Keep plugging away John. It might not feel like it sometimes, but you are making good progress and this is shaping up nicely.
HMS ZULU 14 SEPT. 1942. ( FOR SIMON ).
- Thread starter JayCee
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John
Hats off to you for your attention to detail. It's coming on very nicely indeed - I wouldn't know where to start.
ATB.
Andrew
PS Sorry to hear about the mast.
Hats off to you for your attention to detail. It's coming on very nicely indeed - I wouldn't know where to start.
ATB.
Andrew
PS Sorry to hear about the mast.
Jim R
SMF Supporter
Hello and welcome. Just a quick catch up, starting with the saga of the broken mast. I must take full responsibility for this. A case of paying all my attention to my right hand and not watching what my left was doing. I was engrossed in fitting out the after searchlight tower and thought I would speed up the build somewhat by sending Stelios ( my chief rigging fitter ) up the foremast to start work on the signalling halyards. Suddenly there was a startled scream followed by the crack of the mast breaking and then a meaty thud of a body landing on the bridge deck. It turned out Stelios had tripped over his flip flops and fallen off the yardarm, grabbing the mast on the way down. Luckily the way he fell meant he landed on the bridge deck and not all the way down to main deck level. He was also lucky that the rangefinder/director tower has not yet been fitted, so there was nothing to impale himself on on the way down.
Climbing a mast in flip flops ?! What about Health and Safety, I hear you all say !! The only H and S any of these misfits know or care about is HIRINO (pork) SOUVLAKI (kebab). So, Stelios is now in hospital with head and upper body trauma. Nothing too serious but it has stopped any rigging for a while.
I have also been having a disagreement with the rest of the merry men. Here in Cyprus all construction/building work ceases for the whole of August. I had already factored this into the build, however the minions now demand that they get the same holidays as their school age kids which is three months in the summer. I stood fast at the one month and then they played their trump card. If they did not get their holiday they would tell the authorities where most of Stelios's trauma came from. I cannot tell a lie, it was me beating the silly SOB round the head with a paddle out of a liferaft. So, 3 months "holiday" it is. Before they left they wanted a group photo. So here are the craziest (probably only) gang of shipbuilders in Cyprus.
While I have this enforced layoff I thought I may begin painting some crew figures.
The top figures are by North Star Models. Nicely detailed but very brittle. Even before trying to remove them from the casting wafer I have a number of Long John Silvers. These are sold as Royal Navy figures. The lower figures are by Black Cat Models. Slightly less detailed but less brittle than the North Star ones. These are actually U S Navy but in this scale I don't think the difference will be noticeable.
Painting will be interesting. All my figures lately have been at 75mm scale. These are only 5 mm or so. If I get to grips with the smaller scale I think the painting should go fairly smoothly, however I can foresee the eyes are going to be a Bu**er to get right.
Jus in case anybody out there thinks I am serious. NO I am not going to try painting eyes in this scale, 75 mm scale ones were about my limit. As the saying goes-I may be Daft but I ain't Stupid.
God Evening One and All. A C&Cs welcome.
John.
Climbing a mast in flip flops ?! What about Health and Safety, I hear you all say !! The only H and S any of these misfits know or care about is HIRINO (pork) SOUVLAKI (kebab). So, Stelios is now in hospital with head and upper body trauma. Nothing too serious but it has stopped any rigging for a while.
I have also been having a disagreement with the rest of the merry men. Here in Cyprus all construction/building work ceases for the whole of August. I had already factored this into the build, however the minions now demand that they get the same holidays as their school age kids which is three months in the summer. I stood fast at the one month and then they played their trump card. If they did not get their holiday they would tell the authorities where most of Stelios's trauma came from. I cannot tell a lie, it was me beating the silly SOB round the head with a paddle out of a liferaft. So, 3 months "holiday" it is. Before they left they wanted a group photo. So here are the craziest (probably only) gang of shipbuilders in Cyprus.
While I have this enforced layoff I thought I may begin painting some crew figures.
The top figures are by North Star Models. Nicely detailed but very brittle. Even before trying to remove them from the casting wafer I have a number of Long John Silvers. These are sold as Royal Navy figures. The lower figures are by Black Cat Models. Slightly less detailed but less brittle than the North Star ones. These are actually U S Navy but in this scale I don't think the difference will be noticeable.
Painting will be interesting. All my figures lately have been at 75mm scale. These are only 5 mm or so. If I get to grips with the smaller scale I think the painting should go fairly smoothly, however I can foresee the eyes are going to be a Bu**er to get right.
Jus in case anybody out there thinks I am serious. NO I am not going to try painting eyes in this scale, 75 mm scale ones were about my limit. As the saying goes-I may be Daft but I ain't Stupid.
God Evening One and All. A C&Cs welcome.
John.
Steve Brodie
SMF Supporter
John,
Tut tut I must say I am slightly disappointed in you not painting their eyes. You just need an electron microscope and a 20 O brush lol
Tut tut I must say I am slightly disappointed in you not painting their eyes. You just need an electron microscope and a 20 O brush lol
Steve Brodie
SMF Supporter
rtfoe
SMF Supporter
Oooh!! My...Liliputians. John, I'd give each one of them brushes too paint their own eyes. 
At that scale flesh tones will suffice and as long as you can get the V on the front of the blouse and a squared cape collar in the back that would be brilliant.
Cheers,
Richard
At that scale flesh tones will suffice and as long as you can get the V on the front of the blouse and a squared cape collar in the back that would be brilliant.
Cheers,
Richard
Hi Richard, Decidedly Liliputian !! The uniform you suggest ( The standard RN uniform ) should be quite manageable ( says he banging his head against the wall ). However the Zulu was in the Mediterranean at this time, so the normal attire would have been whites. All the photo's I have of ship's crews at sea (including some taken on Zulu) show them wearing whatever they wanted .There is one photo of a gun crew on Zulu and all 6 men are dressed differently. I will have to see what comes.
Cheers,
John.
Cheers,
John.
Hi folks. After the long summer break, which was mainly spent reading and re-reading the book of builders blueprints I showed earlier in this blog I have come to realise that, whilst Zulu is not finished building yet, she needs to go into dry dock for a complete refit. There is so much wrong that I just cannot finish her at the moment. Some of this stems from Trumpeters crap research and some from my own numptyness ( is that a word ?). I started off going by the kit instructions and also some other builds of this kit on model shipbuilding sites. Taking it all as gospel I ploughed ahead. Turns out all the other builds were half-arsed as well ! I WILL finish this build, but at the moment I am going to do some figure painting for a change of pace and to get some enthusiasm back. Hope to see you all back here.
John.
John.
boatman
SMF Supporter
HI John hope it wont be too long as im likeing your build very much
chris
chris