USS Taylor DD-468

 

 

 

 

 

Added a bit of deck blue to the flat surfaces. It still looks very black in photos but it is actually a nice fairly dark shade of blue. You can see the walkways around the ship that are still in flat black. After some research it appears that they mixed sand or grit of some kind with the paint to keep it from getting slippery. I found a couple of photos where this ended up looking black so I masked off the black primer in those spots and sprayed the deck blue. Turned out okay. As it sounds like we are going to have a snow weekend, I'm hoping to get many of the other assemblies done, photoetch on and painted. It will be fun? 🙂 This is all work avoidance on the Sherman I am working on (the bogies which I sort of dread) and the additional shades of metal on the Ki-84. Guessing each will have some project to report this weekend. 

 

 

Some good progress on the USS Taylor (Fletcher Class Destroyer). I have learned so much about superglue, railings, photo etch and a lot of other stuff. Started out pretty ham fisted with things but I think I kind of got the hang of it. None of the stuff on deck is bolted down yet but wanted to get an idea what it might look like. Still much to do, hoping to finish over the weekend and put some time in on a tank and plane before kicking off a Kaegero Class Japanese Destroyer. Have three carriers waiting after those but those will likely be year long or more projects. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Started putting things on the actual hull tonight and locking them down. Once again, learned a lot about pre-fitting things better, about photoetch and how delicate it is. Starting to settle in on superglue that I like using and how to actually apply accelerator. I will say from 6' away, it looks decent, up close it is a train wreck. In the end it will pretty much look like a ship and I can point to almost every part and offer a lesson learned. Still a bunch of fiddley bits to put on, railings around the outside of the ship. A nice semi-gloss coat to put on the limited number of decals and then a flat coat to bring it all together. Also going to learn about rigging, we will see how that goes. Ship building is really a journey. Saturday tank tracks arrive and I can start on that process and set this aside for a bit. Next ship will be a Kagero class Japanese Destroyer which I have a very nice detail set for. That will be the summer ship project and then next winter I will either build the Akagi or the Enterprise. Fun times. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Added some of the fiddley bits. Whale boats, side guns, some of the depth charge launchers. Good progress. Last of the fiddley bits tomorrow and then railings and rigging. Woot! 

So getting closer to done. Wasn't excited about the main mast and really wanted to annoy myself with photoetch so did some detailing from the Gold Medal Models set. It makes it look better so I can't complain. Need to paint that and a couple of other pieces, need to de-yellow some decals, gloss coat the spot for them, then flat coat the whole thing and do some rigging and we are done! I have learned a whole lot in this process and will be much better on the next, will also research more to be better prepared. As an aircraft and armor modeler, ships are a whole different thing. Also not knowing much about ships (other than aircraft carriers) there is a lot of guessing. Recently has been watching a lot of build videos and have picked up some good tips and also some things that I will never, ever do. Hats off to all the ship folks out there. Next one will be coming up soon. (need to finish a tank and a K-84 first). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Got the hull markings on. Spent 4 days hanging in the window to de-yellow them. Worked fairly well. Also put on the prop guards. Going to put in basic rigging tomorrow, flatten out over the decals and put it in the display case. 

Calling it finished! Nameplate came in the mail today. Rigging attached. Not historically accurate but gives you the gist of what it looked like. 

Calling it finished! Nameplate came in the mail today. Rigging attached. Not historically accurate but gives you the gist of what it looked like. Also, yes the radar got knocked off. Will fix that later!