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Compass Rose.

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I was aboard USS/CGC Mohawk, when she was home ported at Key West, before her demise. It took stout hearts to sail in steel ships on the North Atlantic convoy routes. Such men had to soaking wet and frozen to the bone a great deal of the time.
 
Its a British joke Bob, We have a small selection of zealots here who police the country in the name of "health and safety"... we could never of fought a war with them picking holes in everything and everyone :rotf Never mind the guy winching 300LB of TNT in a drum.......look out for that trip hazard :rotf
When I was at our office in London I saw a problem with a wireless device in the ceiling. Told them, give me a damn ladder and I'll fix it right now.
"No mate, you haven't had ladder safety training".
I thought he was serious at the time now I wonder. :blink
He probably didn't want to see my fat ass up there moving ceiling tiles around in our corp hq.
 
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No we were warned about using ladders by the factory inspector years ago, you are supposed to use a hydraulic platform with wheel locks in the workplace now. On one of our sheet metal presses which was an old cast iron war time thing they insisted we fit so many guards to it that it became so difficult to access we had to get rid of it. Its 99% driven by insurance companies and employer liability because in theory to use a ladder we had to get the boss who owned the company to get stuff down from high up for us as he wasn't covered by employee liability .
 
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I was aboard USS/CGC Mohawk, when she was home ported at Key West, before her demise. It took stout hearts to sail in steel ships on the North Atlantic convoy routes. Such men had to soaking wet and frozen to the bone a great deal of the time.

My step father was on the north Atlantic run. He didnt really talk about it but he was on a flat top and one day he mentioned that clearing the ice off the decks was a continuous 24hr a day job and once said they used to test the catapult by firing damaged aircraft off the deck. The thing he didn't mention to me was peeling potatoes :) It was a standing joke on a Sunday that George would have to get up really early to get the potatoes peeled by lunch time and there was only 4 of us. He would surgically peel these things and they were perfect and the wastage/peel was almost nil
I guess life during wartime and on a ship taught him the value of even basics like a potato.
 
HMS Snowberry arrived today and the PE set is on its way........................from South Korea no less..... I looked in the box ? what have i done, there are over 500 parts mostly to small to pick up :rotf or er even see.. Now i know why i build in 1/9 scale these days and why i live in admiration of Chris and his tiny models ships
The RN is currently retiring its Hunt class mine hunters , they are named after local villages here that have famous hunting packs, horse and hounds and HMS chiddingfold has just got the chop. Chiddingfold is a village near me and was very patriotic to its ship. They are being replaced by remote operated crew-less vessels. The reason i mention it is Chiddingfold was almost identical in size and layout to the flower class corvettes

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I have a few questions if anyone can help /
Nearly all the models of Corvettes are in Camo, blue/grey but nearly all the period pictures of Wartime ships are plain grey ?
When you build a ship model do you build the hull and paint it to save masking later, then paint the deck and add it, then the superstructure, as i cant see you could paint parts once fitted ?
Anything else i should be aware of ?
 
@paddy The best way to explain it is to plan ahead. As you (and I) are unfamiliar with the subject, do some reference and kit study, then plan how you want to deal with it. I suspect your answer will depend on what you are trying to do.
For example, my howitzer is mostly one color, grey (ugh). BORING! That doesn't mean that it can be all done together and at once. I did a lot of sub assemblies, and now it is mostly big main assemblies. The primer color is on and has dried all week and now I am going to treat each chunk as a separate piece to paint and detail. There are some small parts that are separate and vastly different colors including some rods that mount on the sides that are painted in red and white bands. I guess they are for cleaning out the barrel. Not sure why they are red and white, but vintage photos show the striping even if it is B&W.
Study and plan ahead. on my build those are still separate parts. The half track is the same way. I am sure this will be a challenging build as it is something new for you, but I have confidence you have it covered.
 
At the start of the war most ships were in the standard overall Admiralty Dark Grey. Some crews began painting the vertical surfaces of the superstructure in a Light Grey to blend in with sky. There were also some localized schemes applied at the direction of ship's Captains.

In 1940 official experiments began with disruptive patterns and colours. By mid-1941 the Admiralty introduced the Western Approaches scheme of Off-White, Pale Blue and Pale Green for escorts operating in the North Atlantic. Overtime Admiralty Disruptive Schemes were developed for each class of ship with colours and patterns tailored to theatres of operation.

Due to lower wartime paint quality ships were regularly repainted in new patterns and colours. The colours used were often determined by what was available at the time and the Captain's preference.

As an example, the Flower-class corvette HMCS Trentonian was commissioned in Dec 1943 wearing the Western Approaches scheme. She was repainted in Apr 1944 in a variation of the Western Approaches Scheme using Off-White, Light Grey and Dark Grey. In Jul 1944 she was repainted in the Admiralty Disruptive Scheme of Off-White, Medium Grey and Dark Grey. In Nov 1944 she was painted in the Admiralty False Hull Scheme in Light and Dark Grey. In early Feb 1945 she was repainted in the Western Approaches Scheme before she was sunk escorting a Channel Convoy 22 Feb 1945.

Cheers,
RichB
 
Thanks Rich, thats what i am finding, by the last 9 months of the war most ships had reverted to the overall peacetime grey . I think you could chose any scheme and it would be hard to prove wrong but there are companies doing std western approaches set of 5 paints which will make life easier.
 
I paint my horizontal surfaces first, and the shoot up at the vertical surfaces and touch-up the lower bits of the vertical surfaces on my smaller scale models.

I'm having a gander at the kit instructions on Scalemates. It looks like quite a lot of painting can be done before assembly.
The depth charges have a seam down the center? What a pain in the arse! The separate depth charge hatches are a nice touch.
I like how Revell laid out the Mousetrap/Hedgehog launcher. What a neat kit!
 
HMS Snowberry arrived today and the PE set is on its way........................from South Korea no less..... I looked in the box ? what have i done, there are over 500 parts mostly to small to pick up :rotf or er even see.. Now i know why i build in 1/9 scale these days and why i live in admiration of Chris and his tiny models ships
The RN is currently retiring its Hunt class mine hunters , they are named after local villages here that have famous hunting packs, horse and hounds and HMS chiddingfold has just got the chop. Chiddingfold is a village near me and was very patriotic to its ship. They are being replaced by remote operated crew-less vessels. The reason i mention it is Chiddingfold was almost identical in size and layout to the flower class corvettes

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MT Miniatures makes a Rhino scale model of that cool ship. They are located in Bristol, UK.
 
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