Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Armored Cruiser: commissioned at last

     Between the dozen different things that occupied my time over the last weekend I managed to squeeze in a few hours of work on the cruiser. I got the bridge equipment painted and installed and finally decided on an arrangement for the smokestacks and cranes. There is a ton of little details and a bit of touch-up painting to do but she is ready for service as she stands.

that is a lot of yellow, I might still paint the upper deck black

the flying bridge is manned

one of the big things still missing is a mast of some sort

the Captain watches the crew testing one of the boats

he bids the crew return so that he may take the steam launch for a turn about the harbor

a right jolly boat it is!

with the crew all aboard they are ready to sail

     It has been a long time since I worked on something this large and I have learned a few lessons during this build. One; sub-assemblies, never put something this big together right off the bat, smaller pieces are easier to work on and less likely to end up broken during handling. Two; put the railings on last!!!! Three; do a few sketches first, I wasted a lot of time moving things around to get the "right look" because I came to this on a whim. Four; order/buy any needed parts in advance, several times I had to stop work to run out and get items or wait (admittedly a very short time) for parts ordered from an outside source, this did not help speed the assembly. All in all I have about thirty dollars in material and about twenty hours of work involved so I think things turned out well. The next project is a protected cruiser of much simpler design which should go together much quicker.

9 comments:

  1. The final product looks great! Well done.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your hard work has paid off in spades! Really great modeling and should be a blast taking her out on the Tabletop Sea for the first time! IMO, a little weathering will knock out the yellow (I do like your choice of yellow for the steamer).

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is just superb Sir! Well done and hearty congratulations on the Commissioning of this fine Warship!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Absolutely brilliant! That's one seriously impressive vessel, Sir!

    My hat is off to you - even if you cheated on the rivets!

    All the Best!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If I have impressed you, Good Sir, then I am most happy with the results. You WMDs are my inspiration!

      Delete
  5. Looks great! That capians launch is a nice tuch

    ReplyDelete
  6. Love it! but it really needs some weathering and fading on the paintwork.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Very nice! Unusual and well done!

    ReplyDelete