To kick start next meeting I decided to try out the Mr. Masking Sol on our poor little test sub.  Here are the steps I took....

1. I masked the waterline so no paint would end up below that mark.
2. I added the Mr. Masking Sol using the included brush in roughly the pattern I wanted on the hull of the sub and sail.  I got some on the deck... more on that later.
3. I painted the darker gray color over the Mr. Masking Sol and let it dry.
4. Next I removed the waterline masking tape.
5. I used some sharp tweezers to pull up the dried Mr. Masking Sol.  It remains very flexible.

That's pretty much all there was too it.  Some observations...

• The Mr. Masking Sol I got on the deck was almost impossible to remove without damaging the paint.  The fluid really wants to hang on to nooks and crannies.  I would recommend keeping the agent off of areas like this. It works best on smooth surfaces.  
• While it looked like I had covered everything I wanted to there were some areas where the paint go through the Mr. Masking Sol.  
• If you put Mr. Masking Sol over weathered areas, it will probably pull up the weathering.  That happened on the deck areas.  
• Prepare to do some touch up after the fact.

I will bring the model to the next meeting so you can get a closer look.  I'll also bring Mr. Masking Sol so you can play with it if you wish.  Photos from the experience...

Model masked and Mr. Masking Sol globed on the side of the hull and sail

Dark gray paint was applied to the hull and sail

Mask was removed revealing the finished pattern on the hull.  If you look closely between the hull and the sail you can see where the mask picked up some of the weathering and also where some of the green goop would not come free.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Ship Club family!

I checked the statistics and did you know our little blog has been viewed in the US, France, Russia, and Brazil.  It's been seen more than 2800 times since we started.

From the US Navy's Festival of Lights...

I hope you all enjoy the holiday season.  

Well, the weather gods won the day today.  😈 Our next meeting will be Saturday, January 28th at Rockler.  That will give us (at least me) time to get some building completed.  You'll have to wait a little longer to see what I made for my wife.  💑

In the mean time please everyone think about what you would like to do as a group in 2017.  If you have any ideas please feel free to comment on the blog or send me an email with your thoughts.

I have a few new products that I ordered to play with.  Also the shirts are in and I've been advised that they came out great.  Can't wait to get mine!

I look forward to seeing you all in January!

Dave

Reminder that our December meeting is this Saturday, December 17th at Colpar, 1915 S. Havana St., Aurora, CO 80014.  We'll meet downstairs at 10:00 am.  Thanks to Fred for making the space available to us.

Victor should have some great show and tell stuff for us.  I made a project for my wife that I'm looking forward to showing you.  Got your interest?  😎

I'm waiting to hear from Blake if the shirts have arrived.

As always....
Bring any..

• Finished projects
• Modeling related issues you need help with
• Anything new you have that you would like to share
• Suggestions for meetings in 2017

I look forward to seeing you all.

Dave

I neglected to include the rotary tool that John brought.  It was the MicroLux Micro Rotary Tool available from Micro Mark.  Here's a nice video explaining the two models they produce.

Looks like a great little tool.
Dave

Hi all,
Hobby Link Japan (hlj.com) is having a big sale on naval subjects.  In addition to a very good sale price they are also giving store credit for future purchase of about 10% +/-.   The dollar remains very strong against the yen.  Here's the link...

http://hlj.com/2016-winter-sale

December meeting update:

We got a very good response for attending a meeting at Colpar Hobby Town a week earlier than normal on Saturday, December 17th.  Because the numbers attending would make it too cramped for Hugh's space alone we asked Fred if we could use his meeting tables in the larger basement area.  He agreed to let us have the space from 10:00 am to noon.  Not to say we won't spill into Hugh's area to see what's up over there.  😎

Next meeting date:  Saturday December 17th 10:00 am

Location:  Colpar Hobby Town,1915 S. Havana St., Aurora, CO  80014 in the basement.

No formal agenda at this point.  

As always... please bring any new kits, parts, or tools.  If you have any modeling challenges bring those as well.  If you have anything specific you would like to talk about or focus on in 2017 please reach out to me.

