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I haven't mentioned the most important item in the box - especially for beginners - the instructions. I heard via RMS that instructions were sometimes the bugaboo of ship builders. Some companies are capable of casting beautiful resin and white metal models only to fail in the instruction category. Not being current in WW I British four stack light cruisers, I was very grateful for as comprehensive a set of instructions as I could have wanted. They consisted of the following: one page of ship history and general building precautions (i.e., don't breath resin dust, etc.), two and a half pages of photo etch part identification, a pattern for the mast construction (half a page) and one full page of step-by-step written directions, two pages of plan form and oblique drawings showing where the parts go, and a finally a painting guide that features an excellent color plan and profile view. WEM also includes a faulty part report/replacement form. I found that I was missing two items, both small Carley floats (small rafts). A short e-mail to Caroline at WEM, and one week later the parts were at my Minnesota home. I couldn't have asked for anything more in the form of help in putting the kit together. As you'll see, I only had problems in only two areas, neither of which is the kit's fault. I started by placing the hull in hot water to straighten a very slight bowed bow and stern. I used a shallow pan with hot water poured around the hull casting. It worked just fine, and for the most part, the bottom remained flat. I decided to try an experiment by drilling out only one side's portholes to compare them with the untouched side. The starboard side with the drilled out portholes really looked better. Lesson learned. Perhaps a wash would have picked out the undrilled portholes. Maybe I'll try that next time. The actual building started along the lines as described in the instructions (When in doubt, read the instructions). I kept the bridge, searchlight and gun platforms off until later, and treated the cleanup and building of these items as separate subassemblies. Early on I decided to put the PE railings on before painting. This is
easier said than done. I found that as I neared the end of one section of railing, I would
bump and wreck some other part of railing. I finally came to the conclusion that I
needed a third hand. I may be a slow ship builder, but I'm not stupid. After only two or
three detached PE parts, I came upon the After attaching the PE located on the hull, I primed everything with metal figure primer. WEM offers some Humbrol mixes to make the colors Chester carried during its action at the Jutland. After mixing a sample of Light Admiralty Gray, I found a close match in Model Master's RLM 63 Lichtgrau, and spray painted the whole model in that color. I don't like to work from mixes, and so try to work with a stable stock. I decided that the deck would be painted by brush (too much small stuff to mask). I used Polly Scale Deck Tan, and while generally not a fan of acrylic paint, I was very pleasantly surprised at how well this paint went on, and covered well. I painted the bridge and platform decks Tamiya XF-54 dark gray, along with the area around each of the ten guns on the main deck.
WEM gives you two types of deck guns. Level and elevated barrels. After painting the deck, I detail painted the guns, and chose two elevated guns for the fore and aft positions, while the side guns would be level in the stowed position. The topmast was a combined resin, brass, plastic and PE construction that went together easily after I heated and re-bent the tip of the resin mast just below the lookout cage. The only area of concern for me was the installation of the nine boats. The forward two boat positions have chocks molded into the decking. The others don't. I wasn't about to rig these things hanging out over the side of the ship because I'm sure it would have quickly exceeded my patience level. Knowing that the two forward boats were to be stowed inboard, I figured that the same could reasonably be said for the others, so that's where I put them. In hindsight, I should have made small chocks to set the after boats evenly on the deck. This boat problem was not a fault of the kit, but rather an expression of my inexperience and difficulty with 1/700 model parts. No ship model (especially a waterline one) should be displayed outside a water setting, so I also went to work on a display base. I purchased a cheap 4 x 12-inch photo frame as a base. After taking of the tip-up foldable leg, I traced the form of the ship on the glass. For water, I settled on Liquitex acrylic modeling paste. With this stuff, I added different blue and green colors to get a nice mix of ocean colors. This I spread on the picture frame glass, around and up to the model outline. After filling the area, I placed the ship into the outline, and settled it into the touching paste. While the paste isn't supposed to crack when applied in layers of less than a quarter inch, I did get some cracking - perhaps due to overly quick drying in the low humidity of a Minnesota winter. Nevertheless it was easy to fix the cracks with a second application of colored putty mixed with water. After a day left to dry, I gave the "water" two coats of Future brand floor finish. At this stage of construction one could attach tiny rigging according to the drawings provided, but I was happy to get this far and wasn't tempted to push my luck by rigging the Chester. I was very happy with this kit. It arrived in fine condition. Even a non-shipbuilder could get started easily using the detailed instructions (no outside references were required). Other than aging eyes and big fingers, it was not in the least difficult to build and construct a respectable 2 foot model (it looks really good two feet from the eye). I would like to thank Rusty White, and White Ensign Models for the review sample. It was fun to build, and I look forward to building more White Ensign Models. In fact, I thought so much of the quality of the Chester that I ordered their 1/350 HMS Sheffield. The HMS Chester, kit #WEMK714, is available direct from White Ensign Models. The price is £38.25 ($61.37), or UK/EEC £44.95. Free postage worldwide is included.
Click thumbnail to view full size pics of the kit parts |
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