1. Go to FaceBook and join this page: “Runns Webshop – www.Runns.se” (just make a search in the search field on FaceBook to find the page). If you do not join this page, you will automatcally be disqualified from the competition.
2. Answer this question: How many binary numerals are there in total?
3. Go to the following webpage (the answer can be found in the product description): http://tinyurl.com/y99czb7
4. E-mail your name, surname, adress, postal code, city, country, and telephone number together with your answer to: geekscorner@madeinmalmo.se
5. The winner will be notified on the 30th of March, and can expect to receive their price within 2 weeks from Runns webshop.

LED - The Singularity

LED - The Singularity

May the force be with you!
//The Dude and Dudette
PS: Don’t forget to invite your friends to this competition; the more, the merrier! DS.

So far we have acheived something that floats. She’s ready to leave the dry dock and move on to fitting out. This is also the bit where your ship develops it’s distinctive character and identifiability.

Some recommended prep work. If you still have the deck plan view glued on to your hull you save your self some problems by marking out where your turrets will be centered and also your superstructure. This will help you greatly later on. You can use a scalpel to punch through the paper and then you simply clean off the paper and glue residue before you start mounting turrets and other bits.

Above you can see the marks that will help guide in the barbettes and superstructure drawn in red.

Superstructure

The superstructure is the base on which you’ll fit stacks, masts, the bridge and pretty much everything else. Below is the piece for this ship which I cut out of the deck plan and filed to shape. Most ships have something similar to this.

After I’ve cleaned the piece up and polished off the glue I simply glue it to the ship using the alignment markers. Below you can see that I’ve also started on the rear of the superstructure. You can pretty much just cobble the whole basic superstructure together using small bits of styrene sheet and tubing. The gun platforms below are just cut up bits of tubing. You can also see the stacks and their bases.

I build up my superstructure from bits of styrene added on top of one another. It’s really that simple. Just add more until it looks right. Keep looking at the plans and reduce everything to simpler shapes and combine them together to form more complex shapes.

Stacks

The stacks are also simply tubing chosen by which ever diameter most closely matches the scaled blueprint. Cut to the prescribed length and glue to the superstructure. In this case I added a pair of this bases as per the drawing.

After the glue has had time to set you can sand the stacks down so that they are even and plane.

Above you can also see that I have added a bit of green stuff to make a funnel cap for the front funnel. There’s more on green stuff under the section on turrets. I also thinned the wall of the tubing using a scalpel which I rotated inside the tube, kind of like a lathe.

Turrets

Let’s face it, this is where it gets interesting Guns, big freakin’ guns!

There are many ways of building turrets, almost every modeller I’ve talked to has a different approach. Some even go as far as to make their turrets poseable, I.E. they rotate. This is a bit of a master class thing and I haven’t got around to trying it yet, though I am really dying to try.

A gun turret consists of the turret it self and the barbette into which it fits. It’s basically a deep hole into the ship’s hull thet holds the turret and allows it to rotate. So the first thing to do on the main guns is to make barbettes and placing them on the hull. I use simple plasticard tubing for this, just cut a very thin section for each barbette. Check your plans so that they’re not too high for the ship. If they are, you can fix that after you’ve glued them on just by sanding them down. This also makes sure that they’re nice and plane.

Above is a picture of the barbettes being dry fitted to the hull. You can’t see the marks I’ve used for alignment because they’re to faint.

The turrets them selves I make from three components. A styrene base, brass barrells and green stuff to complete the shape. Below you can see the first steps of the turrets. I assembled the base from a very thin sheet of styrene and a halved section of styrene tubing. Just glue together and file off the excess plastic at the front where the curve is. The barrells are just snipped of to the right length and filed smooth at the business end. I cut a pair of grooves into the front of the turret to fit the barrells and then glued them in place with plastic glue. A practical tip is to use tape to hold the barrells parallel while the glue sets.

While the glue is setting you can prepare some green stuff to finish the turrets off. You may want to wait half an hour before preparing the putty while the glue sets. Just mix equal parts of the yellow and blue putty and knead until it’s uniformly green. Grab a small glob and push it into the turret so that it covers the whole structure and then gently shape it into what ever shape you need. You probably will end up with fingerprints in the putty. You can smooth these out with a smooth piece of metal or sculpting tool which you dip in water.

Leave the turrets to harden over night and then you can sand or file them down until you get the right shape and smoothness. Now they are ready to fit to the hull, you may want to wait a bit with adding the turrets and get going on the superstructure without having the turrets getting in your way. The styrene base will also make them bond well with the barbettes.

