Thomo's Hole

1/3000th Modern – a test vessel

Modern Naval, Naval, Wargaming 6 Responses »

May 182013

Port-side on the Admiral Gorshkov

I had a spare Navwar Admiral Gorshkov. I also wasn’t sure what approach to take with the sea bases and painting the 1/3000th ships, it has been a while and my painting techniques have been changing over that period. I recently painted 1/6000th scale ships and wondered if I could apply the same principles to the 1/3000th. I also was wondering how to do deal with the sea base as these ships do not have a sea base under them.

So many questions. The solution? A prototype or as we like to consider it now, the flashiest fridge magnet Thomo has ever made.

I had already glued the model to the plastic base I am trying currently, and yes, I over ordered when I put that Navwar order in before. I then undercoated in white. Next step was painting the base Vallejo Prussian Blue (a step I will drop next time). I then painting Citadel’s old Regal Blue and used a very diluted Goblin Green across that. A very diluted Ice Blue was then washed across the base followed by some white when the blue was still wet.

I should note at this point as well that I had tried using Vallejo’s Water Effects to model a sea base – mucking around with another carrier surplus to needs. In the words of twitter – #fail!

Starboard-side – I keep thinking of Frank Gorshin and the Riddler when I see the admiral’s name

The flight deck was then painted. I used two lighter shades than appeared in the photographs I had seen of the vessel as I am fairly sure they will darken a little more once the varnishing is done.

The next step was to take a white paint pen and paint the deck markings on. These are a little dodgy but I am getting used to the pen and learning a little patience – like wait for it to dry, shake it frequently and be happy when you need to redraw a line three times to get the white sufficiently opaque on the model.

Superstructure was painted and washed in black ink. It was then dry (really wet) brushed with a very light grey.

The missile silos were also touched up at this point.

The last step was the black on the funnel top. Actually the detail on this model is a bit odd at the top of the superstructure but what the heck, it is a wargame model after all.

A touch up of a couple of colours and then some white added to the wash around the bow.

Voila! The Frank Gorshin … sorry, Admiral Gorshkov is ready for the table.

I think next time I will use a lighter more fluorescent green on the sea base.

Hopefully I will get some time tomorrow to get out to Changi Naval Base and have a look at some ships. I’ll leave you with a picture of the real Admiral Gorshkov.

A new material

Wargaming No Responses »

May 162013

The label on the plastic sheet

I was walking around Art Friend the other week here, looking for some A4(ish) size sheets of 3mm MDF. These would be perfect, I thought, for making terrain squares for the Aeronef project. They didn’t have any.

I did, however, walk past the plasticard⁽⁽¹⁾⁾ and came to one corner and end of the store. There I found some plastic sheets, about 3mm thick. I thought I’d get one, it was only 90 cents, and try it out.

It cuts with ease using a box/carton cutter and a steel rules. It is slightly less “bendy” than balsa but appears as strong as MDF. Because it is a PVC, there is no grain so slicing in any direction is fine.

So far I have used it for basing under some ships. I am also planning on using it to make some 15mm DBA terrain pieces. I also think that the next batch of 2mm terrain will go onto some 1mm thick sheets of this stuff.

I’ll also post pictures of the terrain when it is done. I’m also sorry that I cannot give more of a name to it than just the label in the photo.

very expensive and now warping under my Middle Eastern 2mm buildings [↩]

Indian Navy – Part 1

Modern Naval, Naval, Wargaming No Responses »

May 162013

The vessels are all labelled – well all except the carrier

I mentioned before that I was looking at doing something modern in naval warfare and in 1/3000th in particular. Regular readers will recall also the saga of actually having to send a letter to order vessels from Navwar ((yes Dorothy, there is still a post office and you still can order things by mail, snail mail)) . The vessels had arrived in good order and this week was the first chance I’ve had to really start working with them.

The first step was out to the Internet and find out some details on the vessels that I have purchased. While looking for information and pictures of the vessels I discovered the crests to some of the ships. This inspired a change to the way I label vessels so after sticking the vessels to a 3mm thick base with some magnetic tape underneath, I labelled the vessels as can be seen above and to the left. I will also talk about the basing material later as it is new to me.

The fleet stands ready for painting

Next will be the painting process. For that I will be undercoating the vessels in white, washing in black ink then starting to paint with a heavy dry-brush in an Indian Navy grey after the sea base is finished underneath.

What colour that grey will be will be decided on the weekend when I visit Changi Naval Base here as there are two Indian ships visiting Singapore at the moment. The are INS Satpura (F48) and the Kora class Corvette (P62) INS Kirch. Vessels of both of these classes can be seen in the second row in the picture to the right so this will be one of the few chances I’ve ever had to see the 1:1 scale item that I will be painting later.

Interestingly, also visiting at the current time or back in home port are RSS Valiant (Victory Class corvette P91), RSS Bedok mine countermeasure boat (M105), RSS Formidable (F68) and RSS Tenacious (F71), both Formidable (La Fayette) Class frigates. Also present is Ladroite, the French experimental OPV, the Royal Thai Navy HTMS Rattanakosin (F441), HMAS Bathurst, and USS Freedom, the first Littoral Combat Ship of the US Navy.

Also present are the Malaysian frigate KD Lekiu frigate (30), the Indonesian KCR 40 class patrol craft KRI Kujang [642] and Diponegoro Class Corvette KRI Frans Kaisiepo [368].

Looks like an interesting day for a navy buff coming up!

Guess what I’m doing next?

General, Wargaming 8 Responses »

May 142013

No hints but it should be easy enough to work out

Some Interesting Blogs

General 1 Response »

May 132013

Trawling around the Internet over the weekend and I came across a couple of interesting blogs:

Gruntz 15mm – Weathering Tires has a good description of painting 1/300, 1/285 scale tyres to give them that weathered appearance. I’ve always found black is too black and grey is not black enough. Gruntz does an excellent job.

