A little Test Fit

So while I've been busy doing Spring projects around the house, I've managed to slip in a little bit of work on the Maine. I've fitted most of the fresh air hoods to the centerline.

I also completed the lower bridge deck. This meant using the photo-etch to build the octopus like 6 pounder guns. These things are tiny and have numerous legs that need to be bent in order for the weapon to sit straight. I also had to add the upper bridge supports from the PE sheet. I trimmed these so that the upper bridge deck sat flat. I was originally going to use the resin deck but the PE is just too nice to omit.

I also added the aft flying boat deck. Since the model is made to the "as planned" version of the Maine, two torpedo boats are supposed to occupy these positions. To my knowledge, Maine never actually carried these boats. It's possible that the supports were modified to some extent in order to carry the smaller boats. I elected not to alter the PE so that meant I needed to find some boats that were big enough to fill the position. These ones came from a 1/700 USS Enterprise CV-6 kit. Maine probably never carried such large boats, but they fit the bill nicely anyway. Besides, if I hadn't just told you that, you'd never have known!

Overall, she's still looking a little barren but starting to shape up nicely. I will have to add the bridge wing supports next and then the boat decks over the superstructure. That will be a challenge since the PE supports are actually a little oversized to fit the area over the 6" guns on the superstructure.

Starting on the Photo-Etch

Someone posted a question on SteelNavy asking what paints I was using. Rather than describe, I thought I'd just post a pic of the paints. The two folkart paints are from the craft section at Walmart. The other two came from the local hobby shop.

I've started adding the photoetch to the bridge deck. This is an odd shaped part and it's got quite a few complex bends in it. I elected to do it in multiple pieces rather than trying to get one piece bent correctly the whole way round. For bending I use a razor blade and a pair of flat jawed pliers. Nothing special...although I might pick up an etch mate type tool before I'm done.




At the magnification of the photo's the photo-etch looks pretty crappy, but the magnification makes every last blemish stand out like it was high school picture day! In reality, you can't see some of the more twisty bits of railing.

Starting to look like a ship

I added the forward turret since I wanted to add the walkway between the foredeck and the main superstructure. In order to do that, the turret had to be in place. At this point, a great deal of work is going to start cascading...before I can apply A, I have to apply B etc. This is where resin kits can become difficult because there really isn't an assembly sequence. But then real modelers don't need instructions right?


The next pic shows the funnels in place. Everything in the pic is glued down at this point. The funnels have wire added to the sides to detail it, as well as the photo-etch grille on top. Note that the 6" gun on the forward part of the superstructure has been sanded down a little... this was to allow the bridge deck to sit level.

A little headway

I've been working on the Maine slowly even if I haven't posted lately. The work that I did following the paint application was a wash of the deck. I used an oil wash of very dilute burnt sienna. The goal is to be subtle...if you can notice it, you probably over did the wash. I apply it sparingly to the entire deck. I also did a very light grey wash to the hull and a mix of burnt sienna and black to the vertical superstructure.

I also painted all of the coal scuttles. These are the round objects all over the deck. They were used to load the coal into the bunkers. Normally, these probably would have been bright brass, since they were polished. I chose to make them dark grey so that I had something else that contrasted with the deck.

The pic below show the wheel house with the bridge wings added. I used strip styrene rather than the provided brass since I thought I'd get a sturdier part that way.

The only items actually glued down are the midships 6 inch guns. The other parts are simply in place for assembly check.

I've painted the brass. The kit provided brass has been augmented with Atlantic models pre-dreadnought railings as well as ratlines. I also am using some spare photoetch for the inclined ladders. The next step will be to start applying some of the etch to the centerline stairwells. A key to the assembly is to work from the centerline of the ship outwards as well as from midship to fore and aft. That helps Mr. fumble-fingers from smashing some delicate work.