Building the Airfix 1:600 HMS Suffolk
The main components, the catapult area has been filled with styrene stock.
Micromaster´s very highly detailed 8 inch turrets improve the overall impression.
The secondary armament is equally nice and very highly detailed.
The boats are little works of art, sadly they are a bit too high for the limited space between decks.
The hull in its cutout on the base.
The hull has been isolated with tape and vaseline, and acrylic caulking has been applied to close any gaps and create wave effects.
This brush is (in my hands) ideal for stippling the water surface. White wall paint of good quality is used.
The base has been stippled and left to dry.
To mount the model on its vise during construction, I added a section of styrene to hold the mounting screws.
The edges of the base are sanded.
I used these paints for the base.
Firstly, green was airbrushed away from the hull.
Then a medium blue was added.
And lastly a dark blue.
The wave effects are carefully painted white.
The base is ready for its gloss coat - but you need to wait a week after using the water-based wall paint and acrylics. Otherwise, moisture will escape and form bubbles in the gloss coating.
The rather crude kit bridge has been rebuilt.
Same as the next level.
After adding some detail to the bulge and drilling open part of the scuttles, the deck was added.
Assorted inclined aldders.
PE fun starts.
The quadruple 0.5 in machine guns were amongst the iffiest items.
Close contenders with these masttop radars.
I rebuilt the masts from brass and PE items. The perforate bar stock was used to mount the yardarms to the masts. The result is much stronger than just gluing them.
PE handwheels can be used for oh so many things, here to anchor the tripod mast´s rear legs.
The completed masts.
The cranes are quite important items for the model´s overall look.
The Walrus amphibian can be detailed from the WEM PE set.
The base has received its glosscoat.
I worked from this profile, which I found here: world-war.co.uk/Kent/suffolk.php3
Quite a lot of masking ensued.
But the result looked quite neat to me.
Yet more masking was needed to spray the decks.
The end result.
These three shades were used for the camo scheme.
Fitting the model out with the prepared subassemblies.
Коментарі
24 May 2020, 10:35
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I built this classic kit for the first time, and am impressed by the overall quality, after 56 years. WEM PE was used, plus 3D printed primary and secondary armament plus boats (all by Micromaster).