by Eric Hoe
1/200 PLAN Hangzhou (Trumpeter)
Construction of the model began early January 2005, but I only managed to find time on the weekends to continue with it. Model is built almost straight out of box, apart from the Futaba remote control unit which was bought separately. The electric motor is salvaged from earlier Trumpeter 1/200 Chinese Navy kits. The photoetched railings are from the kit and rigging is stretched sprue. As this is my first time round building large boats and fiddling with R/C gear, this is indeed by far the most exciting experience in my model building history.
I started the kit’s hull, attempting the installation of the engine and the receiver unit of the R/C amidship, along with the switch. There is also a gearbox installed in tandem with the receiver unit, allowing variable speeds of the motor. The servo unit controls the rudder and the long rod connects the servo horn and the rudder arms.
The power pack is installed at the stern of the ship, just under the connecting rod so that it doesn’t affect the rudder’s operation. An equivalent weight of ballast is stored at the bow to balance the boat.
Ample adhesive is used to seal the hole of the engine shaft, and the hull. The first “bath tub trials” started approximately 1 month after the start of this project and water-proofing results were satisfactory, and I duly certified the craft sea-worthy!
The construction of the kit is relatively easier and the boat is built at a leisurely pace (I couldn’t devote all my spare time to the boat because of the nagging girlfriend and other more “important tasks). Hence the completion of the ship’s superstructure took some 18 weekends. The final few weeks was spent on the photoetch railings (Still pretty much a novice at it), and the boat was airbrushed. Finally, stretched sprue are used for the ship’s rigging. However, few reference photos of the Sovremenny were available for me to see how the ship’s mast and wires connect. Also the rigging cannot link my boat’s funnel section and the bridge, since that the funnel section and hangar is the hatch to access the switch and battery of the ship.
The ship is now loitering at home, the dry docks, awaiting the selection of launch date. The weather in Hong Kong has been pretty dismal over the past weeks and just need to be patient to pick the right date to conduct the official launch ceremony of my proud ship! I think that I will revert back to aircraft models (my main interests), for the moment, but I’ve already bashed out my piggy bank for the next ship project, ICM’s 1/350 “Grosser Kurfurt”, a WWI German Dreadnought, but no proper project commencement date is set yet. Best of luck to you all with your model building adventures! Hope that Trumpeter will keep up with releasing more interesting kits!
