stena

Steven Van Dyck autor
The stowed planes are finished with PE braces. The superstructure of Dunkerque is then masked and painted Gunze H333. I also finished the armament, cranes and cataputl camo. There is a lateral difference in the two upgrade brand's railings. The reference image shows that the long distance in Shipyard's version is only correct between two chocks. Long sections of railing are better represented with Bigblueboy's PE, and I have an additional fret of these in my set. Both ships will get this now. The railing height is better in Shipyard, though.

Steven Van Dyck autor
The planes are now painted and decals are applied, but the Hobbyboss decals are not correct. The blue is too dark, so that is cut off and replaced with a lighter blue that I painted on the rudder and the roundels with a brush. The "battleship" insigne was omitted by H. so I made this out of some Sea King arrow decals and a fineliner. I needed Microscale Decalfilm to seal this, but it turned out all right on 3 of the 4 planes. The fourth one will enter into the Strasbourg hangar, this appears to fit. I also sprayed the boot topping of both ships and the superstructure of Strasbourg.

Steven Van Dyck autor
Most of the PE is applied now, only licence plates, wipers and buckles are remaining, plus the engine finetuning parts. Some polishing had to be done to the right door panel, I was able to balance a ball on that sinkmark. The engine hood did not align well with the body, some bits of plastic were added and filed down until it fit. I misplaced one MACA duct element but this was soon repaired. It might not have been if I wouldn't have dry-fit every part. The PE door locking system was not added because it doesn't allow for the door to be closed down, and there is no counterpart in the door panel. I removed the square direction indicator lights, these are replaced by round ones. I was dissuaded from using the Aoshima masking, I will replace it with Tamiya tape.

Adam Gudynowski
following

gorby
Thanks for the photos and well done with the awards.

Alex K
Thanks for sharing and congrats for the medals (especially the Parthenon!).
Btw, surprised to see a Greek MS.230 dio in pic 82.

Steven Van Dyck autor
The cabin details are now painted and it is closed up. Some decals for instruments are included but not all of them, it seems. I painted some instruments on myself. I also applied 3 meshes on the engine compartiment.

Steven Van Dyck autor
About 25 per cent of the Masterclub tracklinks are completed, and this took me a complete day. That's beceause I decided to put an extra end of wire in, completing the resin pins through the middle of the links. If not, one break in the resin pins would cause the track to spring. This is demonstrated in the middle of my assembly, only the brass thread keeping the track together while the two resin pins broke. But getting the soft metal links straightened out after pressing them together has already caused 4 of them to crack. hope to get to the end with enough of them for 2 tracks. The rockets seem fantastic with almost 30cm length. I first worried to only have got one booster engine (see the spreadout at the beginning), but Trumpeter has clamped the second one firmly inside the first one. The only problem is the absence of fitting slots, so lining out needs to be carefully referenced. There is a panel in the warhead and a duct on the booster engine that need to line up according to my reference. I completed the exhaust mesh, but decided to pre-paint the inside. I also adapted the rear-view mirrors with a piece of Earth-Metal residue. Milling the plastic base parts made them crack in 4, so I had some reconstruction to do.

S M
Awesome! Very lively scene and those pine cone trees are clever! 😄 👍👍👍 This could fit in a museum!

Steven Van Dyck autor
Thanks for the likes and acclaim. The one missing tree is now added, the cows got copper thread leashes and the dio will feature in the IPMS Antwerp contest in a few weeks. I'lll make a picture there of the result.

Rui S
Beautiful truck 👍

Steven Van Dyck autor
Thanks, Rui. Now the figures are finished, but one lost an arm while being glued in to the truck. He'll have to be painted inside the cab now. The cargo containers are weathered and the pallet lift will roll over a spare anti-skid plate from the kit.

Steven Van Dyck autor
After a long hibernation Rex is getting hungry again. The colors for the M1070 project also determined the triceratops' camo.

Ben M
Paint looks great so far!

Steven Van Dyck autor
That was the first time they moved to a better location. It also has an impressive end ceremony in an auditorium.

George Williams
Thank you very much for taking the time to post these pictures.

Lorraine Lin
Congratulations! and thank you for the sharing

Neuling
Thanks for sharing!

Steven Van Dyck autor
The Magic Models gun is now assembled. A new attempt is made to get the drive train movable.

André Silva
Insane amount of work and detail (in a good way). Following.

