Time To Vent!

I've gotten around to making the exhaust / intake vents. The vents aren't quite accurate as the early vents for the QM were a little narrower, but I wanted to use the photo etch grilles from the White Ensign set and they were designed for the kit vents.  I glued the vents onto square styrene tubes and trimmed to the proper height. 

I have also created new skylights for one of the upper structures.  They are tiny little angled pieces made from styrene with custom window decals.

I've also shown scratchbuilt capstans.  They look a little over scale, but I think they are pretty close.  They are made from small nails with a dab of white glue on top to round it over and a ring of round styrene tube with a beveled edge.

All Hands On Deck

I've finally gotten the deck laid down.  Templates were created for each section and used to cut out the decking material.  I didn't use the original deck as planned, but found a better one.  I used a sheet of MK1 Design 1/500 scale deck.  The kit is actually 1/596 scale, but they did not make a 1/600 scale deck material.  I think the slightly larger deck boards look better even if it is a bit out of scale.

The deck material is self adhesive and very sticky so I don't expect the deck to peel or bubble.  I also made sure the area that the deck would be applied to was sanded or painted very smooth for better adhesion.

Next up are the lifeboat davits.  I'm not sure now if I will use the photo etched davits or scratch build my own.

Looking Like A Ship Now

Hull is now painted and decals are on. Next will be a coat of flat to seal everything and then I can start working on the upper decks.

I have added the window decals that I have made.  I used Bare Metal Foil's Expert Choice clear decal sheets and ran them through a laser printer.  I didn't clear coat the decals on the sheet as my first two attempts coating with Krylon Clear coat and then Microscale Decal film resulted in cracking and curling decals respectively.

It's Taking Shape

So here is the Queen with the main structures finished and in place.  The window templates have been taped in place to test the fitment.  As mentioned earlier, I will print up some decals for the finished model. 

The brown paper is meant to act as templates to cut out the adhesive wood deck material.  The smaller details such as vents and lifeboats have not been added yet and will be done later.

Next up will be painting the hull red, white and black then painting and decaling the upper deck structures.  After that, the wooden deck can be laid down and all other details will go on top of that.

Windows v1.0

Since I am scratch building all of the upper deck structures, I am using decals for the windows instead of cutting each of the holes.  I have made these on a computer with Corel Photo Paint and will print them on a laser printer on decal paper and clear coat them with Krylon UV Clear spray.

It was a pretty time consuming process, measuring, printing and fitting the decals.  I would say they are about 75 percent accurate for size and placement.

Upgrading lifeboats

I am replacing the kit lifeboats as they are too large and not very well detailed.  Other people have used the lifeboats from the Airfix 1/600 Queen Elizabeth but I didn't want to waste the kit so I am just making resin copies of those lifeboats.

The original QE sprue is on the left and the beige resin copies are on the right.

Here is my two part mold for the lifeboats.

This is the resin casting kit I used. Actually I think this is only the mold making kit. It contains material to make the silicon molds.