Building a Tamiya Missouri with Super-detailing

**Builder 2010** · 01 Jun 11,, 17:19

Actually, I'm off work today. My grandson Alex and I were just in the shop working and turret #2 is finished, and I'm on #3. They're going faster and I'm getting the hand of the PE. He's building a Trumpeter, 1/32nd scale, F-18E Super-Hornet. It's a terrific, big model with lots of detail. He's doing a nice job on it too. I plan on working the entire afternoon on the Mo. He's going to Lacross practice.

**Builder 2010** · 05 Jun 11,, 23:13

Put paint on the gun turrets after all the PE was attached. Kept the barrels separate and painted them all. I'm having a heck of a time getting the Life Color acrylic to stick to the brass barrels. I tried a trick to blacken the brass with "Blacken It" in hopes that it would etch the brass and provide some "tooth" for the paint to adhere. They look okay after touchup, but they're very fragile.

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Using the mounting board to hold everything was very helpful in letting me do all the painting. I used the Life Color Haze Gray for the base color (airbrushed) and then used their Deck Blue for the horizontal surfaces. Took several iteration: blue, touch up with haze gray, touch up with blue again and finally haze gray one more time, each time with a finer brush and less paint. Final results are passable.

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Then I tried, successfully, to use aluminum foil with Micro Foil Adhesive to simulate the polished gun slide portion. I wanted to do something other than to try and paint the brass. It looks pretty good. Next I will concoct a transparent color to simulate the lubricant that's on the slides. The slides are not polished metal, but have a gold cast resulting from the anti-corrosion lubricant. But this way, it will look like real machine metal underneath which is what it is.

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Here's a shot with the turret from the new ship in the place of a turret on the old ship. It's interesting to note what I had painted the decks as "Deck Blue" compared to the pre-mixed deck blue from Life Color. The new barrels are not aligned perfectly, but they're also not glued in yet. I also switched to "weathered black" instead of flat black for the gun blast bags. I'm not sure I like it. Either way, it needs to be flatter. That rubber doesn't have much of a sheen. Question: Should the tops of the shell hoist cranes be painted deck blue?

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I also epoxied wood blocking into the hull to hold the eventual brass base mounting hardware. I'm trying to locate a source for a baseplate and someone local (Louisville) that can make a plexiglass case that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

**USSWisconsin** · 06 Jun 11,, 02:17

Final results are passable.

I would rate your results as far from just passable, beautiful work Myles! Have you considered using music wire (the high E string from a guitar) for the 20mm barrels?

**Builder 2010** · 06 Jun 11,, 03:37

The Eduard PE set has 20 mm Orlikens that you fold together to make the gun a bit heftier. They had the two shoulder rests nicely delineated. They also have the late model tripod stands that you fold up and then fasten the folded gun onto and finally add the PE splinter shield. With that being said, I have absolutely no idea how to put all this stuff together. I just don't trust super-glue to hold it together and actually it should be soldered, and I am a highly skilled solderer (taught about 1,000 people how to do it), but good god, I don't believe I have the skills or tools to do stuff this small. It's really jewelry work like they do when they're soldering links in fine chain. I can always use the foldup guns on the kits cast conical bases. We'll see.

Right now I have to figure out what to do with the base since I don't want to start the hull until all the correct-sized holes are drilled in the bottom for whatever pedestals I end up with. We're going to visit our son and family this weekend so work will be somewhat curtailed.

But I may use guitar strings for the whip antennas.

**Builder 2010** · 07 Jun 11,, 04:01

I tinted the gun slide area so it has the cosmoline/lubricant look that the slides really look. Did some more touch up on the barrels and then CA'd the guns into the blast bags. I also put some Dullcoat on the bags to kill the shine. I now like the weathered black look. The last thing I did was paint the very tips of the guns black as they are on some of the Iowas. Using real metal on the slide area was much better than painting it.

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I did notice an interesting thing... on a WWII video of the Wisconsin, I noticed that #1 turret didn't have that little railing on its roof, whereas #2 did. I am not going to remove it, but it's something to note for anyone who's considering building a high-detailed Tamiya Missouri. I also answered my question. In looking at the same movie, it seems that the turret cranes are not painted deck blue on top. They were all gray.

