Carp to Gold Ep.7.: Mast Deck It Out

The bad puns are never-ending with this one. The hull varnished and (mostly) cured, it was high time to apply the main wooden deck pieces.

For this, first I made a cradle from leftover EPS foam so I wouldn't rub off anything or get nasty fingerprint marks.

Then I sliced up the deck into smaller sections, followed by a lot of dry fitting and trimming before finally placing them. The self-adhesive material was reinforced with some PVA glue at places.

Carp to Gold Ep.6.: Washed and Weathered

First, PSA: I made a separate label just for this project for easier searching.

Second, lately it has become a trait of local politicians to voice that 'we are responsible politicians, we believe in transparency, admit our mistakes and stand up to correct them.' As if that's something to be praised and not just plain normal.

So it is with a heavy heart that I must announce that when I removed the masking tape from the upper hull, it tore off a bit of paint at the waterline. But as a responsible modeller, I believe in transparency and while documenting this project, I admit my mistakes. (Here's where the audience should clap.)

Anyway, nothing a quick primer and a lick of paint don't fix.

Carp to Gold Ep. 5. - Young and Boatiful

The Aurora has four pairs of boats according to my plans, including two steam launches. These are the boats that came with my kit. As you can see there's only seven of them. I washed them and scraped off the sticky glue residue, also trimming away some of the injection mould marks.

Carp to Gold, Ep. 4., Smug Assemblies

The time of painting has come on the Aurora!

I primed the hull white with MIG One Shot primer, then coated the entire thing with two layers of VMC White Grey, following up with VMC Yellow Ochre on the deck and upper works.

The upper mast trunks are left bare because they are going to require further attachments once the main bridge structure is placed.

Carp to Gold, Ep.3., The Sand(ing)s of Time

I thought I could gain no more by keeping the deck and hull halves separate, so I assembled them. Hair bands and rubber are always useful for keeping pressure at the right places.

Carp to Gold: Ep. 2., Hullduggery

Before any doubt arises, yes, I will add more bad puns to the title of this series.

Anyway, I made some progress on the Aurora, which at first seems a backwards step, but alas! not so!

I managed to separate the deck and the hull halves. For the 1903 fit these require major surgery, and it is actually better to have access to the edges of the deck and the inside of the hull halves.

So I sanded most of the tacky glue off the deck, and then removed the two midships sponsons and the rearmost one with a scalpel, we won't need those. Also the rearmost deck house and the 6" gun have to be switched up, so I chopped the deck house off and will rebuild it later.

Carp to Gold: Restoring an old Heller/Ogonek 1/400 Cruiser Aurora

My wife convinced me to create an account on the second hand marketplace app Vinted. It's mainly for clothes but there's also hobby stuff. 

Whilst browsing I found this 1/400 scale model of the cruiser Aurora. I made a bargain bid and the seller agreed, so for very little money I now have the model.

As it turns out (based on the info available on Scalemates) this is originally a Heller mould, made in the sixties and resold by various companies over the years, primarily a Russian brand named Ogonek, in multiple iterations. It's rather crude, and it was obviously built by an enthusiastic kid or someone alike. It has thick red paint on the underside of the hull which is still not completely dry, while the upper works are bare grey plastic. The parts were attached with lots and lots of superglue.

The first thing to do was separating and stowing away the parts that I could, which was a surprisingly large amount, the glue having dried and failing to adhere anymore. So I could just remove most things with my fingers. I'll sand the deck and hull anyway, so I did not really care about glue marks.

Now on to my plans with the model. I'm going to strip the paint off the bottom, sand it smooth, repair the glue marks where I can, and then... I'm going to convert the ship back to its original 1903 state and paint it in the white and ochre livery of the day.

This includes building back the bulwarks on the main deck with plasticard, filing away some of the center sponsons, and adding lots and lots of aftermarket parts. The reasoning behind this is because the model itself was very cheap, I can invest more in these.

I have already made the first purchase which includes a wooden deck, resin gun mounts for the 6" guns, and turned brass barrels. The guns are 1/350 scale, which is about 14% larger than the original scale of the model, but the original gun mounts did also look kind of out of place and lacked any detail, so I'm not very worried about that.

The next purchase will include 3" gun carriages, and photoetched ladders, rails and stairs. It's going to take a while to finish the model, but I'm looking forward to working on it.