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Post by GR1 on Apr 27, 2011 19:45:32 GMT
Just a quick thought... Ken, did you ever get anywhere with doing an article for the mag???
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Post by NoelSmith on Nov 14, 2011 17:16:34 GMT
Pictures of Revell's test shots are there to see on their website.
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Post by NoelSmith on Dec 23, 2011 11:53:19 GMT
Ref Tunnan's earlier post......Fred Hocker's reference to the colour used on Vasa as 'Arctic Red'. Any idea what colour this equates to that is available as a proprietary modelling paint from Humbrol, Tamiya etc. When I visited the Vasa Museum, looking at the large scale model on display, the red looked quite light in shade.......almost a shade of pink!
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Post by tunnan on Jan 11, 2012 22:27:29 GMT
Hi guys
Its taken me a long time to get back onto this forum but I have lots of other things on the go.
GR1 - I did two articles a few years back - one about the ship itself, pulling together various sources, and one on carrying out some improvements to the Airfix kit. I cannot remember if I sent the articles to the editor or if I simply asked if he was interested but got no reply.
Noel - I have checked my e mail hard copies and Fred actually said "USAF insignia red, if applied over a gray rather than white base coat, comes close" (so my error - sorry).
I am in no way an expert but I have collected together a reasonable amount of information some on visits to Stockholm, some general, some about sailing ships in general and some from the net. A lot of web sites simply repeat the same stuff. I also have some information direct from the museum itself.
I originally had two Airfix kits with the plan of a 'then and now' but to be honest after months bringing the kit up to date for 'now' I could not face going all through it again so sold the second kit.
I bought the new Revell kit last week and have been gathering together information and doing some colour swatches so that I can make some decisions about colours, shades, etc. My intention now is to try and complete the kit for Perth (was going to do another scratch build of a swedish Air Force what-if but I will put that off till next year).
The revell kit is a definite improvement in some places (don't need to cut round all the figures on the beak for example). has all the rails and figures in the right place. The down side is that I think the figures are a little less sharp than the airfix ones. There is some shrinkage, the worst of which is on the rudder.
I will post some info on colours once I work it out and also as I have some info from the museum.
Hope this has been some interest.
Cheers
Ken
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Post by tunnan on Jan 11, 2012 22:30:06 GMT
Noel, sorry I should have added the red on the ship has a definite pink tinge to it and I dont think it is simply due to the lighting. I bought some more acrylic paint today for swatches and I will come back with some suggestions.
Ken
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Post by NoelSmith on Jan 16, 2012 14:45:20 GMT
Thanks for the feedback Ken. Funnily enough I have been looking at a website named scale plastic and rail there is an out of the box review by a guy named James Hatch about the Revell Vasa. When I looked at the photos on my PC of the new kit parts and compared them with my Aifix kit, I have to agree with you that the carved figures did not look as sharp as on the old Airfix one. It's a shame that the Revell kit is 1/150 scale and the Airfix 1/144th scale, so no chance of any kit bashing to use the best of both unfortunately. With regard to the 'Arctic Red' colour, I went into a local Games Workshop outlet and found a colour named 'Blood Red' in their Citadel Acrylic paints range. It is the nearest thing that I have seen so far to the colour on the large scale model in the Vasa Museum....But....I am relying on memory alone! Will be very interested with what you come up with though. I have been an IPMS member for many years now and have never seen an article in the Mag about building the Vasa Kit. Usually the mag is crying out for articles, so perhaps you did not submit it after all. Some months ago I emailed the present editor to say that I would like to review the new kit, but he did not reply and I have heard nothing since. But you never know, I might suddenly get a box sent to me out of the blue!
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Post by tunnan on Jan 16, 2012 23:27:37 GMT
Hi
I have done various colour swatches and made some decisions. I suppose I should also declare that I have some knowledge of timber through my job which influences the colours. SO...
First I undercoated with grey primer to kill the brown colour. Thewn did some light cleaning up.
Revell call out for the inside of the Bullwark to be 'brown'. There has been speculation as to whether this was red but as far as I am aware an investigation has not yet been carried out. I have plumped for H110 for the framing, and the inside of the beak. The actual timber panelling between the framing I have done H118 and I have also carved out the edges of the timber boarding. Not too precisely and I added some splits, etc. The framing to the beak is in H118 and again I carved the boards. I have also brushed some 'grain' marks onto the framing.
