Thread started by StevenVD
Steven Van Dyckadded a new photoalbum.
27 27 May, 00:24
Steven Van Dyck AuthorMy third of 4 Marine Nationale kits will now get started. This is the rare one, and I will place some interesting memorabilia near it. But it's a different scale now in 1/400.
27 May, 00:29
Steven Van Dyck AuthorThe hull halves are glued and sanded after a series of undeep holes are drilled out. Some comparisons of the forecastle and stern with the 1/400 plans are problematic, it doesn't copy exactly.
1 June, 00:27
Steven Van Dyck AuthorI replaced the resin guns with brass remains of the Dunkerque project, at least these were straight. There were some small errors in the kit, like plastic missing and PE parts that were not separated. I also received the aitems to identify the showcase. One is the insignia of the Béarn fighter wing and is from a famous jeweller Arthus Bertrand.
6 June, 00:17
Steven Van Dyck AuthorThe bow and stern are completed with the kit's resin and PE additions. I noticed that the type of railing is not correct for these locations, but I'm stuck to it because of the unusual scale. I wanted to replace the side galleries because of the thickness of the plastic floors. I stil need to replicate the many support brackets there were on the plastic.
9 June, 01:15
Steven Van Dyck AuthorIn this update I detailed the so-called "Cul de Lampe" of Béarn, a series of venting holes below the smokestack. Because these were not perforated through the hull, I first had to drill a lot of holes. Then I cut out the pattern of the vents. I noticed that a spare Zuikaku windscreen had all the mesh parts that were needed to close down these holes, after cutting apart the screen partitions. On the inside I closed down the hull with styrene walls, painted grey. I also improved the catwalks with spare PE but this should be adapted further to the old plans. It appears L'Arsénal has omitted all inclined ladders and level differences. Another necessary improvement is the midsection of the hull, that should get a bulkhead to remove warping due to tensions in the hull.
10 June, 13:17
Steven Van Dyck AuthorThe front and middle elevators will be opened up. Two fake interiors are made that will show 2 centimeters to each side in the upper hangar. The front elevator will be almost level with the deck, because of the fixed ceiling above this elevator. The island has a sandwich structure of PE walkways and resin superstructure parts, with a large stack block. The mesh on this stack is far superior to that on the hull. The top of the stack is damaged during removal of the casting block, I repaired that with putty.
12 June, 22:51
Steven Van Dyck AuthorTwo brass supports are introduced through the hull and fixed with old sprue parts. The drilling for the holes in the composite hull was mindnumbing, the hull made cracking sounds. A polishing stone adjusted the diameter. The deck parts are painted grey and also the lift interior.
4 July, 12:30
Steven Van Dyck AuthorI replaced the three cast resin bridge parts with sheetmetal and styrene scratched compartments, that have all windows drilled out. There is some slight damage to the window styles, but this can be repaired. I prefer to be able to watch through a window in stead of what seem like heavy shutters. I might not have done this if the windows had slots.
9 July, 21:53
Steven Van Dyck AuthorI had to make my own engraved flight deck in metal, because the planking needed was about 0.3 mm wide. I had to engrave 200 lines with an interval of 0.3mm. I cheked before if there are no generic planked decks available, but none of these surpass 0.5. Then, the two parts I made were adapted to the deck edge and the elevators first. Then the tie-down holes were transferred and all detail shaved off the plastic deck.
11 July, 20:31
Steven Van Dyck AuthorThe deck is fixed after adding some scratch structures on it. The front and back ends had to be clamped later on. Some sanding was done to get it even on the sides. Then I made a change to the front deck overhang, that was modified in 1935. Some carefully drilled metal foil was put in the place of the struts that were on the PE set. These were sawed off, a risky undertaking so close to the ship's guns.
15 July, 10:32
Steven Van Dyck AuthorThe front elevator cage was scratched from two Pontos Essex frets and a L'arsénal perforated beam set. The drilling of the beams cost some effort.
17 July, 10:08
Steven Van Dyck AuthorThough there are some design errors on the plane construction guides, I succeeded in completing the airwing. I also built the ship's propulsion system, while replacing the axles with 1,5mm ABS rod.
23 July, 23:38
Steven Van Dyck AuthorI corrected an error in the port catwalk. I had to remove an entire section of catwalk with reinforcement ribs to place it more to the rear. Also, the galleries at the front were detailed with spare PE lattices.
