Revell HMCS Snowberry Flower Class Corvette
This is the eighth part of the Revell HMCS Snowberry Flower Class Corvette 1/144 Scale RVG 05132
This week was a bit more stressful than I had expected. To start off I ran out of Tamiya XF-84 Dark Iron, and I noticed that I had used up my bottle of XF-19 Sky Grey as well. So I went to my extra paints box to grab my spare XF-19 and XF-84 that I knew were in there. I searched through that bin 3 times looking over every paint and I couldn’t find either one, and this can mean only one thing… Goblins!
Yes, it’s what every modeler fears, goblins have found my secret stash of Tamiya paints and in a malicious act have stolen the paints that I needed. The good news is that I was able to quickly find some more paints online plus a few other supplies that I’m going to incorporate into this build, so I’m very excited for those to arrive.
I started this week’s work by painting the very tiny Lewis machine guns with Tamiya X-10 Gun Metal. To weather up the gunmetal color I then applied a wash using Citadel’s Nuln Oil. I find that this combination creates a nice antiqued look to the gun metal instead of using something like a flat black.
Lastly, I painted the stocks with some Tamiya XF-10 Flat Brown, and once the paint had dried I’d be ready to add these to their mounts.
The hatches that go above the engine room (which I previously misidentified as the galley) were added and Revell included little pegs on one side so that you could pose some of the hatches opened. Admittedly, some of these were tricky to add on due to their size, but with some patience, I was able to get them all in position and leave a few open.
There are clear windows that go into centers and these are to be added on top of the hatches. I decided to leave these off until the build was nearly completed to avoid the possibility of the windows fogging up during weathering or adding a flat coat.
I’ve added several of the parts to the roof of the engine room, this is where most of the work will be focused for this post.
The layout of the Flower Class Corvettes varied a lot after they were refitted in 1943, and because of this I’ve had a harder time identifying many of the parts, but I’m trying my best to identify them. The curved section is the roof entrance, and I might go back later on and add some doors as I think it will look a bit nicer than looking into a dark opening.
The hoses were added next, and these little parts required quite a bit of clean-up work. I painted the hose sections with Vallejo Olive Drab 70887.
The Lewis guns were added to the mounts. These were a very delicate fit as there wasn’t a lot of space in there for the guns to rest on. Partway through the build I bumped one of the guns and it was loosened. So I used a more permanent approach by placing a small drop of Mr. Just super glue in between the guns and hopefully this will be enough to prevent them from moving in the future.
The aft gun platform was added next and the storage rack was placed on the front. Be careful at this stage to properly align the mount with the holes on the bottom of the engine room roof, this will be critical in the next stage.
In the instructions (step 25) Revell has you add these supports first and then add the tower on top. I found that this worked a lot easier. Once the gun platform was dry I placed each of the struts into the hole and then into the socket underneath the mount.
This also allowed me to trim down some of the struts as a few were a bit too long. And within a short time, I had all of the struts added around the platform.
Now I was able to add the gun to the platform. Building this gun was surprisingly very fussy and it took some time and careful gluing to get everything set in place. But seeing it in place now was well worth those extra efforts.
Next, I added the four intake scoops to the top. These were a bit tricky for me to sand given their size and shape, but I think they’ve turned out really nice. I also added some more stowage boxes on the side.
The cranes for the depth charges launchers were added to the sides. Looking at some recent reference material I might have gotten the colors for the pulleys wrong, it looks like they should be a brown color. But I might just leave them as they are as repainting them now that they are one the model could be more difficult than it’s worth.
I was excited to add the next parts, the frames that hold up the life rafts. I painted the outer side with my custom blue (Tamiya XF-23 Light Blue + X-14 Sky Blue (1:1)). I still have to build and paint the life rafts, but they are going to look great mounted onto this frame.
The next step is to add on the railing, but I’m still deciding on what I want to do with those parts, so I’ll stop here for this post.
I was talking to a friend of mine today who contacted me out of the blue. I told him that I was working on this kit, he built it himself and basically started working on it just days after it was released.
I explained to him that cleaning and dealing with all of these tiny parts was sort of getting to me, and he told me that he had the same issue when he built his kit, but he encouraged me to just keep moving on with the kit and that the tedium would pass.
And he was completely correct! Sometimes you just have to keep pressing forward with a project and it just gets fun again. I don’t know why, but I do know that it works.
Next time we’ll be working our way forward and I’m excited to add on that giant smoke stack. And yes, that includes those tiny details.
And keep an eye out for modeling goblins, they strike when you aren’t expecting it.
To be continued…
Jared Demes is a modeler from southern Alberta. He has been building models since he was 4 years old when his Dad first introduced him to the hobby. He has written for several magazines including, Fine Scale Modeler, Scale Aircraft Modeling, Phoenix Scale Models, and others. He has an interest in all modeling subjects, with a focus on WWII Japanese aircraft and Science Fiction.
Jared has won several IPMS awards for his modeling, and currently operates his YouTube channel rebelsatcloudnine, where he showcases model builds and product demonstrations.
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