Pre-dreadnoughts

A bit too much time away from here, don't you think?  I have not had much desire to work on naval stuff lately, despite having several projects deserving attention.  One has to start someplace so let's go:

Here is my first group of ship models from WTJ.  These are assorted pre-dreadnoughts in 1/1800 scale.  US, Spanish, Japanese, and Russian vessels are pictured as they await some attention with soapy water and a brush.



After that, I need to make masts and figure out how to base them...

WW1 German ships, part 2

With a little bit of spare time, I was able to make a little more progress with my WTJ 1/1800 ships. 

Magdeburg and Strassburg, and their masts.  I am not certain of the diameter of the brass rod used for the masts, but the yards are made of 0.006" brass wire (the long piece in the pic above).  Again, the mounting holes for the masts are printed into the WTJ cruisers, so just a bit of glue and in they go.

It is a different story with the TB's.  Their masts are also made from the thin brass wire, but I had to use a drill bit to make a hole for them.  I did not put yards on the masts for the TB's.

All of my 1/1800 ships now have their masts, although it is a bit hard to see from that angle.  Primer will make it much easier to see - more pics after that!

WW1 Russian ships, part 3

Inspiration can strike suddenly, and this time I took advantage of the situation and worked on my WTJ ships a bit.

Here is my small flotilla of 1/1800 ships - German cruisers on the left, Russians on the right.  One can see that I have already primed the first Russian cruiser - Bogatyr - but I forgot one small detail... masts!  So, back to work.



I have some thin brass wire that I use for masts, and this time I decided to use plastic rod as well.



Before putting in the masts, I looked around for some pictures to
help guide the work.  The WTJ ships have holes for masts already present
in the model, in cruisers and larger at least, so siting the masts was
not a problem, and I found a pair of pictures in one of my books - The Imperial Russian Navy by A.J. Watts - showing differences between Bogatyr and Oleg. 
The book shows that Oleg has a slightly different bridge structure,
without searchlight wings, and the masts are slightly different also.



In the pics below, one can just barely see the trimmed bridgework on Oleg, the rightmost cruiser.

Bogatyr from the bow

Oleg from the bow

It will be difficult to see the change until I get some primer on him.



And, some simple masts:

Bogatyr (the grey one) has slightly shorter masts, and Oleg has a lookout position on the mainmast.  I think, after the fact, that using the plastic rod is a bit off for the yards.  I will not repeat it with the German ships but the rest of the Russians will, except using the same brass rod as the masts.

New project, and old

Just a quick pic or two:

On the left, my new 1/1800 ships from WTJ, with a pair of extras that were sent just in case some of my order fell afoul of a production problem.  Awesome service from WTJ!  Now, for some primer...



And on the right, one of my 1/600 Xyston ancient vessels, and assorted bits.  I am going to take another look at this scale for my Tékumel naval project.  One item that I can see already is the size of the 'castle' from Xyston.  It seems to be slightly small.  A scratch-built replacement might be in order.





Lastly, the Tékumel naval project got another boost with this:

I finally purchased my copy, and I am looking forward to reading through it again.

Ships from WTJ!

Finally had some time to post this... my small, test order with WTJ arrived some time ago.  I ordered just a few ships - SMS Magdeburg and V167 for the Germans, and cruisers Oleg and Bogatyr and TB Boiki for the Russians.  Here is a quick pic:

Bogatyr is the top, Magdeburg is the bottom.  These ships are in 1/1800 scale.  The translucent material makes it difficult to get a good photograph of them, so once they are primed I will take a better set of pics.  Right now, they are soaking in some soapy water...