Thanks and looking forward to seeing you all to close out 2016!

Another successful and interesting meeting.  Thanks to everyone who attended and participated.

We started with Martin, Rodrigo, and Sam sharing their Pearl Harbor model projects with us.  They were all a little different.

Martin shared some history of the colors of the Japanese Zero and the controversy over the correct colors.  Martin shared that much of the evidence pointed to a caramel colored brown.  You can learn more about IJN aircraft and details at www.j-aircraft.com.

Rodrigo shared a joint project he did with his children of the USS Arizona using a very challenging Hobby Boss Arizona kit.  We got into the discussion of what color the Arizona was at the time of attack.  I particularly like the rigging using a couple of different materials including one suggested by Hugh years ago of using fibers from gift bag handles.

Sam updated his diorama of the USS Raleigh undergoing salvage after the attack.  Somehow I lost my picture of Sam's project but he very accurately recreated the scene below in 1/700 scale.  As soon as I get a chance to take another photo I will share it with you all.

Sam continued on with his presentation on the attack on Pearl Harbor.  I always learn something new from Sam's presentations.  This time is was the discussion of the mini sub attack on Oklahoma and the fate of the min-subs during the attack.  Where was that West Lock again?  :-)

John never disappoints bringing a new kit of a gantry system that would make for a wonderful dockside diorama.  I'm anxious to see what John does with this one!

  

John also brought to our attention some cases he found from a company called Pioneer Plastics.  The nice feature on these cases is that they do not have the mold injection marks found in many commercial cases.  I believe they make cases for Testors and I have one in my collection.  Prices are very good but you have to buy in a case.  If we can get enough interest in an agreeable size we can order some cases for the group.  Or if you can use case quantities this could be a good choice.  I always recommend putting your models in a case to protect them.  Trumpeter also makes cases that do not have the injection marks in the case.  A good find from John and worth further consideration.  You can find this company at this link https://www.pioneerplastics.com

I'm behind schedule on my build.  I brought in the USS Ward hull with the "bits" attached to the plates.  I have no idea how they make these but it's impressive.  You can find these parts individually in many scales.  

I also brought in my Amagiri/PT-109 project to demonstrate adding the hand rails to the gun and torpedo turrets.  These don't come with the kit.  These hand rails are made by Flyhawk.  The advantage of these is that unlike most manufacturers Flyhawk has a flared attach point which increases the contact with the plastic parts.  They actually call these easy glue.  The key to attaching these is to drag the feet across a gap filling CA glue and then set in place.  Not all the feet need to be glued on the initial attachment.  Then after the CA has dried I use a sewing needled dipped in extra thin CA and drag it across the joints multiple times.  This solidifies the attachment even more that the gap filling CA along and there's no sign of glue marks.  I also ended up using 1/700 scale hand rails because the 1/350 were much too large.  I found this the case with other 1/350 parts I examined from Tom's Modelworks.  Parts made by Infini Models were much more scale but they also don't include the flared attach points.

We ended up torturing our U-Boat demo model by trying out the Oilbrusher from Ammo by Mig.  We used rust color for the demo.  Earlier in the meeting I applied some of the color to the hull.  Then we let it dry to the touch.  Next with a flat brush damp with Turpenoid, we drag the brush across the dried oil paint.  The thinners reactivate the paint.  Move it around and remove as much as you like.  At the end of the day it is in a handy container.  Pre thinned so you don't have to mix up the paint.  But there are limited colors at this point.  A tube of oil paint will cost about twice as much but will probably last you the rest of your life.  You decide.  If you want them they are available at MegaHobby online.  

Next meeting would be on Christmas Eve so we'll not meet at Rockler that day.  Instead we're considering the 3rd Saturday of December in the basement at Colpar.  Stay tuned for updates.

An update for our meeting on Saturday.  It's the 75th Anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Sam will be following through with a presentation on the events of December 7th, 1941.  He's also promised to bring his Pearl Harbor Diorama.  I'm looking forward to both!