Masts

For masts I use the same brass rods that I use for cannon barrells. Plastic masts won’t last long on the gaming table so it’s better to use more durable materials. It’s a basic metod, find the spot where the mast goes, drill a hole of slightly larger diameter using a pin vice and glue a section of rod into place. When the glue has set you can snip the rod off at the proper height and file the top smooth.

For this ship we’re going to make what’s called a tripod mast which is basically a mast with a pair of diagonal braces.
Start by finding out where the braces meet the superstructure and use the pin vice or scalpel to make a pair of pits. Measure out a pair of braces from plastic rod based on the blueprints and glue them to the pits and gently lean them into the mast so that they look symmetrical. Let the glue set and fashion a bit of styrene tubing to fit over the mast that we will use to anchor the braces to the mast. See below.

That’s it! Easy as pie.

Secondary armaments and AA-guns

Smaller calibre guns are easy to make, in this case the secondary batteries are just bits of tubing (again) set into the recesses of the superstructure. For barrells I simply used plastic rods and glued them on, it’s OK to let them sit flat on the deck.

For AA-guns I use yet more tubing, just thin slices that simulate the platforms or tubs in which the guns would sit. The guns them selves are usually too small anyway. In this case there are heavy AA-batteries on either side amidships. For those I chose a thicker slice of tubing and diagonally hacked a bit of the side facing the water. Then I added a very thin bit of rod to simulate barrells.

More Details

You can always add lifeboats or dingies for that busy look. They’re easy to make, just get another piece of plastic rod, cut to length, round off the ends and sand one side flat. Hey presto! Dingies you can make out of chain links that are roughly 3 mm long.

Yet More Details

A warship has lots of little details and they look busy. There’s always more details to add, wings on the bridge, fire directors, details on the masts. Just keep adding until you feel it’s right.
My final touch is usually anchor chains and anchors which are fishing line and a small bit of styrene rod respectively. You can just make them out below.

Here she is, pretty much finished. The last thing to do before painting is going over the whole miniature and scrape off excess glue and polish off toolmarks and such.

Previous posts:

Part 3: The Hull

Part 2: Tools & Materials

Part 1: Blueprints

//The Dude

If you have a blueprint, printed to scale you can now proceed to making the hull of your ship. Quite naturally this is the first step in the process and also the step that most defines the look of your finished ship. This is where you’ll want to spend a little extra effort while shaping and sanding so that it gets the right look and feel.

The first thing you need to do is find the proper thickness of styrene sheet to make up your hull. Your hull’s height is easilly found by measuring the height from the waterline to the deck on your scaled blueprints. If this height is greater than the sheets you have available you’ll need to sandwich several bits to get the right height.

With the correct sheets selected, proceed to cutting out the top view from your scaled down drawings with a scalpel. It’s not critical that it’s micrometer correct, but try to stay within the lines. The ship in the photo has a raised forecastle so I’m cutting out an extra template for that to be cut from a separate sheet of styren to be sandwiched on later. Another thing that I was lucky enough to find for this ship was a plan view of the hull at the waterline. This is very helpful in shaping the hull so that it curves right. You will most likely not find it for your ship and you’ll just have to improvise this bit. Generally the waterline profile is more pointed at the ends and slimmer.

Next step is to cut out pieces of styrene that are slightly larger than the cutouts of your blueprints. You can do this with a good pair of scissors if the sheets are thin enough. Make sure to leave a bit of margin all around because this will leave rough edges. Thicker pieces of styrene needs to be broken off. This you do by first scoring a line where you need a cut and then carefully scoring it repeated times with your scalpel. Don’t use too much pressure, it’s easier to control the blade this way. After you’ve scored the piece, it should break cleanly along the line.

Now you proceed to gluing the cutouts onto your pieces of styrene. If you’re going to sandwich the hull you should start by gluing those layers together with plastic glue. Make sure that you line the peices up along the edges. When the glue has set you can add the cutouts. You glue the cutouts on with a regular gluestick like the ones you had in first grade. Regular paper glue is good enough for this. We’ll be removing the paper later so it’s better with a glue that’s less strong. If you have the waterline profile you glue that on to the reverse side of the hull, taking care to align it with the deck profile. Also make double sure that you have the bow pointing the same direction on both sides

Now you can start sanding down the pieces to the shape of the profiles! I start with a very rough sandpaper to quickly get the basic shape down. After this I proceed with finer and finer sandpaper. Details I shape with jeweller’s files, f ex the semicircular indentations on the piece of superstructure above.

After the rough sanding is done, you move on to finer grades to get the last bit closest to the cutout. I will now add the raised forecastle to the hull piece.

First I removed the bit of cutout where the piece is going to sit, taking care to polish off any glue residue. You can scrape it off carefully with your scalpel or a very fine sandpaper. Then I glued the bits together and let the glue set over night. You need to be a bit patient with this or you’ll risk having the bits slide around while sanding and glue can seep out of the joins.