Steven Van Dyck autor
This kit is beautifully textured with wood nerves and has an ingenious fitting with most of the seams on the inside of the wheels. Unfortunately the sturdy build can't prevent the mechanism from skipping its cogs over the cumbersome jacking movements, caused by the friction in the wheels. That might be exacerbated by me gluing the kit together in stead of only using the plugs. The remedy was to add a roundel to the spindle. I have to remake my video as it was not completely sharp.

Steven Van Dyck autor
The video shows the action of the crane.

Youtube Video

Steven Van Dyck autor
Thanks, I now tried out the Voyager PE for the launcher that was designed for the Dragon MLRS. It's not very much off for this kit. It might be a bit overkill for the detailed Trumpeter rocket loader parts, but like this the four large profiles are not split on the seams. I might transfer parts of the kit launcher to the PE parts, like the loading hooks that seem crudely done in this old Voyaver design. Because of the embossing at the top plate you get some deformation.

Steven Van Dyck autor
The launcher for MLRS is now built. It's an easy construction, if you don't take into account the changes I did to the rocket tube assembly. You have to choose if you remove the locks or not, because if they remain you can't move the launcher from stowed to elevated position. A thing you sadly can't perform with it, is rolling out the telescopic arms, so a new tube rack can't be loaded without scratching. The old Dragon MLRS could do that. But all operational angles of the launcher can be achieved if you fix the elevation cylinder, that is workable, and the turntable that allows for removal of the launcher. Now I'm stuck with that incorrect cabin design, so until I figure out how to solve that, it will be M1070 in the next updates.

Steven Van Dyck autor
I found this old seventies Otaki CVN-65 Enterprise kit, but to upgrade it to modern standards there are some challenges. It didn't have the airwing but I found somebody willing to part with a dedicated Arii set for it. I will be receiving it in march 2023. There is also no PE for this kit, so at first I was happy to encounter an interesting eBay bid and mail the 1/350 basic GMM Taniya set for only 18 euros. Sadly this is made for a post-overhaul Enterprise with the new island design, so it's not very useful for my kit. Then I contacted Revell Germany and they were willing to sell me the 1/400 PE set designed for the Aurora Enterprise they reboxed with it as a premium kit. Though not completely fitting, this will very much improve the model. Another coincidence is the 2022 edition of new L'Arsenal F-14 fighters on many scales, and they had 1/400. So I ordered 10 of these and made a Scalemates product page for this, somebody else is going to have to add the other scales... Things to look out for are crewmembers and maybe some decals, because in the kit these are just stickers.

Steven Van Dyck autor
Many other types of airplanes were added today. It was also announced that some decal sets would be produced by L'Arsenal later this year.shipmodels.info/mws_..hp?f=16&t=377091

Steven Van Dyck autor
I added the helicopters, fire trucks and the Navy personnel. Thanks to L'Arsenal to send me an extra pack of regular positioned personnel x80!

Steven Van Dyck autor
An order is placed with L'Arsenal to print the 1/350 Enterprise resin hangar parts for Tamiya in 1/400. These should fit with some adaptations in the Otaki hull. The main problem is that Tamiya made their model as a box with both front starboard elevators in line. My model should be better with a curve in the hull and an angle in the elevators. They would also provide decals in 1/400 but I will have to scratch the PE parts.

Steven Van Dyck autor
Academy's Da Vinci Catapult can be built within a day without any glue (though I use it where no pins are placed). It can shoot 3 balls a distance of a few metres.

Steven Van Dyck autor
Youtube Video

Youtube Video

Steven Van Dyck autor
The catapult is now painted, varnished and then polished from glossy to satin. The projectiles were left unpainted to avoid chipping during use. The metal parts were done in AK True Metal gold, Vallejo Metallic Grey and Vallejo gloss black.

Holger Kranich
Well done, Steven, well done!

Steven Van Dyck autor
Thank you, guys. It got silver and bronze once, now one color is still missing...

Steven Van Dyck autor
This event had a contest where I won 3 gold medals and one silver.

Steven Van Dyck autor
Thanks, guys, now the project is really finished. I replaced the glass showcases with a better fit, but I still needed to cut into the wood frame. The new ones were visible at IPMS the Netherlands, where Hancock won bronze and Essex silver. Also toiled on the ModelMonkey resin floater nets, first trying to saw these in half to make them fit but then just cutting the sides off them. You see some attempts to clue them to a tile with CA and kit, to be able to saw the resin under water, but this doesn't hold for 5 minutes... At last after the cutting I was able to paint, wash and dry-brush them. And that fit quite easy now.

gorby
Congratulations on the awards, very well deserved as these are absolutely remarkable models.