Alert member, Jerry Beasley, called me last night to tell me about shows PBS is releasing on Pearl Harbor.  One is "Into The Arizona", and the other is "USS Oklahoma, The Final Story".  I'm not sure when it will play again but it's worth following up on.  Check out RMPBS for viewing times.  You can also stream them both from the PBS web site.  Here's a trailer for Into The Arizona:

See you Saturday.

Dave

Hi all,
It's time for our ship club meeting this Saturday.

Location:  Rockler Woodworking
Address:  2553 S. Colorado Blvd., Suite 108, Denver, CO  80222
Time:  November 26th (this Saturday) 10:00

This meeting I have a few things for you.....

First we'll follow up on the latest shirt order.

Next I ordered and received an AMMO by MIG Oilbrusher to test out.  You'll remember that these are pre thinned oil paints for weathering models.  I'm bringing my U-Boat crash test dummy to test it out on.  I've played with it a little but the idea is for you to play with it as well.  Here's a quick video about the product.

A tube of oil paint will run you about $7.00 and will last longer than us.  An Oilbrusher probably won't last as long as a tube of oil paint and it costs $4.85 online from MegaHobby.  

Next you may remember David Shields visited us and had a challenge with photo etch foot rails.  While working on my project, 1/350 IJN Amagiri, I found myself with the same challenge.  First I ordered some 1/350 hand rails.  It is after all 1/350 scale.  I'm going to show you what that looks like compared to what 1/700 hand rails look like on the same piece.  I found most of the after market parts are sized about the same.  

Getting these to secure to our models is challenging.  But I did find a product from Flyhawk Models called Easy Glue.  Which features a great design for attaching these fiddly pieces.  The rails have a base designed into them which increases the area being glued by a factor of at least 3.  Check out the little feet on these hand rails!  You can see that, right?  Yea, I need my high powered visor for these bad boys!

As always bring any challenges you have, any completed or in progress models you would like to share, and any new items you've found.  

See you Saturday!

Dave

Blake has our shirt order ready on the Custom Ink web site.  You an go there following the link below and order directly from Custom Ink.  If we order more than 10 we will get a refund.  Really impressed with how these came out.  I ordered two tonight.  Here's a look at how they came out...

Here's the link to the Custom Ink web site.  If you're not comfortable ordering from the internet I'll be happy to work something out with you.

https://www.customink.com/g/hax0-00au-3f9b

See you at the meeting.
Dave

Got an update today that Roger Schafer made it through surgery today and everything went well.  Roger had work done on his ankle.  Let's all wish Roger a speedy recovery!
Dave

Salute to all the Veterans, especially in our group.  Thank you for your service.  I hope that your Veterans day was peaceful.  I look forward to seeing you at the next meeting.
Dave

Thanks to everyone for attending the last meeting.  As usual we covered a lot of ground.

We talked about our T Shirt order.  I will be getting together with Blake to get our order set up.  I think we'll be able to get an order of both Blue and Gray ordered.  More to come on that soon.

The meeting started with another great presentation from Sam on the history of Japan leading to the Pearl Harbor attack with helpful pronunciation from Martin.  Same shared with us some very good books.

The first was The Samurai by Stephen Turnbull.  Now I'm wishing I had seen the exhibit at the Art Museum when it was in Denver!

The second book was Japan 1941 by Eric Hotta.  Another book recommended by Sam to help understand the reasoning that went into (as it says on the cover) the Countdown to Infamy.  

Looking forward to your next presentation Sam!

Sam also suggested that those of us working on our dioramas or Pearl Harbor projects bring in your work to the next meeting.  

Next Jerry showed us a magnificent new kit from Orange Hobbies.  It's a 1/350 Natick Class Large District Harbor Tug YTB782.  Here's a photo of the prototype.  She was in service from 1965 to 2012.  Nice run for a hard working boat!  Below photo credited to Navsource.

This little kit nearly caused Hugh to stray from 1/700 but he came to his senses soon after.  Orange Hobby castings are flawless and everything you need is included.  Although I think I may add some N scale railroad horns to replace the 2D photo etch parts.  Otherwise she's perfect!  These kits are just now coming available.  Leave it to Jerry to have one before most online retails have any to sell!