Here's the turret sitting on the old Missouri. It's nice to compare the two.
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For all of you Navy lovers on the forums, I found a fantastic web site. Gene Slover's US Navy Home site has original inforation such as complete operating manuals for all of the gunnery systems on the Iowas. It's a great reference site.

http://eugeneleeslover.com/GS-USN-PAGE.html

**Builder 2010** · 16 Jun 11,, 03:51

Before I started any more work, I decided to do something about the lost parts problem that I was having. I spent 30% of my modelling time crawling around on my hands and knees looking for PE parts that are attempting to cross into an interdimensional space never to be seen again. Watchmaker benches have a pull-out tray to catch small parts that drop in between the belly and the bench.

I fabricated a pull-out tray with some old Masonite I had and mounted it underneath the bench using some 1X3 and a couple of strips of Masonite to space them away from the workbench so the tray would move.

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It works! I started working on removing some more plastic from the main deck component and dropped some styrene parts. Three out of four landed on the tray. The one that didn't slipped though because I didn't have it tight to the belly. It's a habit I'll have to acquire.

Now onto today's progress:
The photoetched inclined ladders require you to remove the molded plastic ones. The shape made it hard to use a razor saw so I chucked up a 1/16" diamond coated burr in the handpiece of my Dremel flexible shaft tool and went at it. I didn't attempt to take it all the way down, just get most of the meat out of it. Gee... I really could have been a dentist... Here's what this step looked like.

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Next I used that flat chisel and an Xacto knife and shaved the rest of the molded stairs away.

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Finally, I filled the spaces with sheet styrene. This was a finnicky bit of work, but once the small gaps are filled with plastic model filler and given a little light sanding, it will be almost invisible and when painted it will look like the molded stairs were never there at all.

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It's always hard for me to this "destructive-construction". It's like tearing down walls to build a new room in a house. You're taking a perfectly pure piece of modled styrene and hacking at it, messing it up a bit and, hopefully, refinishing it and putting more interesting parts in its place. It worked pretty well on the turrets. I expect it will work well with the superstructure aslo.

I'm doing all this prep work while waiting for the laser cut teak decks to arrive.

**USSWisconsin** · 16 Jun 11,, 03:59

Nice work Myles! I am enjoying your build almost as much as you must be. I love Gene Slover's site, I hope it never goes down - he has some very good info on armor. Love all the manuals. His site really helped with my battlehsip book - which has been on hold with a flurry of work and birthday planning for my Daughter - the party went off very nicely - but work threatened to interfere - such is life...

What you are doing seems like it would be much more fun.

**Builder 2010** · 18 Jun 11,, 03:24

Had some quality time this afternoon in the shop and began putting things on the center section of the deck which includes the entire superstructure. I began by systematically removing all of the bumps and things that the Eduard parts instructions tell you to. These include the molded door shapes, ventilation grills and parts of the plastic inclined stairs that were separate pieces (not the molded ones that were removed the last section). I also removed the molded on hose racks and used a old PE set from Gold Medal Models that I've had since the 80s.

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I drilled out the plastic portholes and also attempted to drill and scrape out the plastic to make the open water-tight door really look like it was open into something. Now even though the plastic walls are really thick in scale, because the front of the conning tower was amored, it actually not so far off from prototype. It looks ragged now, but after painting and some more cleaning up, it will look pretty good. Those open WTDs are very fine and fragile.

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The last pic slows the aft part of the superstructure and also shows the drilled out portholes. Wait till you see the PE superstructure sides when they're installed. They have beautiful WTDs and portholes engraved in them, and I will drill those portholes through the underlying plastic so they'll be dark too.

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There's several decision items that are beginning to make themselves known. The first is when to install the railings and stairs, since painting the decking deck blue will be very difficult with the railing in place. But, on the other hand, gluing the rails after painting makes it much harder to get them to adhere. It's tough enough doing it on the bare plastic. The second decision is how far to take the assembly before installing the wood decking. This material hasn't arrived yet. It's supposed to arrive this month. This decking will very nicely hide all of the ragged gluing at the base of these components so I'm not worrying too much about it.

The wood goes everywhere that there is simulated wood planks engraved on the plastic. On the decks that are smooth I'm being more careful.