The other is a period that I have always wanted to dabble in and there is a lot to be said for dabbling in said period in 6mm as well, Wargaming France 1940 rediscovered. A nice picture of some Heroics & Ros tanks on the banner and you’re in to it.

As if I didn’t have enough projects on the go now … my mind is starting to contemplate even more!

Anyway, both blogs are worth stopping by, especially if you are into 6mm.

Washing

Asia Pacific, Singapore No Responses »

May 132013

Monday is washing day, is everybody happy? You bet your life we are!

One of the joys of living in an HDB⁽⁽¹⁾⁾ in Singapore is being able to hang your washing outside to dry in the sunshine, even when you are living on the 17th floor.

I do, however, refuse to hang my underwear out there … just in case it excites the locals too much or in case there is a Singapore Government regulation about too sexy underwear!

Housing Development Board built apartment [↩]

Well this is perplexing – Virus Report

General, Technology 4 Responses »

May 102013

Bloody hell – I must have been very busy surfing!

I use avast! anti-virus software on the office PC⁽⁽¹⁾⁾ and once a month avast! gives me a report of it’s activity over the previous 30 days.

That’s the report out there to the right – or at least the guts of the report.

Files and Documents scanned – 59,354 over the month – yeah, I can believe that as I shuffled a few folders around, copied and restored a number of files and generally tidied things up a bit so that seems quite reasonable.

Emails scanned – 533 scanned over 30 days – yeah – that’s believable – it is about 25 a day (work days that is) so seems about right.

Web & Network Protection – 300,591. Really? There were 22 working days in the last 30 days here. So that means that every day at the office (some 8 hours of work time as I am away from my desk for the lunch hour), I surf 13,663 web pages? That is 1,708 pages per hour or about 30 pages a minute.

Now the boss knows I goof-off from time-to-time, sometimes checking Facebook, sometimes checking Twitter but 13,663 pages a day? A page every two minutes?

I think there is something wrong with the statistic, my guess being that avast! is counting each separate element that makes up a web page as not even I could goof-off that much!

I use Microsoft’s Security Essentials on the home PC [↩]

Little Wars and the New York Times

19th Century, Wargaming 1 Response »

May 102013

The illustration of Little Wars from over 100 years ago

I was reading one of my favourite blogs recently, The Grand Duchy of Stollen, which is wargames related and deals with the Imagi-nation of the Duchy of Stollen, when I came across a piece about H. G. Wells’s Little Wars.

There was an essay titled Basic Training in the Sunday Book Review section concerning Wells’s Little Wars. The piece was written by Mark Wallace who is a writer and game designer in San Francisco.

It was nice to read a reasoned piece in the legitimate press about my hobby. It is well worth the read.

Flags of Convenience

Asia Pacific, Naval, Singapore 2 Responses »

May 092013

Belize Registered Vessels at Harbourfront – between Vivo City and Sentosa

Last weekend we went across to Harbourfront. My partner’s HTC Windows 8 phone had not started since Jakarta and the HTC service centre is at Harbourfront. Two minutes with HTC and we had a functioning phone again. The problem was the charger not the phone. We then decided to stroll through the Cruise Ship terminal and Vivo City. A cool glass of something felt in order so we ended up sitting at the pub overlooking the water.

Belize Registered Vessels at Harbourfront – the Sea Heron and the Sea Robin

As I was watching I saw two vessels dancing around. I also noted that on the stern was emblazoned the location “Belize”. Seems both these small boats as well as at least one other were registered in Belize.

The vessels were called the Sea Robin and the Sea Heron.

Of course, if you are really curious about vessels you can check their details very easily these days. I know the following now about the Sea Heron:

Ship Type: Crew boat
Year Built: 1978
Length x Breadth: 29 m X 9 m
Gross Tonnage: 135, DeadWeight: 1 t
Draught: 5.5 m
Speed recorded (Max / Average): 8.1 / 7.1 knots
Flag: Belize
Call Sign: V3NN
IMO: 8827090, MMSI: 312018000
Last Position Received
Latitude / Longitude: 1.2575° / 103.7714° (Map)
Speed/Course 8.1 knots / 0˚
Last Known Port: SINGAPORE
Name Change History:

PELICAN 33 1 October 2009
PENGUIN 33 1 March 2007
TRIDAYA BARUNA IV 1 July 1997

Details for the Sea Robin:

Ship Type: Tug
Length x Breadth: 26 m X 8 m
Speed recorded (Max / Average): 10.4 / 9.8 knots
Flag: Belize
Call Sign: V3QF
IMO: 0, MMSI: 312721000
Last Position Received
Area: Singapore Area
Latitude / Longitude: 1.2349° / 103.8495° (Map)
Speed/Course 10.4 knots / 0˚
Last Known Port: SINGAPORE

It seems that she has only ever had the one name as no other names are registered for her. What is really neat is that her last position is shown on the map here.

There is so much information available at the fingertips these days.

A Milestone Passed

General 3 Responses »

May 082013

I did not notice it at the time but I passed a milestone here at Thomo’s Hole. The post G+G or G-squared – a new G anyway was in fact post number 999.

As I have now surpassed 1,000 posts I think I should do something to celebrate. Beer and cheeseburger is off until 31 May so any suggestions? Perhaps a “best of”? Perhaps a change of appearance again? Maybe it is time to look at the engine room of Thomo’s Hole again.

In any case, 1,000 posts written and gone. The first one was on 23 December 2004. Since then I have posted from Australia, Korea, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia and Singapore – plus the odd post from periods on holidays in Thailand and the UK and business trips to Indonesia and Belgium.

Here’s to the next 1,000 posts.

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