25 July, 14:44
Steven Van Dyck AuthorMost of the davits form the kits are missing; One set was provided as a PE part, but you need 10 sets. All of these had to be scratched. Also you get a third anchor with the kit if you are lucky, which I wasn't. But I was able to trim some Very Fire anchors. The nameplate was made with the Aber PE lettering set. Then I primed the hull in Gunze 305, used NATO black for modulation and covered all that under regular Vallejo grey primer until it was light enough to my idea. I didn't want it to get as dark as the Dunkerques I made last time. The deck was primed in Tamiya Dark Yellow 2 and modulated with wood brown and deck tan.
14 August, 20:21
Steven Van Dyck AuthorRobert, the scribing of the deck can be seen on pictures 130 unto 140 with the comment of 11 july. A metal foil was used as a cover. It was the only option to have some planking on the deck. Now I only have to apply a brown wash and see to it that it doesn't chip.
15 August, 07:19
Steven Van Dyck AuthorThe planes were painted in Gunze 306. The L'Arsénal decals are all connected with one film. You need to cut them out. Also, the Levasseur underwing decals are oversize and the ones that would match are reserved for the Dewoitines. But the underside will be invisible all the same. I also painted the boats, that all needed a tiny boot topping. The ship itself also got a red boot, but some red overspray resulted in a ribbon. This was misted with Gunze 305 and will be moderated after the wash phase. At last the anchors were masked and painted black.
1 16 August, 00:55
Steven Van Dyck AuthorThe boats are mounted, some with old Dunkerque wood deck cutouts and others with white canvas on top. Then I used a gloss coat on the ship's deck and used a brown Mig wash to get the best out of my engraving. Another gloss coat was needed as a base for the deck markings, all on one large decal paper. You have to choose from 1934 and 1939 so I took the last one that is more elaborate. I guess some of ther planes could be excluded by this date but they will all be used. Removing these decals from the paper is a recipe for disaster, but I managed to reunite all snippets on the deck. Then I drached them with Daco Sol and it couldn't be better with paint. I also installed the island and the elevators. Now I know it looks like it's 99 percent done but the ship is still missing all its AA guns and small apparatus. That's still 10 per cent to go.
2 17 August, 22:10
Steven Van Dyck AuthorSome parts from this 1/400 kit can be replaced by more detailed parts in 1/350, if you make some alterations in length. I used Aber 75mm barrels and some searchlights and 37mm barrels from Very Fire and Eduard. The gunshields had to be scratched with metal plate, using the original shields on the sides. Like that, the shield could be doubled in width and this could actually give some protection to anybody using it, compared to what L'Arsénal included. Also in this update, 7 metal rangefinders in stead of the bizarre apparatus in resin, railing and doors at the stern, an LSO indicator device that had to be scratched just like some 1939 additions to the crane environment (needed if you use these deck lines in stead of the 1934 ones). I also ordered a 65x20x20cm glass showcase, that will be procured saturday.
1 21 August, 00:50
Steven Van Dyck AuthorWeathering on the hull has been applied with Lifecolor Liquid Pigments. An enamel rust wash was done and some acrylic chipping added. Now, the rigging will be applied to the mast, where some PE roundels were stuck to copper wire.
27 August, 20:58
Steven Van Dyck AuthorRigging was used on the island for the flag lines, the wire antennas, the cage aerial, the boat supports and also for the extremities of the arrestor cables. The middle part of these was made with knotted sewing thread.
30 August, 23:51
Steven Van Dyck AuthorI needed a lot more roundels, so I printed these in 2mm and 3.5mm diameters. I then applied decal film and cut out the roundels. I removed the nose cones from the Dewoitines and the Loire-Nieuports to correct the prop position. I also corrected the canopy plating for the Voughts and added even more tricolore to them. All planes were coated gloss and then washed with Tamiya brown. They are ready for a matt coat now.
2 September, 23:32
Steven Van Dyck AuthorThanks, guys! The project was finished today. I added the memorabilia to the showcase too. The ribbon was wound on two hollowed sprue parts that were hidden in the base. The seahorse pin was stuck on a brass pipe drilled into the base. I changed the position and number of the 13.2mm guns according to the plan, even if I had to remove 2 telemeters. I added wire antennas to the Voughts, and a large French flag to the smoke stack. Béarn will now accompany the Dunkerques in their tour of events.
4 September, 17:27
Łukasz GlińskiOutstanding, respect for your perseverance. And thanks a lot for visualising the pre-war french carrier for us, not something you can see often, at least the first I could see completed 👍
4 September, 20:01
