Battleship model from scratch

[johnkilo]

I'm going to start taking real pictures soon because I'm sick of looking at these shitty cellphone ones, haha.

[johnkilo]

Didn't get too much done today, guys. Had to go to the ER and spent a lot of time there because of a problem with my heart (the problems never seem to stop). Came home and worked on the ship a little to cheer myself up.

Piles of reference photos and diagrams.



Made the exhaust funnel. Actually had to make this twice because the first one broke.



Sadly that is all for today. Tomorrow we will be taking a break from working on it and will probably be back at it on Saturday, barring disaster.

[johnkilo]

Just working on the superstructure. It is slow going but coming out great, I think.



Still have a lot more to go.

[Masato]

johnkilo, your story is moving bro

I'm a big believer in the healing properties of pure creative activity for health and well-being. I'm no doctor but I believe that worrying = stress, and stress is maybe the worst thing for the body or any issue with health. Doing something personally creative and rewarding calms so much down and puts us closer to a state of balance. So strange that with all the skills and abilities of our doctors these days, that they are often so blind to these simple kinds of holistic concepts of health.

The ship is looking great. Are you gonna paint it? Add little dudes on it etc? How are you gonna do the fine guns and details?

Best wishes with your heart man. Don't know the problems, but spending time in an ER room is no fun man. How you supposed to work on the ship? lol

[fungi]

whoops, haven't seen this thread before.

THIS IS SO FREAKING COOL!!!

[=Darky]

awesome project :D

its fun to watch the progression too.

ahh the beauty of the creative process.

lookin great man!

[johnkilo]

johnkilo, your story is moving bro

I'm a big believer in the healing properties of pure creative activity for health and well-being. I'm no doctor but I believe that worrying = stress, and stress is maybe the worst thing for the body or any issue with health. Doing something personally creative and rewarding calms so much down and puts us closer to a state of balance. So strange that with all the skills and abilities of our doctors these days, that they are often so blind to these simple kinds of holistic concepts of health.

The ship is looking great. Are you gonna paint it? Add little dudes on it etc? How are you gonna do the fine guns and details?

Best wishes with your heart man. Don't know the problems, but spending time in an ER room is no fun man. How you supposed to work on the ship? lol

Thanks Masato and everyone else for the nice comments.

You're absolutely right, Masato. This project may be a gift for my brother, but I'm also doing it just to be creative and to get my mind off my problems and what not. The heart issue is being caused by a medication I was on (supposedly), and luckily there is nothing actually wrong with my heart. Just been a long string of health problems for me since June (Bronchitis, Lyme disease, now this), add to the fact that I haven't gotten more than two hours of sleep per night the last two and a half weeks... it's all very draining mentally and physically. Well all gotta do what we gotta do to keep going, though.

I plan to add as many details as possible. I didn't really look into ship models until after we had started the project. Most plastic models come in like 1:200, 1:350, and 1:700 scale kits. They sell all sorts of details stuff (called fittings, I guess) on the internet, but most of it is for those 3 scales. We made this ship something like 1:220 scale, so it's oddball. We'll make all the details ourselves and see what we can find on the internet. I am going to paint it, I already have the paint. Other than getting the bow of the ship properly shaped, I am most worried about doing the paint job. I've been an artist all my life and I am good at doing your standard type paintings, but I haven't really done a model before, especially one not made out of plastic. I've been doing a lot of reading though.

This guy did an amazing job on the details and painting of his ship. http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/bb/bb-62/NewJersey-350-sni/index.htm

I'm going to do a few tests on scrap wood with the paint before I actually touch the model.

We're going to make a display stand for it like this:



Anyways, on to the pictures from the work we did today:

We made the bridge today. It is only a quarter of an inch or so tall, so you can imagine how much of a pain it was getting all those tiny pieces to stand up and putting the roof on. You may notice below it that I drew out the planks for the deck. A lot of modelers apparently cut their own planks from small strips of wood... but honestly I don't have time for that, and that (from what I've read) could take a month or more. The ones I drew in this picture were too large for scale, so I re did it later, but I haven't taken any pictures of it.



Made a little rig on the router table to make the holes in the turrets for the main guns.



And unfinished turret.



Here's how the front looks as of now. The turrets are just sitting on the deck, but they will be lifted up slightly when it is finished.



Here's the view from the rear.



A picture from the side.



That's all for today. Sorry again for the huge pictures. Next on the agenda is finishing the main turrets. We started working on the barrels at the end of the day. They are going to be challenging. So much more to do, but I'm looking forward to it.

Thanks for looking.

[johnkilo]

No updates today, unfortunately. We attempted to make the gun barrels out of wooden dowels but they kept breaking, so we're going to machine them out of aluminum. Hopefully I'll have some progress pictures tomorrow.

[Masato]

holy shit you move fast, man

[johnkilo]

Took a day and a half to finish machining the gun barrels for the turrets out of aluminum, but they're finally done. The turrets still need to be finished, however.