Jump to content

Combrig 1/700 HMS Queen Mary, 1916 (Jutland)


Guest PetrolGator

Recommended Posts

Guest PetrolGator

I've been shying away from "in-progress" threads lately for many reasons, but this one should contain enough new stuff for me and potentially others to maybe help someone if they choose to build one of Combrig's wonderful WWI-era kits.

 

Few notes. These kits are like blank slates. They're easy OOB builds for a newcomer to resin or build into stunning, detailed works with little sanding and lots of added detail. I like kits that fall into the latter, as I tend to take great lengths to super detail ships in 700 scale. It's nice when I don't have to remove an incredible amount of out of scale plastic.

 

For this build, I'm using:

 

- Aber RN doors
- NNT 13.5" barrels.
- Master Model secondary barrels
- L'Arsenal figures
- WEM British Battlecruiser PE, Queen Elizabeth (WWI) PE, various PE
- Styrene and brass stock
- WEM Caged aerial rings, stretched sprue, and Caenis thread for rigging. More on this at the end.

 

Queen Mary was fitted with a tripod past, new director, and an aft torpedo sighting station before her loss at Jutland. Furthermore, unlike her sisters, she still had her torpedo net booms and likely, the net itself.

 

This picture was taken shortly before her loss and is, effectively, her last known configuration:

 

post-1852-0-75990200-1436797670_thumb.png

 

 

Pre-Painted Hull Work

 

The Combrig kit's hull is rather plain. Unfortunately, short of portholes, no gutters, torpedo net booms, armor belt, or anything of the sort was molded on or provided via locating pins or holes for the modeler. I was, therefore, forced to refer to plans for their location and size.

 

  • Using the Kagero book, I drilled small holes in her hull at the base of where the booms will be located.
  • I also did a quick dry fit on the model, noting where any additional wafer sanding would aid in better fit for the superstructure. Some resin was CAREFULLY removed.
  • I immediately noticed that the NNT barrels were too long on the backside, requiring me to drill deep holes into the turrets for them to set correctly. This was not fun.

Efforts then looked like this:

 

post-1852-0-76789800-1436797675_thumb.jpg

 

post-1852-0-51852200-1436797680_thumb.jpg

 

My next step was simulating the armor belt in a way that wasn't horrible overscale.

 

  • Using the Kagero plans, I penciled the side and shape of the armor belt and masked it off.
  • Several layers of Mr Surfacer 1000 were thinly painted on the exposed hull, raising its profile respective to the rest of the ship.
  • Between layers, I tossed together the amidships funnel base and baffles, adding some internal bracing with styrene. I endeavor make this sort of detail the norm on the ship.
  • Brass cylinder stock was then used to build the torpedo net booms and various bits of styrene were used to simulate gutters and other details. Any discontinuities or holes were sealed with Elmer's or Mr Surfacer.

post-1852-0-90504200-1436797685_thumb.jpg

 

post-1852-0-79040700-1436797690_thumb.jpg

 

post-1852-0-18467600-1436797695_thumb.jpg

 

post-1852-0-02230300-1436797700_thumb.jpg

 

post-1852-0-97733400-1436797708_thumb.jpg

 

post-1852-0-06553200-1436797713_thumb.jpg

 

post-1852-0-84798700-1436797716_thumb.jpg

 

Painting the main hull/deck

 

...now came the fun part. I elected to paint the deck. Several resources contradict themselves on exactly what shade of grey was on the battlecruisers on Jutland. Some claim that the Royal Navy copied the Germans and elected to use a -very- light, nearly white grey. Others claim that the ships were still in the dark sea grey from the beginning of the war. Orders and official records, however, indicate they shared the general "light" grey color with the Home Fleet, with dark grey turret tops and black superstructure tips. Photographs of the time were notoriously unreliable for good color recognition, so the picture above should be taken with a grain of salt. Going with historical records, I elected for the light grey scheme mentioned in historical records and available in bottle.

 

This was applied, left to dry, then masked ad nauseum.

 

The deck was painted, first, with light deck tan, highlighted in random places with colored pencils, then capped with a thinned deck tan filter to blend the paint. I then applied Future and weathered the deck with a brown-red-black wash.

 

Aside from some paint issues, easily hand corrected, I'm happy.

 

post-1852-0-63907600-1436797722_thumb.jpg

 

post-1852-0-82994800-1436797728_thumb.jpg

 

post-1852-0-88155700-1436797733_thumb.jpg

 

post-1852-0-09643500-1436797738_thumb.jpg

 

 

 

This is where the ship sits for now. I plan to focus on the aft superstructure/funnel. I'd love to have most of that done by the end of the week, minus actually attaching the boats. There are a surprising number of parts that MUST be fitted before the catwalk can be painted and attached.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...