Re: Assembling UNSC Ships

Having very recently built a grand total of one UNSC
battleship (so recently it is still sitting in
undercoat on the bench) after having it sitting in a
box since shortly after they were released so I can
offer some advice that while not expert is recent.

Drill a hole in the major hull sections and put a pin
through them. The tricky bit is that the holes should
line up. What I did was drill one of the ‘wing’
sections first then drill through this to the other
wig section and then reverse it and into the hull and
so on. The pin was a length of brass rod, rather over
length, epoxied into the two wing sections which were
assembled first then when had set it was trimmed to
fit the hull and then the drive support section. The
drives themselves were attached with thick superglue
Gel, Zap-A-Gap I think. The epoxy was Araldite, two
nasty, sticky tubes I pinched off my father but still
the best epoxy I know off.

It worked but there was a little bit of fiddling
getting everything to line up properly. Even so I
would build any large ships in the same way though I
might be tempted to use superglue gel a bit more as at
the same time as building the UNSC BB I was building a
BFG BB and largely using superglue gel after using
epoxy for the critical joint between the two main hull
sections. All the same the longer setting time of the
epoxy was invaluable for wiggling things into line.

I would rather have liked to replace the torpedo tubes
with those from a warship kit but I did not have a
suitable one around at the time. Since then I have
purchased a Tamiya kit of the German Z class DD that
has some perfect looking torpedo tubes. The Tamiya
1/700th IJN accessory packs would have been ideal but
I have not seen them in years. I think Skywave do some
though, imported by White Ensign Models.

I am still tempted to drill some fine holes in the
ship and add miscellaneous antenna. I wonder if anyone
does UN decals? The letters could be done with
rub-down lettering, if you can still get it, but the
flag would be tricky. The bits of etched brass that
come with Dragons lovely little 1/144th scale armour
kits might make nice radar systems but these might
look better on the blockier NSL ships – and now 

As to the colour scheme you are on your own. I have
mine undercoated in white because I have seen pictures
of the ships in UN white with blue trim and it looks
good. It might also be a reaction against my brothers
‘everything black’ undercoat policy.

Michael

=====
It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of this
has done what he has done.
  - Richelieu

	
	
		
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