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To Mod or Not to Mod Not being able to mod a paper kit is the same as not being able to modify a car, a house, a plastic model. Once it is out there, it is in the public domain. It is "illegal" and unethical to take someone's work, copy it and distribute or sell it as your own. Many do this...

Weldments I'll post some videos on YouTube. I'll get the demo done in the coming week.

Welds Tanks are a subject where seams are good. Most of those seams are welds. Here's a tip for recreating welds. I suggest you try it on scrap first. You need some plastic sprue and a low temp soldering iron. Yu will need to stretch the sprue to obtain a diameter that is consistent with...

Display Base Display Base Any model this nice deserves a display base. I finally settled on simulated cast iron hull plate with raised lettering. 1. I cut two sections of Letramax 2000 mechanical board oversize, pre-rolled them the same way we do card and laminated them with Elmers. I...

White Stuff Is that spackle or putty in the seams? If so, you can forgo the necessity and tedium of having to fill seams if you fill the spaces between bulkheads with styrofoam. My Hunley build thread describes how to do this. Though much smaller than your Rodney I learned this technique from...

Table top lathes You have two options in the US: The Sherline Lathe, Milling Machine and Precision Miniature Machining Page OR Taig Tools - Desktop Milling Machines and Lathes. These tools are for 115VAC 60 Hertz electricity. In Spain, you want to look at German or English versions.

Hull Mounts Well, I failed to plan this and paid the price for it. I do not like bollards, the traditional method of mounting a ship to a display. To my mind, it makes the model look land locked. I prefer to see the ship in its natural element. So, I perfected a system years ago for mounting...

The Prop The Prop It’s the little details that add up to make a crisp and professional looking model. If you haven’t figured out by now, seams drive me nuts and I do everything I can to minimize them, even in the places where you might expect to see them. The simple fact is that at these...

Paper rolling As a follow up to my last installment, I wanted to back up a bit and show you how I accomplished the replacement of the hatch covers by creating compound curved surfaces without seams. Paper is a flat medium with poor tensile strength and limited malleability. However, even with...

Photography Notwithstanding your excellent build, I also wanted to call attention to your equally excellent photography. I suspect many of our members think it a challenge when, really, all that's needed is a constant light source, a cardboard box with the top removed and sides cut down, a...

Prop Shroud Next on the list is creating the prop shroud. Renova provides parts that must be doubled for strength, glued, then curved to the correct diameter. This is a tedious chore fraught with opportunity to make the part look like crud! Here is how I made my own: 1. I measured the...

You could actually make it into an operating pinhole camera if you had the desire to do so. Pinhole photography is a blast!

Thank you so much. That is very kind of you. I have put that aside so I can concentrate on Hunley. But, I will finish it after the Hunley and post more pictures. It is a beautiful building!

Hunley on TV For those interested, I did some internet research because that TV episode about the Hunley was playing on my mind. The television show was a series that featured episodes covering famous people and historical events. It aired on CBS, Friday nights during the 63-64 season and was...

I am really excited by this build. I'll show some pics of the prop and prop shroud as well as how I dealt with these. After that, it's a matter of putting the torpedo together and adding all the little parts! My enthusiasm for this project stems from a little known television program that...

I notice you live Barcelona. I have a model of Sagrada Familia that I am building. What a beautiful church and beautiful city!

CSS Hunley by Renova, Pt 2 1. In this next installment, I am preparing to construct and add the two hatches. Because the real coaming flange is a thick object, notwithstanding the concretization that has yet to be removed, the Renova part is too thin. In order to prevent any cupping or...

Hatches and other details I am working on all the various subassemblies. In this photo, I am using the Reheat Models Precision Punch and Die set to punch out the viewports on the fore and aft hatches. Mike Crisafullis' site indicates that Renova got the viewport placement for the captain's...

I have been using the Friends of the Hunley site extensively. Thanks for that. I like that idea about highlighting the rivets with different finish coats. That's a good one. I think I have figured out how to do it easily by creating a punch mask and laying it over the hull and spraying the...

I like the idea of mist coats, but curiously there wasn't much in the way of rust at least in areas you would expect. The speculation is that Hunley was built with used boiler plates which would have been readily available in Mobile from a nearby boiler manufactory. Since metal preservation...