HMCS Athabaskan - Canadian Tribal Class DDH, Delphin 1:1250
Some while ago I acquired a Delphin model of the Canadian Tribal Class DDH, HMCS Algonquin with rather battered paintwork and a broken gun barrel.
Rather than the fairly complete detailing job I had attempted with my HMS Zulu I decided to restrict myself to a basic strip, clean-up and full-colour repaint. There was very noticeable pitting of the hull surfaces in a few areas as well as some over-deep lines such as on the flight deck and side of the 5" gun turret which I filled with Miliput - you can see some of this showing through the primer in the picture below.
After priming, progress on this models stalled for a long time. The main challenge was the relatively complicated flight deck markings, made doubly difficult by using yellow and curved lines. I decided to use this as a learning exercise for making my own decals but it seemed a waste to print off a whole sheet for just one model so I left it until I had a couple of others to do too - I've already posted the results of this for HMS Vanguard and the third was a restored and cleaned up Triang Varicella which I'll include in a more detailed post about the decal making process.
The next question was what colours to use for the hull and decks. I found some excellent advice on this from The Resin Shipyard which recommended Tamiya XF-12 with some white added, so I airbrushed that on after masking the flight deck ready for my home made full-colour decal.
I found some good colour reference photos of HMCS Athabaskan so completed my model as her. Surprisingly this showed many of the deck areas in same pale green-grey as the hull and superstructure sides. Although this looks a bit unfinished to my eyes, I decided to stick with my references and only use the darker grey for the midships and stern deck areas, flight decks at this time being green - the exact reverse of RN practice.
The black waterline was done with slightly thinned Vallejo black paint in a lining pen.
As with my earlier British Tribal Class Frigate, one of the most distinctive features of this model is the large lattice mast. These never look right to me as solid lumps but lacking photo-etch and as I wanted to mostly keep to the original model in structure, I again used the solid cast mast and just hand painted the lines to represent the lattice structure.
As mentioned above, the flight deck decal was full colour and I'd used transparent paper so I needed a white base. I applied a couple of coats of gloss varnish before hand to avoid silvering. I had matched the green as close as I could to Vallejo 083, 70 968 Flat Green and had expected to have to do a bit of touching up around the edges. Unfortunately I got my size a little off and the decal stopped about 1 mm short of the aft edge and the thickness of the clear decal paper combined with two layers of Tamiya varnish gave a noticeable step. I built the level up with a couple of coats of paint and then painted most of the green over the top of the decal to blend it all in.
The hull numbers are Skytrex - I just can't find a computer font that looks right. With hindsight I wish I'd also made a tiny maple leaf transfer as the Canadian emblem is quite visible in photos on the side of the hanger.
Rather than the fairly complete detailing job I had attempted with my HMS Zulu I decided to restrict myself to a basic strip, clean-up and full-colour repaint. There was very noticeable pitting of the hull surfaces in a few areas as well as some over-deep lines such as on the flight deck and side of the 5" gun turret which I filled with Miliput - you can see some of this showing through the primer in the picture below.
After priming, progress on this models stalled for a long time. The main challenge was the relatively complicated flight deck markings, made doubly difficult by using yellow and curved lines. I decided to use this as a learning exercise for making my own decals but it seemed a waste to print off a whole sheet for just one model so I left it until I had a couple of others to do too - I've already posted the results of this for HMS Vanguard and the third was a restored and cleaned up Triang Varicella which I'll include in a more detailed post about the decal making process.
The next question was what colours to use for the hull and decks. I found some excellent advice on this from The Resin Shipyard which recommended Tamiya XF-12 with some white added, so I airbrushed that on after masking the flight deck ready for my home made full-colour decal.
The black waterline was done with slightly thinned Vallejo black paint in a lining pen.
As with my earlier British Tribal Class Frigate, one of the most distinctive features of this model is the large lattice mast. These never look right to me as solid lumps but lacking photo-etch and as I wanted to mostly keep to the original model in structure, I again used the solid cast mast and just hand painted the lines to represent the lattice structure.
As mentioned above, the flight deck decal was full colour and I'd used transparent paper so I needed a white base. I applied a couple of coats of gloss varnish before hand to avoid silvering. I had matched the green as close as I could to Vallejo 083, 70 968 Flat Green and had expected to have to do a bit of touching up around the edges. Unfortunately I got my size a little off and the decal stopped about 1 mm short of the aft edge and the thickness of the clear decal paper combined with two layers of Tamiya varnish gave a noticeable step. I built the level up with a couple of coats of paint and then painted most of the green over the top of the decal to blend it all in.
The hull numbers are Skytrex - I just can't find a computer font that looks right. With hindsight I wish I'd also made a tiny maple leaf transfer as the Canadian emblem is quite visible in photos on the side of the hanger.
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