Hello and welcome!
We're nearing the end of January, and that means one thing: new model announcements! Traditionally, the big manufacturers make known their plans for the year around the last week of January, when the Nuremberg Spielwarenmesse takes place (one of the largest toy fairs in the world). Last week, Airfix made their big announcement, and there are some cool things on the way, among others two Spitfire variants: a mk IXe with a Belgian option, and a tr.9 two-seater, the first time this variant is made in plastic. There's also a new tool SEPECAT Jaguar coming, which is pretty exciting and long overdue.
Anyway, that's for the future. Back to the present, where the Fram build is coming along nicely.
Last week I started on the second planking. It went pretty smoothly. Strip by strip the outer hull took shape. The instructions are a bit vague in places, and I didn't quite get everything lined up properly, but all in all, it's looking good. This is what it looks like before filling and sanding:
Some small gaps do need to be filled, though. I used
Vallejo plastic putty, to avoid having to sand away too much white filler. The hull does need a general sanding anyway to make everything nice and smooth. The bow and stern also need shaping to accept the keel parts.
First, though, I needed to add some wood strips to the inside of the railing. The deck edging needs to be bent in the horizontal, a nearly impossible task without a heat-plying tool. I soaked the planks in hot water for a good 20 minutes, made a curve as good as I could, then superglued the pieces onto the deck. Instructions call for 19cm long planks, but this was too short, so I had to add small pieces to the end, fitted the end part and cut them to size. You can also see the bulwark supports already in place. These are about 11mm long, I cut them a bit longer, with the intention to cut and sand them to size once in place. The instructions are a bit vague here. They intend to show that the supports need to be sanded flat, not angled, but manage to convey the exact opposite... The build videos are a big help here once again.
This is what the rear deck looks like with all of this in place. OcCre instructions tell you to paint all the extra parts first, but knowing it would need a lot of sanding anyway, I opted not to do this right now. I'll just have to be extra careful to not spill any paint on the deck later.
Last thing that was needed here were the railings. These run all along the edge of the ship and overhang a little bit. They're preformed lasercut parts, and I noticed they were too short. That's my fault, though. I did not sand the stern ribs enough and as a result the entire ship is slightly too long. Some filler was needed to make everything fit.
See that deck hole in the left? You're supposed to drill through to that from below, with a 6mm drill bit, to fit the rudder pole. Problem is, the instructions called for the stern planks to be open with a gap of 4mm between them... I'll cut the rudder pole in two and insert one half each in deck and keel. It'll be easier and cleaner.
Also, I dry fitted the propeller. Turns out this also needs a hole to be drilled, but that is not called out anywhere in the instructions...
So with this done, it was time to varnish. The hull was covered with OcCre's
satin varnish, helpfully included in the
Fram paint pack. Now the hull looks nice and shiny. You can see the keel parts in place here, too. Note the rudder support that is now in the way of drilling out the propeller shaft...
Last thing I did was attach the reinforcing bands on the stern and bow. These are (very thick) photo-etch. I superglued the part going over the rib, then used the naildriver to add the nails. The stern is done:
The bow has a few already in place. These will run all the way down and looking at it now, I think I should have started from the bottom...
Once the reinforcements are in place, the hull needs some extra strips, then I can prime the whole thing and start painting.
That's it for now.
See you next week!
