by Peter Van Buren
1/350 USS Sims DD-409 (Yankee Modelworks)
After some failed experiments with human hair for rigging, I ended up using nylon paint brush bristles for all but the longer runs. These came from a 99 cent paint brush from the hardware store, and are a semi-transparents light brown color, perfect for rigging. They are naturally straight, so you do not have to stretch them like fishing line or hair to get taunt lines. Superglue loves them, and I am a convert.
I read with interest the board threads a short while ago asking if anyone really builds resin kits, and thought about those remarks alot as I built this one. The basic kit here is quite good by resin standards, though I really wondered about the effort resin requires as I spent an afternoon outside epoxying the upper and lower hulls together, followed by intense sanding, followed by filling and rebuilding with putty (the hulls did not mate up properly) followed by overnight drying, followed by a prime coat, followed by several on and off work days sanding and repriming. I'd spray on a prime coat in the morning, go to work all day, then inspect and re-sand in the evening; repeat as needed.
The deck gear, turrets and other details were white metal, and each needed to be finished and smoothed to eliminate heavy casting and unsmooth surfaces. The mast and prop shafts were molded in white metal, and of course were so misshapen that there was no choice but to replace them with brass rod-- why bother even trying on these parts?
Of course to be fair the plastic kit I was working on while this one dried and cured had lots of seams that needed filled, and sprue points to cut and sand. What was cast as one tight piece in resin on the Sims was four pieces and a roof in plastic, with all the joints and seams to look after. Hmmm.
Maybe I better just shift over to die cast prebuilts.
