HB's design is that they molded all of the horizontal parts with seams that meet at the halfway point on the vertical surfaces. Again, it allowed them to mold the portholes and windows as openings, but the seams will be bears to conceal. Here's the bridge structure:
and from the port side:
Here is a shot of the parts for the mainmast's fighting top, still unassembled, so you can see what I mean about layers of a cake:
And this piece is HB's interpretation of an aerial frame attached to the front and after faces of this fighting top:
This gets sandwiched between two of the layers (mmmmmmm! two layer sandwich, aghlghlghlghlghlghlghl!), so the triangles protrude. I won't be using this piece, though, because my research showed me that this structure is actually a pyramid whose base is a square, and it was mounted with the botton edge parallel to the deck. I'm going to reproduce that with sprue, but much, much later in this build.
And the last piece for this post, here's the stack, cleaned up a little:
The seam took a couple of passes of Squadron putty thinned with acetone, and Mr Surfacer 1200, even after this picture was taken. It gave me more of an idea of how much work the seams require on this kit.
In the next installment, I'll show you what I found in researching the Pennsylvania, and what it meant in terms of modifications to the kit parts. See you tonight!
YbiC
Brad
I don't know about you, but if you're like me, you've been outside more and more as the weather has gotten warmer and the days longer. I haven't been able to pop in here as much as I'd like to, but I'd like to show you what I've got going with the HobbyBoss Arizona that I reviewed in another thread in this forum (thread here: http://www.scalemodeladdict.com/forum/index.php/topic,715.0.html). I started this for our fellowship build over at AgapeModels, I think I got started in March, and I've meant to share the progress with everyone here, too. So, without more jawin', here's where I am!
First instance of putting snippers to the sprue was to detach the turrets, the stack and the foremast's fighting top, and clean them up and assemble them. Here they are, on my bench:
The turrets required only a little sanding to remove the remains of the sprue gates, and you can see a pretty ugly seam on the front of the stack. The fighting top isn't too bad, but HobbyBoss chose to mold the parts as layers, which you assemble like a cake. That's how they molded the openings for the windows. I'd rather have had front and back halves, and just drilled out the openings, but it is what it is.
Here is the next simple piece that I assembled, as I was getting myself acclimated with HobbyBoss' design:
They chose to mold the very foremost part of the deck at the bow as a separate piece! Why?! The rest of the upper hull and deck are molded as a single piece, which is eminently practical. But even a separate but complete deck, to be glued into the upper hull, would have been better than this, which leaves a visible seam right across the bow, and that will be difficult to clean up.
Having attached those bits, I detached components of the deckhouse and bridge structure and did some dryfitting:
and from the port side:
Another issue caused by HB's design is that they molded all of the horizontal parts with seams that meet at the halfway point on the vertical surfaces. Again, it allowed them to mold the portholes and windows as openings, but the seams will be bears to conceal. Here's the bridge structure:
and from the port side:
Here is a shot of the parts for the mainmast's fighting top, still unassembled, so you can see what I mean about layers of a cake:
And this piece is HB's interpretation of an aerial frame attached to the front and after faces of this fighting top:
This gets sandwiched between two of the layers (mmmmmmm! two layer sandwich, aghlghlghlghlghlghlghl!), so the triangles protrude. I won't be using this piece, though, because my research showed me that this structure is actually a pyramid whose base is a square, and it was mounted with the botton edge parallel to the deck. I'm going to reproduce that with sprue, but much, much later in this build.
And the last piece for this post, here's the stack, cleaned up a little:
The seam took a couple of passes of Squadron putty thinned with acetone, and Mr Surfacer 1200, even after this picture was taken. It gave me more of an idea of how much work the seams require on this kit.
In the next installment, I'll show you what I found in researching the Pennsylvania, and what it meant in terms of modifications to the kit parts. See you tonight!
YbiC
Brad