When the glue has set you can start blending the bits together by sanding them down until the join is invisible. Now you should try and get the curvature of the hull done. 

Here you can see that I’m sanding down carefully towards the narrower profile of the waterline cutout. Take your time with this and stop to check that you have the same shape on both your right and left sides of your hull. It’s more important that it looks symmetrical than that it is perfectly to plan.

A lot of hulls curve inwards at the bow, you can achieve this by using a file with a rounded or leaf profile. Just be careful and take it slow and you should get a nice racy-looking prow on your ship.

That’s it for this part. You should be able to knock out a decent hull with these tips. Don’t forget to polish the hull thoroughly after you’re done shaping it in order to remove toolmarks. If you don’t they’ll show through after you’ve painted her.

Previous posts:
Tools & Materials

Blueprints

Next post:
Details, details, details!

Good luck!
//The Dude

I use a wide variety of tools for my ships but that is not necessarily the only or even the best tools for the task. Some you can do without if you like, or can’t afford them. I generally improvise and occasionally I whip out the Dremel when I feel lazy…

Materials

Plasticard 

The majority of my ships are built almost entirely out of styrene plastics. It is very easy to work with and it is available in many forms and profiles as you can see from the picture below.

The basic variety of styrene is the sheets which come in varying thicknesses from paper thin to 2-3 mm. The hull of my ships f ex are a sandwich construction of bits of styrene sheet. This way I can build the hull up to the exact height I want for my ship.  

Various types of styrene plastic

Above you see a few other variants of styrene products such as rods, tubes and an i-beam profile. These are from Evergreen’s product line are primarily geared towards model railroads and larger scale models.

You should be able to find styrene sheets in stores that cater to modellers or tabele top gamers.

Gale Force nine

Evergreen

Metal

I use a bit of brass rod or wire for masts and gun barells. It’s very good for these things since styrene is very soft and bendy. It might also break if not handled carefully. So brass is better if you’re worried about strength. You can usually find brass rods in several gauges at the same stores that carry plasticard.

Glue

When it comes to glue it is worth your money and peace of mind to buy a good plastic glue. Make sure it has a very fine nozzle like the one below. It should also flow easily and not be too sticky when applied. Getting large globs of glue and spiderwebs of stringy glue on your model will ruin your day and maybe even your new ship.

Revell plastic glue

You may want to invest in a superglue of some type as well if you intend to use other materials other than styrene, such as brass or other metals. I recommend that you find one with a fine nozzle, maybe one with with a fine flexible tube. They are very handy for getting at minute parts in tricky spots and they don’t slobber glue all over the place.

Green stuff

Green stuff is an epoxy putty that you mix together before use and which sets very slowly so you have plenty of time to work with it. It’s called green stuff because the two components of the putty are yellow and blue. When mixed properly the putty becomes green. When it has hardened it can be filed and sanded if needed.

Green stuff is available from several suppliers, f ex Gale Force Nine and Citadel.

Tools

Scalpel

A good scalpel is absolutely necessary for working with styrene. Get a good surgical scalpel with exchangable blades. Also invest in a self healing cutting mat to protect your work bench. Exacto has good blades and mats and are easy enough to find.

Files

Jeweller's files

A set of jewellers files is one other thing you should invest in, they are cheap enough and are available in sets with different shapes. 

Sandpaper

Sandpaper and sanding block

Coarse sandpaper is great for rough shaping hulls quickly. Follow this up with a finer grain paper to smooth the surface off. A sanding block is useful, but not strictly necessary. Pictured above is a very coarse grained sandpaper on a sanding block.

Tweezers

Tweezers are useful when placing fiddly bits on your models. I bought a set together with my files, cheap stuff. You don’t need anything fancy, just make sure that they have fine pointed tips.

Calipers

Calipers are useful for getting measurements that are very accurate, f ex if you’re unsure what gauge a bit of sheet is or what diameter rod would be suitable for a funnel or gun barrell.

Steel ruler

A good steel ruler is great for when you need to cut a straight line with your scalpel. The benefit of a steel ruler over a plastic one is that you’re less likely to ruin a steel ruler by cutting into it, which will happen sooner or later with a plastic one.

Pin vice

A pin vice is a small hand held drill. They are great for drilling holes for masts and such like.

Pin vices

Summary

Well, these are my basic tools and some not so basic tools. You will see more of how I use them to build my next project in the next part of this series. In that part we will look at applying the blueprint to the styrene in order to shape a hull.

Cheers for now!

//The Dude

Read part one 

Read part three

To think of that this project begun with a bad joke of “I’m going to paint my Orks pink!”… Stay tuned for results further along the line of time.

//The Dudette