Next I had a few things to share....

From Model_Monkey at Shapeways I picked up the 3D printed 1/350 Fairwater Balao class submarine sail for the AFV Gate kit.  I will have to do some minor deck repair where the original sail should go but this piece will build a very convincing and highly detailed Balao class sub.  You can purchase these in 1/350, 1/200, 1/180, 1/144, and 1/72 scales to fit various Gato class kits on the market.  

I also brought my Flyhawk Models kit of the USS Ward in 1/700 scale.  This is my entry into the Pearl Harbor build.  I decided to use all the crazy parts that come with this kit.  More on that later.

Finally I shared that I enjoyed listing to the audiobook "The Cruel Sea" by Nicholas Monserrat.  It's a terrific novel about escort destroyers in the Royal Navy during WWII.  I'm thinking about different diorama options for this 1/350 scale kit.  I also bought the DVD based on this book.  It was mostly true to the book with a lot left out.  It cost me a whopping $3.00 on eBay.  I'm happy to loan it out to anyone interested.  But these little Mirage kits are really nice.  It was a nice follow up to the flush deck destroyer Martin shared with us from the same company.  If you haven't read the book or seen the movie it's time well spent.

After the meeting I met Clint Curry who told us about his HMS Victory model that he had on display on the other side of the basement.  Clint is another Tin Can sailor from the USS Kennedy.  I'm hoping he'll join us and share some sea stories.  If you get an opportunity to see his Victory it's well worth the time!  I stole this photo from Rocky Mountain Shipwrights web site.  Nice work Clint!

We will have our meeting after Thanksgiving, November 26th.  We had a really good turnout last year at this time so let's go for it.  

Hi all,
It's time for our ship club meeting this Saturday.

Location:  Rockler Woodworking
Address:  2553 S. Colorado Blvd., Suite 108, Denver, CO  80222
Time:  October 22 (this Saturday) 10:00

Before I get to the meeting agenda I want to make sure that we get to Blake's project.  He's been working hard on a T-Shirt design for us.  This would be through Custom Ink.  It will be silk screened as well.  If I understand correctly we have the option of long or short sleeve.  We need a minimum order of 6 per color of shirt to justify the silk screening.  Below are the designs Blake worked up.  Personally I would like to see the logo on the front and back raised up some.  I do like the color but we do have an option for a gray shirt as well.

What I would like to do for the meeting is get a count on how many you would like.  If you would like blue or gray shirt.  If you want long sleeve or short sleeve, remembering we can mix long and short sleeve in the same color.  And do we want logo on the front only or the logo on front and back.  My vote would be for front and back logos.  Blake, please correct me if I have that wrong.

by the way, that's the USS Colorado on the back.  Love the design Blake!  Let's sort this all out Saturday.  If you're not going to be there send me an email and I'll keep you posted on what we come up with.

There are opportunities for discount.  I have about $25 that was sent back to me by Custom Ink on the last order.  I'm pretty sure by mistake.  It was all a bit confusing but we can put that money towards this order.

If we have enough interest here is a breakdown of discounts depending on volume and design..

Shirts with Colorado logo only(either front or back)

15 shirts $16.26 ea.

25 shirts $13.74 ea.

Shirts with life ring logo on chest & Colorado logo on back.

15 shirts $22.53 ea.

25 shirts $18.57 ea.

Blue shirt:

Short sleeve (Royal)     Quantity____

Long Sleeve (Navy)      Quantity____

Gray shirt:

Short sleeve  (Ash)       Quantity____

Long sleeve (Heather)  Quantity____

Thanks for your hard work on this Blake!

Okay, on to the agenda....

The Gator Grip glue is in and I'll be bringing it to the meeting. With shipping it worked out to be $5.60 per bottle. Please bring exact change.  :-)

Sam will be delivering a two part presentation to compliment the anniversary of Pearl Harbor build we've been working on.

1.  How the Japanese arrive at the decision to attack Pearl Harbor

2.  How the US arrived at the decisions that led there.

I always learn something new during Sam's presentations.