**Builder 2010** · 19 Jun 11,, 05:16

I began to realize that I had to stop gluing things on since it was going to get me into trouble. I was right. In looking at a pilot version of the scale decks laser-cut decking for the Missori, the decking is designed to cover the entire second level BEFORE the rest gets glued on. In this way there would be a perfect joint between the wood decking and the plastic superstructure. I've already started gluing on the next level parts and this is going to cause me some serious cutting and fitting work. I'll be okay, but it will be a pain in the butt.

While I'm writing this I think I may have a way to make it a bit easier. I can scan the parts diagrams and then enlarge them to the exact size of the model's parts. I can then use the profiles as cutting templates to get me close to the size I'll need. This will be particularly important around the bottom of the conning tower base. I'll measure some component of the model that's easily identified and then measure the same part on the parts diagram. The ratio between to the two will be the enlargement factor. I'll use my digital caliper for the chore which should give me about the same tolerance that the laser-cut decking is using (1/100th of an inch).

I can also take a vertical digital picture of the parts and then import that into CorelDraw and make a line drawing template from the actual part. Either way it will help getting the decking close before actually trying to fit it to the model.

I also decided that it was time to paint all the photoetched parts now. I've been vascillating between painting first or after fitting and began to realize that painting the railings after assembly would make it impossible to keep paint off the wood decking. In order to make the paint hold, I first soaked the frets in vinegar and then washed with water. I've heard that the vinegar will microetch the metal to help the paint adhere better.

I then primered each sheet with gray solvent-based primer. Next, I will airbrush the parts haze gray. The primer seemed to have good adhesion. We'll see if that's true when I start bending and handling the parts.

I also prepared some more subassemblies by continuing to scrape and prepare the parts to receive the photoetched parts. Eduard instructions are pretty good and show what model details need to be removed before the PE goes on. I will put all the photoetched that I can before putting the subs on the ship since it's much easier to handle and postion the parts.

I'll have some more pictures later today (it's past midnight).

Happy Father's day.

**robtmelvin** · 20 Jun 11,, 17:51

Builder, first of all, thanks for being kind enough to share your work in progress. From what I can see your work so far is first rate. I'd be proud for mine to look that good. I'll be watching this thread with great interest. I have the Mighty Mo in my stash, and just got my hands on Lion Roars Super Update set with PE, resin and turned barrels. We shall see if it is worth price - more than the kit! Right now I'm working on Trumpeter's 1/350 North Carolina with Eduard's PE, Yankee Modelworks resin turrets and turned brass replacement barrels. Once that is done I'll look at taking on the Mighty Mo.

I know what you mean about the excruciatingly small PE parts. If I doubt that I can handle a particular PE piece, I'll do a test run on one, giving my best, most patient effort, and if it comes out half way decent I'll attempt to use those parts. If it turns out to be utterly unmanageable, too small, too delicate for my skill set, etc., I just let it pass. Also, if a PE part is so small that it can hardly be seen without a magnifying visor, I ask myself with this really add anything to the final build? If the answer is "no", then I leave it on the fret. I don't see any reason for using PE simply for the sake of using PE. To my mind, it should add something noticeable to the final build. If it doesn't, why bother. Some manufacturers PE seems more robust than others. I try to stick with those sets. To me, using PE still comes back to one basic fact - this is a hobby and something I do for fun. Now I don't expect that every aspect of every build will be just loads of laughs. But, if something turns a build into simply an ordeal, I tend to fore-go it. I build for fun and I'm not a rivet counter. It doesn't matter to me that everything is exactly accurate for the ship at the time I'm depicting her, up to and including the camouflage scheme. Just my humble opinion.

Keep up the great work and I'll look forward to seeing more of your progress.

**robtmelvin** · 20 Jun 11,, 17:53

Builder, I forgot to mention, I'm from Kentucky to! Harlan, Kentucky, in the far southeastern part of the state. Nice to run into another denizen of the Bluegrass State.

