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How do you build a battle ship?

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How do you build a battle ship? Empty How do you build a battle ship?

Post by wisdonm Thu 12 Sep 2019, 8:51 pm

My brother-in-law wants me to build him a USS Wisconsin. I have had the kit for a long time, but I am intimidated by it. Where do I start? The kit is gray plastic. Do I spray the whole thing in flat, or do I lay everything out and start by spraying it all some color gray? If the latter, which color?

I'm open to any suggestions and tips.

How do you build a battle ship? Img_6514
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Post by beowulf Fri 13 Sep 2019, 12:04 am

wouldnt know where to start..................the number of floaty boaty things ive built you could count on one hand and still have fingers left over!

must be some good vids on youtube?
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Post by dublin boy Fri 13 Sep 2019, 5:16 pm

Have a look at a more Military site Don, Britmodeller is the only one I ever look at really, you might get some info there, they have boat/ship thing section on there.




https://www.britmodeller.com/
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Post by Guest Sat 14 Sep 2019, 12:21 am

Best of luck Don, only advice I can muster is that it would be similar to a plan build. Maybe Retired Mike can shed some light on this.

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Post by webby Sat 14 Sep 2019, 2:05 am

This is timely since I'm still wrestling with battle ship Grosser Kurfurst. My thoughts:

1) Select the period you want to build the ship in. Ships often had weapons & sensor fits altered over their lifetime. Do some research and save any relevant pictures to your PC. Ideally a laptop that you can have near the bench. I didn't do my research and my Kurfurst build has some pre and some post Jutland battle features, forming an impossible combination. Not that many will notice.

2) If you decide to use PE for extra detailing, make the decision before you start. I didn't, and I now can't use all the PE parts. And check the period that the PE is for. A WWII PE set will not be correct for your Wisconsin kit.

3) Do as much of the fine detail- rigging etc, on sub assemblies such as superstructure etc, before you add the sub assembly to the model. That may not possible with your kit. As an example, I have the aft superstructure on my Kurfurst build complete, and it will be the last item to be fitted before final rigging.

4) Work from the centre line outwards, so you're not reaching over fragile parts to fit other parts.

5) If you use PE parts, I'd paint as much as possible before detaching them from their "sprue" Sure, some paint will chip off, but it's an easy if fiddley touch up. Clean any PE with solvent before paint.

6) Be prepared for lots of repetition in cleaning up parts. That can get boring. It does for me.

I'd paint the hull first, in the correct shade of grey, then do the lower hull in whatever colour the USN used for anti fouling paint. Masts, gun barrels, etc are VERY fragile and the less you have to work around them the better.

Good luck with it Don. Look forward to seeing the WIP pics.
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Post by RetiredMike Sat 14 Sep 2019, 2:48 pm

Some very good tips from Webby. I'm only on my 3rd iron warship, so I'm still a newby here. I would build the hull and fill seams, then dry fit the deck to eliminate any gaps along the edges. That should ready the bulk of it for painting - and luckily a ship of that era is quite monotone. The deck may be a different color or shade and would be best painted before installation. I agree with Webby that the superstructures are more safely and easily built up as a subassembly, then added on.

Ships are certainly a different animal in modelling. I grew up building cars and I'm still learning a lot about ship and aircraft building.

Good Luck with that. Looking forward to seeing it go together.
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