Jerry Beasley is going to have something special for show and tell relating to ship cases and lighting.  

The Cruel Sea
Last meeting I overheard one of you sea dogs talking about the book, The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monserrat.  I needed an audio book for my commute to work so I picked it up.  This is a fictional account of British sailors and their adventures escorting convoys.  I immediately got hooked on the first ship in the book which is an early Flower Class Corvette by the name Compass Rose.  Doing some research I learned more about these escort destroyers and decided to pick up a 1/350 early war flower class.  This one is from Mirage but there are also offerings from a couple other companies, L'Arsenal and Iron Ship Wrights.  This is injection molding and more affordable than the resin products out there.  White Ensign Models has a very nice photo etch set for this class so I got that as well.  I'll bring them to the meeting to show you.  Mirage makes quite a few of these ships in a variety of configurations.  The one I chose was the Anchusa... but trust me she will be K-49 Compass Rose.  

As always...

• Bring anything to share with the group, finished, in progress, or something that you're adding to your collection.
• Bring any challenging issues you're having.  Let's work on the problems together.
• Bring ideas for meetings.  Hugh was suggesting a discussion on dioramas.  What do you think?

Greetings all,
After a short distraction fixing up my garage and preparing for winter I'm ready to start my Pearl Harbor build.  I'm putting together the Flyhawk Models 1/700 USS Ward and Japanese Ko-hyotek class two man submarine.

At this point I think I will put this in a case with both vessels on stands out of the water.  I'm thinking the Ward higher than the submarine.

Make no mistake this is a tiny build.  There are very few plastic parts and three frets of photo etch!  Also included are a few resin pieces.  Should be fun and I'm hoping to be creative with the base.

Here is what I'm working with...

The USS Ward is from Flyhawk and the Ko-hyotek submarine is a single part in a Tamiya I-16 &
I-58 kit which is actually quite nice itself!

The hull on the Ward is excellent.  It's a perfect fit.  The propeller shafts are a bit thick so I may modify those a bit.

Here's the instruction sheet and kit box.

And here's our Tamiya submarine.  I think we can modify these to give them a better look.  Anyone have any midget sub propellers in their parts box?

Should be a fun one and doable in the remaining time.

If you're still building send me some photos and I'll upload them into our blog.

I apologize for the late follow up from our meeting.

We started the meeting off going back to Patriots Point with a terrific tour of the USS Laffey from Roger.  I can't tell you enough how much fun it was walking around Liffey with Roger and also with Jerry as they relived their experiences on the sister ships USS Borie (DD-704) and USS Ticonderoga (CV014.  Hugh also provided us with photos from his travels with Sam.  Special thanks to Roger's wife, Peggy, who saved the day with the images!  Here's the link to Patriots Point.  If you can get back there it's well worth the visit.

https://www.patriotspoint.org

USS Laffey

Vietnam Experience Exhibit

I told you all that I contacted Brandon at Free Time Hobbies to see what the status was of the 1/700 Normandie.  A number of you have purchased this kit.  $250 but it's a big chunk of resin with all the parts you could need.  Except of course all of the after market figures that Free Time is producing.  :-)  Brandon told me that they have made a couple of changes on the hull and photo etch and are waiting for the new parts to come in before they ship.  I noticed yesterday that Brandon has the Normandie on pre-order on his web site.  This is a remarkable kit.

John of course never disappoints and provided us with a good discussion on using Tamiya and Vallejo washes to weather decks.  These are interesting washes.  The Vallejo is water based and Tamiya is an "acrylic" or alcohol based.  The Vallejo wash will work great over a Tamiya paint base color.

I brought back my project working with water color pencils.  Starting with the wood deck.  The base color was Tamiya XF-78 Wooden Deck Tan.  Correct me if I'm wrong Victor.   If you can imagine the 1/3 of the left side was covered with a clear gloss (Future), The middle section was coated with Micro Flat, and the right 1/3 was the basic color with no top coat.  I added combinations of complimentary colors but also through in some black on the right 1/3.  I was really pleased with the result.  