Bob

**Builder 2010** · 20 Jun 11,, 19:13

Excellent! It's worth writing all this stuff if somebody reads it, and more importantly, learns something new. When I built the RC B-17E this year for a fellow on commission, I hadn't built an RC plane for over 25 years, let alone a multi-engine one. So I had to do some intense research and found several wonderful websites dedicated to RC; the best being RCScalebuilder.com. Here were some of the best builders in the world sharing their experience I learned a ton really fast. That plane is finished, I got paid and it flew wonderfully. If you'd like you can read the entire thread here:

http://www.rcscalebuilder.com/forum/...TID=15622&PN=1

As far as PE, I completely agree. Furthermore, this model's going to have to be encased in plexiglass which limits how close you can get to observe something. Therefore; details that aren't really discernible from 5" or more shouldn't be there. For that reason, I am not going to use the 40mm tub ammo rings even though I paid 18 bucks for them. They just aren't worth the hassle. Another PE part that may not be used are the little tipod, late-model, 20mm gun mount bases. The three legs are so tiny as to almost replicate hairs. I can imagine folding them, but can't imagine how to a) hold them together and b) glue the tiny 20 mm guns on top of it. They should rightfully be soldered, but again, I don't have equipment to work at this nano level. I may use the plastic bases attached to the kit guns and drill them to accept the PE gun assembly. That seems like micro work too, but at least I can visualize how to do it.

Today, based on a suggestion I read on the shipmodelforum.com, I bought beautiful brass lampshade extenders to use as turned standoffs for the model to be mounted upon. You also must buy the knurled nuts and threaded rod from a lamp store since the threads are 1/4-27 which is only used in lamp manufacturer (for some ungodly reason) and you can't buy the nuts and bolts in a hardware store, or find the taps and dies in a standard set. I'm glad I went to the store and didn't buy online or I wouldn't have known this. (and now you do to). The whole deal cost less than $5.00 which is a huge bargain compared to what we pay for model accessories in a hobby shop.

I've got a pretty complete shop, but what I don't have are woodworking machines to make the baseplate. I'm toying with a couple of ideas, one of which is to have Home Depot cut me a piece of furniture grade plywood to size and buy some pre-cut molding for the rim to piece together the baseplate. The other is to have it made at a trophy shop, of which there are several here in L'ville. Have you done any of this before?

Since I've jumped the gun and glued some stuff on that I shouldn't making it much harder to mount the decking, I am designing some accurate cutting templates while waiting for the decking to arrive. I took vertical pictures of the portions of the deck that need decking cut for them. I've imported these pictures into CorelDraw and scaled them 1:1. Then I drew the deck shapes on top of the drawing. I made a test print, cut it out and tried them. They didn't fit well enough so now I'm meausring the actual deck with digital calipers and adjusting the drawing to match. The mismatch is due to the paralax and perspective that the camera puts into the image. A camera doesn't take an orthographic projection.

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I'll have this done in a couple of days. I'll glue the paper diagram to some sheet styrene and then fit that to the deck. When that's right I will use this as a cutting template for the wood decking and we'll be in business. Like I said, getting ahead of myself just cost me a lot of work, but since I don't have the decking anyway, I would be stopped at this point.

Once I get the holes all drilled for the brass standoffs and epoxy the nuts into the wood blocks in the hull, I can start finishing the hull. That should eat up some time. I'm waiting for an answer from the ScaleDecks fellow letting me know when the delivery will be.

Oh... and yesterday, I ran out of Haze Gray when airbrushing all the parts on the sprues and the PE. I only bought one bottle and they're only 22 ml...tiny. I've ordered four more. The paint seems to be sticking to the primer on the PE nicely. I think the vinegar dip worked.

**USSWisconsin** · 20 Jun 11,, 20:02

Originally Posted by robtmelvin

Builder, I forgot to mention, I'm from Kentucky to! Harlan, Kentucky, in the far southeastern part of the state. Nice to run into another denizen of the Bluegrass State.

Bob

Hi Bob,

The forum asks new members to open a thread in the new members section and introduce themselves, you can look at a few recent intros to see what gets the best response - basically why you have joined and what your interests are. We would like to formally welcome you to the WAB.

Thanks
USSWisconsin

**robtmelvin** · 20 Jun 11,, 20:19

Wisconsin, just did that very thing.

Bob

**USSWisconsin** · 20 Jun 11,, 21:23

Originally Posted by robtmelvin

Wisconsin, just did that very thing.

Bob

Thank You Sir, Glad to have you with us

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Some Progress and a Dilemma

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