Revell call for the deck to be a mix of africa brown and beige. The main deck I believe was pine and I have read that decks were washed down regularly. I started by painting some of the boards randomly in various shades of brown (earth, khaki, etc) along with the odd bit in a paler colour. Boards were not done from end to end but randomly, as was some graining in a dark red brown. I then built up the pale colour with Tamiya XF78 Wooden Deck rubbing some off as I went to let some of the colour below weep through. I am happy with this as it gives a nice faded effect. Other decks were done similarly. The framework around the hatches are Oak and these were done in H118. The hatches were done in XF52 Flat Earth. fred Hocker says that the deck drains, etc would be a darker grey compared to the deck but as I am planning on a pale grey wash I have not painted thes differently.
PartE79, the bulkhead at the beak, was also given a similar treatment. It has been suggested that this may have been red. However I again used different colours along with some graining and covered it with H110. The number of steps is not quite right (Airfix ones took about 3 nights to cut and fit) but look OK.
The 'deck' of the beak was a real pain in the Airfix kit but much better here. At present I have only painted this H110. The boixes, incidentally, are toilets. No seats, no cover!
Some details at the beak need to be sharpened up and marking in the board edges improves this no end. Also do the boards on the outside.
Fred says that to be really accurate one should paint the hull as it would have faded, i.e. the lower half was built and overwintered and so would have faded more than the upper half. It also appears that there was no anti fouling paint applied. So the hull would have been blackened and would have faded to a redish brown. I am going for H186.
The gun barells would have been a purplish brown in service and not highly polished. I mixed up a large dollop of rust and added some ultramarine and green, and finished with some blue to get a 'damson' colour.
I have painted the rear faces of the hull (H186) and I am starting to apply a red undercoat. I was going to do a dull red but after some thought I reckon that they would want the ship to 'shine' and may apply some oil to make the colours stand out, so I will now go for a bright red (H196 I think it is). I note that there are some holes in partC106. If these do not ecieve a backing plate than you will see right through. Once the windows are painted I will apply clear plastic behind.
Thats about it for now. I have done some other parts but have not noted the colours yet. My intention is to pre paint as much as I can then touch up and lightly weather.
Cheers
Ken
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Post by NoelSmith on Jan 18, 2012 17:45:43 GMT
Hi Ken. Those paint references in your last post will be most useful. It is obvious that you have a great deal of knowledge about the ship, so it might be a good idea to do a write up about your build of this new kit as a comparison to the Airfix kit and submit it to the magazine. I would dearly love to visit the museum again and spend a lot more time there. My only visit was from a cruise ship tour coach, so I only had about 2 hours max to get around the museum, the shop and photograph the ship. Took quite a lot of pics but in my haste had the ISO set a bit low on my camera, so some suffered the old camera shake. It's a bit dark in the museum so if anybody is reading this and plans to visit, set your camera at ISO 400 or higher.
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Post by tunnan on Feb 3, 2012 22:36:29 GMT
Hi Noel I have been working away. Not too sure of some of the Revell colour call outs but presumably they have collaborated with the museum. I have basically gone for the colours indicated ( although substituted what I had in the drawer rather than go and buy a lot of new paint). Although they have done well they have missed out some figures so I used my imagination and reasonable guess work.
One thing I did do before starting was blow up the paint guides to A3 size and coloured in and annotated what I could.
The top rails are white which is a real pain to paint and some of my paint is real heavy. I have also had to clean out some of the gaps due to the way the ship has been moulded.
When doing the figures I do not use 'flesh' - that horrible apricot colour. I tend to use something like deck tan or in this case Games Workshop Bone. Much better match to the photos I have. I did the mermaids first then started on the beak and am currently most of the way through the galleries (to one side). My advice would be to stick to one small area/ number of figures at a time. I hope to finish one side of the ship this comming week.
As you will have noticed I waffle a bit so not sure about an article!
Regards
Ken
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Post by NoelSmith on Feb 14, 2012 13:13:26 GMT
Hi Ken, I only have the Airfix kit at present, but looking at the Stolt drawings from the museum, I keep finding more that will have to be done to make it more accurate. At present I have found that the dormer windows on the side galleries would have to be removed and the window made flush to the hull in the same position. Difficult to put right as carved details adjacent. Rails missing at top of hull and some figures to remove from poop bulwarks. Carved details below beakhead would need flat areas opened out to give a fretworked effect as you have already mentioned as well as the grating above that area being wrong. Considering its age, the Airfix kit isn't too bad as it was made when the Vasa was only partially restored, and was still being sprayed with water and preservative in the 70's. Revell have the advantage of a further 40 years of restoration on the real vessel before doing their research with the help of the Vasa Museum So I think I will pause now before starting and get one of the new Revell kits. It will probably save me a lot of hard work! My intention is to build the model full hull with standing rigging and running rigging with furled sails. A bit ambitious maybe, what with all the figure painting! I will need to sort out a method of making all the rigging blocks required, as I do not know of any supplier of anything in this scale unfortunately. The Stolt drawings from the museum are excellent but a bit wanting in places as far as model making goes. e.g. I cannot see any ends to the deck planking where they join, Also the side elevation showing the hull exterior does not show all the planking by the strakes and the lower hull to the keel. The downside of this is that I cannot see where any of the scarph joints is where each bit of planking ends. The drawings do not show this detail on the strakes that are drawn either. The Airfix kit is devoid of this detail, so hopefully the recent Revell model will show where all the scarph joints are.
