For my next ship build I am going for something a little smaller (and hopefully simpler) to build than my last few battleships.
I have had this Z-26 destroyer sitting in my stash since around 2017 so its time for it to get built. I am not going to go crazy with AM on this one since it comes with a reasonable amount of PE in the kit. I also sourced a railing set from Eduard. Its for the Dragon Z-32 but they are essentially identical when it comes to railings so should work.
First order of business though is to go through my paints and make sure I have the right colours
I will be honest, this was one of the easiest hull joins I have done. Barely any filler needed and pretty much zero step at the joins.
I also installed the rails for the mines. The instructions would have you remove all the plastic molded parts but honestly that was a lot of work for not much gain.
Been a while since I updated. What modeling mojo I have has been directed to some projects which have been on the shelf for longer than the Z-26 but I am feeling the itch again.
Been working on getting the superstructure together. With the paint scheme she will have, I will have to paint up the superstructure before I come back and all the deck equipment etc.
This is a very fiddly kit. Lots of very small parts (thank you Dragon Models)
Back to work on the Z-26. And for once the reason I wasnt working on her was not due to lack of mojo on my part. In fact I may have too much mojo since I went from her being my only unfinished kit to having several
I had planned on getting some paint on her hull this weekend but I got Dragon’ed
I did a final going over the instructions to see if I had missed something and turns out I had. Very small details on her deck, hidden amongst several other steps. I have cut and drilled and glued and am now waiting for putty to dry before I clean up the areas. Then I can paint.
Hopefully this week because I am at the point where I have to paint the superstructure so I can start add detail parts. She has a multi color camo and will be much easier to mask without all the hose reels, depth charge launchers, ammo boxes etc.
A lot of masking (remasking and then remasking again when I realized I had forgotten a whole section of camo) later and the hull and basic superstructure are painted.
The circled part is where I repaired the parts shown above. I used stretched sprue to replace the small parts where Dragon so kindly put massive sprue gates.
I need to go back and repaint the deck which got a lot of overspray as well as put some washes on all the fine detail on the superstructure. I should hopefully get that all done this weekend and can start gluing parts down
I also realized it was hard to see in my previous post but there is a boot stripe on the hull. I think I made it too narrow but I didn’t feel like remasking everything for 1-2mm of extra stripe thickness.
For any future builders, be advised that the marked supports need to face inwards towards the main mast. I built them facing out and that will not work when it comes time to install. Luckily I was able to readjust everything before the glue cured properly
Its been a busy few days away from the bench but I did manage to finish up the masts.
Main mast was very fiddly. Plastic is soft and flexible which is nice as it doesn’t break easily but also means it has a lot of give so hard to push parts together at this scale. Ended up coming together pretty nicely and easily.
The rear mast was another story. It is a super thin piece and came off the sprue all bent. I don’t think I would have trusted it to maintain shape when rigged even if it came off straight.
A visit to the Local hobby store later and I got some thin brass tube. A few cuts and some wire rings for support and I think I whipped up a good replacement.
I may or may not be able to get her done by the end of the week. Have a busy few nights and then I am out of town over the weekend. Off to Chicago to watch the All Blacks and Ireland play rugby!