The other test I made was on the 1/700 U-boat.  I did not find the water color pencils very useful as a wash where you want a color to get into panel lines, flood holes, etc.  There are better choices for that.  I did find that it creates a very soft effect much like a filter.  It's very forgiving.  If you don't like it then wash it off with water.  

The other technique I tried was adding rust colors.  Again, very easy to use and forgiving.  I experimented with using salt.  Water color artists use salt to draw the paint.  I dabbed on some wet color and then sprinkled salt over it.  Made for a very nice effect.  Daniele made a very good point.  The traditional salt method would call for you to spray the base color over the salt and after it dries knock the salt off.  This gives you the effect of rust bubbling up underneath the paint.  

I followed through on the pencil scriber.  Modelers have been using needles in pin vices for a long time as a good scribing tool.  For this test I used a .75mm mechanical pencil that I got from Target.  I bought a couple of different sized straight pins from Michaels.  The larger pins worked perfectly in this mechanical pencil.  No drilling out of the pencil was required.  What I really liked about this setup was that it was very comfortable to hold and easy to control.  Better than a pin vise by far.

I compared it with my favorite scriber which is from UMM Models.  I still like my UMM scriber the best but this is an excellent choice as well.  

I have a bunch of these needles.  If you guys want to get the pencils I'll be glad to bring you some pins.  But make sure you tell me or I won't bring them to the meeting.  

3D printing continues to amaze.  Bill brought in his 1/72 torpedo tubes that he bought from Model_Monkey on the Shapeways web site.  I was blown away by the detail and the quality of the print.  The walls are amazingly thin so you could model these empty with a very realistic look.  I sure wish I had these when I built my PT-109.  Let's see if Bill succumbs to the dark side and builds another Revell PT boat!  

I'm going to follow up later with some information about the shirts Blake worked so hard on.  Look for a follow up posting in a couple of days.

Thanks for a great meeting guys!

What's New...

Mike McCabe of Starling Models has negotiated an agreement with Peter Hall of the original White Ensign Models to release their 1/700 resin ship kits under the Starling Models banner.  If you're a fan of White Ensign Models kits keep an eye out for this release.

Does anyone know anything about the WEM 1/350 kits?  The photo etch was taken over by Richard at Tom's.  Although he lists both 1/700 and 1/350 kits, none are in stock.  Maybe somebody in our group knows the inside story?

Here's the link to Starling Models

Starling Models

It's time for Ship Club again!  So here's the plan for this meeting

Location:  Rockler Woodworking
Address:  2553 S. Colorado Blvd., Suite 108, Denver, Colorado  80222
Time:  10:00

On the agenda for this meeting...

Photo courtesy  of Navsource

As I mentioned during the last meeting one the most enjoyable memories of the 2016 IPMS Nationals was not the show but going out to Patriots Point and listening to a couple of sea dogs reminisce about their time on sister ships of USS Laffey and USS Yorktown on display there.

This meeting Roger will share with you his photography and memories of his time on the USS Borie, DD-704.  USS Borie was a Sumner Class destroyer and is a dead ringer for Laffey in her FRAM II configuration.

Next Hugh will get a chance to share his experience with the ship models at the show.  Hugh always comes back with some great stories.

Then I will follow up with weathering using the water color pencils.  I experimented with the deck and also the little U-Boat using washes and also the salt technique which is interesting.  Unfortunately my cat experimented with the U-Boat so she's not as seaworthy as she was.

Finally Jerry found an interesting video on a DIY scriber using sewing needle and mechanical pencil. We're going to have to put this one to the test so I'll try and build one for the meeting and we'll take it for a test drive.

As always...
If you have something new please bring it.
If you finished a model or would like to share your progress... bring it!
If you're having a challenge you need help with let's see if we can help.
If you have an idea for a meeting let's hear it!

I'm off to check in with Blake on a new club shirt idea.

And don't forget the Pearl Harbor Anniversary build.  Are you making any progress?

Looking forward to seeing you all Saturday.
Dave