"Hood" ready to sail

 

And there it is done. A fun little project which apart from a little hole cleaning, went together perfectly. 

The finished ship is 16cm long and 9cm tall plus base. Big enough to see the detail, but small enough to fit in a display cabinet. Too small for radio control though sadly. I'd quite enjoy sailing a version twice the size. 

Meng's designer has done a cracking job to produce an identifiable, but caricatured model. I'm sure that's a lot harder then making an accurate one. I wonder if they would like to do some trains...

One part I have left off is the name "Hood" for the base. Knowing the history of the real ship, and her fate, I'm a little uncomfortable with a caricature version, so have decided that this is a model of HMS Troutbridge instead if anyone asks.

Assembling the Hood

 

In theory, the Meng kit pushes together, but in the same way I don't do plastic kits without paint, I don't do them without glue either. 

Not that the model was likely to fall apart. Most of the holes into which parts are supposed to locate were on the tight side, probably not helped by a layer of paint. All needed to be slightly eased with a broach normally used for metal kits. 

The upper and lower hull parts benefited from some glue and clamping to avoid a tiny gap between them. These little clamps were just big enough to do the job. 

If you know the prototype, you can appreciate the effort the designer has gone into with the bridge area. Everything that should be there is there, just in cartoon form. The trick with the model is to pre-paint everything as the build (to my mind) needs to be very clean. I didn't plan on weathering the ship as I don't want any hint of realism about the finished product.

Meng cartoon "Hood"

 

My dad is still working on his scale model or the warship Hood - but when looking through the Meng website after finishing my Santa Tank, I spotted a plastic kit version and wondered if I could finish this before he had his on the water. 

Spoiler: Yes I can. 

The kit is designed as a push-together model that should be reasonably idiot proof. In theory, the modeller doesn't even have to paint anything as the plastic is self-coloured. Of course, I don't approve of not painting, so quite a lot took place before removing any parts from the sprues. 

As you can see, there are decks to paint at the very least - the box suggests half a dozen different colours. I decided that the pale grey bits could be sprayed Humbrol 64 and then dry-brushed with a paler shade as the detail is very impressive. The hull bottom gets a coats of Halfords red oxide primer, my standard anti-fouling shade, and as easy a paint to spray as you are likely to find. 

Then, everything was left to dry. For several months as it turned out...