I've been working on this thing despite few updates.
I spent quite a while evening up the gun ports with file and wood filler. The inner and outer bulwark pieces did not align terribly well with the core piece that went on pre-planking, and they aligned worse on one side than the other. I attribute this to my focusing on lining up the bow end of those pieces with the stem, then trimming the stern end to fit. In the future, I would focus on aligning the ports, and trim both ends as needed. Nevertheless, I eventually got there, and masked the outside as suggested before painting the inner bulwark red.
I used AK11092 Matte Red for this. Unfortunately I got quite a bit of paint wicking under the tape onto the outer bulwarks.
In retrospect it probably would have been better to just use a small brush and paint carefully to the edge, and not bother with tape. Fortunately, some scrubbing with a Q-tip and AK thinner got the offending paint off.
One thing that I was very unhappy with was this gap at the bottom of the transom.
I don't think that this is any fault of the kit, but rather my not knowing exactly what shape I should be aiming for as I shaped the aft portion of the hull. So I imagineered an additional little piece of trim that improved the situation some.
The kit comes with a large sheet of photoetch containing many, many eyebolts the go all over the ship, as well as the chainplates, stanchions, and many other pieces, some of which don't seem to be used, based on the plan sheets. Almost all of these need to be black (bar the pump handles and belaying pins). I bought and tried out some brass blacking solution, but did not like the result. The black coating the forms is fragile and rubs off easily. So as an alternative, I got out an airbrush and sprayed the whole sheet with Gunze metal primer, then painted most of it flat black with Mr Color lacquer (in my model airplane pursuits I'm 100% lacquer-based, so this is my go-to for anything airbrushed).
For some of the larger pieces like the chainplates, which attached the the sheet at both ends, I cut one end free and filed it smooth before painting. I masked off the parts that need the be wood colored, and will paint them later.
Then I attached the main wales and gunwales, and painted them black. There are a bunch of mounts on the gunwales for small swivel guns, but according to the kit literature these were not carried in the period where Trial fought her most significant actions, and they are not included in the kit.
The yellow tape on the hull is just to protect the paint if I need to set it on the temporary stand that came with the kit.
I spent quite a while evening up the gun ports with file and wood filler. The inner and outer bulwark pieces did not align terribly well with the core piece that went on pre-planking, and they aligned worse on one side than the other. I attribute this to my focusing on lining up the bow end of those pieces with the stem, then trimming the stern end to fit. In the future, I would focus on aligning the ports, and trim both ends as needed. Nevertheless, I eventually got there, and masked the outside as suggested before painting the inner bulwark red.
I used AK11092 Matte Red for this. Unfortunately I got quite a bit of paint wicking under the tape onto the outer bulwarks.
In retrospect it probably would have been better to just use a small brush and paint carefully to the edge, and not bother with tape. Fortunately, some scrubbing with a Q-tip and AK thinner got the offending paint off.
One thing that I was very unhappy with was this gap at the bottom of the transom.
I don't think that this is any fault of the kit, but rather my not knowing exactly what shape I should be aiming for as I shaped the aft portion of the hull. So I imagineered an additional little piece of trim that improved the situation some.
The kit comes with a large sheet of photoetch containing many, many eyebolts the go all over the ship, as well as the chainplates, stanchions, and many other pieces, some of which don't seem to be used, based on the plan sheets. Almost all of these need to be black (bar the pump handles and belaying pins). I bought and tried out some brass blacking solution, but did not like the result. The black coating the forms is fragile and rubs off easily. So as an alternative, I got out an airbrush and sprayed the whole sheet with Gunze metal primer, then painted most of it flat black with Mr Color lacquer (in my model airplane pursuits I'm 100% lacquer-based, so this is my go-to for anything airbrushed).
For some of the larger pieces like the chainplates, which attached the the sheet at both ends, I cut one end free and filed it smooth before painting. I masked off the parts that need the be wood colored, and will paint them later.
Then I attached the main wales and gunwales, and painted them black. There are a bunch of mounts on the gunwales for small swivel guns, but according to the kit literature these were not carried in the period where Trial fought her most significant actions, and they are not included in the kit.
The yellow tape on the hull is just to protect the paint if I need to set it on the temporary stand that came with the kit.