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Post by NoelSmith on Feb 16, 2012 18:08:53 GMT
I had another look at the photos of parts of the Revell kit on the Scale Plastic and Rail website in James Hatch's review. It looks as though they have detailed the ends of each plank on the weather decks, and that is to be commended, but not so sure about the faux woodgrain however. I was hoping that Revell would have detailed all the scarph joints for the ends of each plank on the hull sides, but looking at the photo view of this part it seems that like Airfix this particular detail is ommited also on the Revell kit. The stern window frames look a bit on the heavy side due to moulding limitations. It may be better to carve these out and replace with some photo etched square mesh and glaze with Humbrol Clear Cote after painting the frame colour. When I looked at the photos, Revell have moulded the parrals in situ on the masts to only be able to build the model with the sails set just like Airfix did on theirs. So to make the model with furled sails and with the yards lowered or with sails taken down will cause some problems to be able to change. A pity that the parrals were not moulded separately so that the modeller had the option to position the yards raised or lowered. Revell have managed to do a very good job of the carved details below the beakhead that can be seen through unlike the Airfix kit. But why, oh why did they decide to mould the gammoning to the bowsprit right over this. Unfortunately this leaves a great glob of plastic behind the moulded on gammoning going straight onto the carved detailing. To correct this will be difficult so that it can be rigged properly with scale rope. The moulded gammoning will also have to be removed from the bowsprit as well as the hull sides to do it properly. Some of the simplifications were done to make the kit easier for the younger or casual modeller such as the moulded ratlines and the bowsprit gammoning. These will be discarded and replaced by more serious modellers. The ratlines, relatively easy to replace. But the gammoning will be a bit of a challenge to sort out. The Revell kit has the potential to be a very fine model as in the main it has addressed the major things that are incorrect on the Airfix kit, but will need some work to make it into a proper scale miniature of the Vasa.
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Post by tunnan on Mar 1, 2012 22:15:01 GMT
Hi noel
I have the drawings but made a concious decision to build the Revell kit more or less 'staight from the box'.
From memory:
Dormer window - I (very carefully) carved off the figures on the roof and laid aside which meant i could then carve away the dormer and create the window. I then used very thin plastic (vac form packaging from aftershave set) to lay on a new roof. (I had tried this between the figures but quickly came to the conclusion that the figures had to come off). I then marked out where the figures were to go. If you lay them straight on top they are too high so I carved a trench for them to sit in.
There are lots of wee gaps but plasticene covers a multitude of sins!
Top rails - the drawings are useful for this.
Statues - if you cut the statues off the top rail you ca re-use them on the galleries.
It is easy to add doors, etc.
Revell kit
Gammoning - you can carefully cut out areas from the rear above and below the figures which gives the impression of the ropework. As to the bit adjacent to the figures I think it might be possible to carve inwards and then paint very dark, like a shadow. I think it should be possible to cut back the gammoning above deck but have not got to that yet.
I am at the point of closing up the hull, hopefully tomorrow if I can get a couple of hours. The figures are definatly a weakness. Really in most cases a series of blobs so I have painted them up to give an impression of what is there as opposed to something definite.
regards
ken
I have not checked but I wonder if it really is possible to mix and match?
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Post by NoelSmith on Mar 2, 2012 17:39:50 GMT
Hi Ken I must admit that the thought had occurred to me about doing a bit of cross kitting some of the Airfix and Revell parts despite the difference in scales. If I can get a hold of a Revell kit to have a good look at and compare the bits with my Airfix one will be the only way I will be able to see if it is feasable or not. Trouble is it starts to get a bit expensive as both kits are around the £27.00 mark! Still...I suppose a lot of other single kits must be in the region of £54.00 these days, so it may be worth it to get a more accurate model in the end. Thanks for the tips in your last post. All the best Noel
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Post by frankaplin on Mar 2, 2012 20:53:05 GMT
Some pictures would help please.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2012 22:19:39 GMT
I was looking through the stash a few days ago and tucked into a box at the bottom of the stash was a very dusty box ... an Airfix Wasa! ... the things you find eh?
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