Assembling the Superstructure Pt.2

I needed to add more windows to the super structure and the best way to do that is with decals. I had on hand a decal sheet for 1/144 airliner windows. These were applied using photos of the Rouen and her sister ship Rosario as guides. Windows on the bridge sides were from the Arizona PE set.I also had some PE life rings on hand which I glued on. I thought using a decal to cover the entire funnel was a bad idea so I just painted it flat black and masked off the orange stripe and painted that too.

Assembling the Superstructure Pt 1

Bringing realism to the superstructure required a few extra parts. I had a PE set on hand for the USS Arizona which is not the exact same scale but at 1/425 it's close enough for this. I used the PE doors and some other parts. I painted the inside of the s/s black to make the windows stand out and prevent an empty look inside. At this time I also drilled holes in the walkways for the support posts.

Decaling the Hull

After the hull paint dried I sprayed on two coats of Testors Glosscoat to prep the hull for decaling. Decals are made to adhere best to a glossy painted surface. Decal set was also used to make it easy to move the decals into place. The decal sheet was printed by Scale Master and was, their usual ,high quality.

Painting the Hull

At first I thought the hull was painted white, but after viewing some photos of the Rouen and her sister ship Rosario, I found the hull to be a light shade of gray. I used two coats of Model Master Flat Gull Gray enamel with light sanding (600 grit) between coats. The kit comes with decals for the green stripe above the waterline. It has been my experience that big, long decals like this are very difficult to get on straight. Because of this I decided to paint the green stripe using Testors Flat Beret Green. Tamiya masking tape is the best masking for this job. I masked only the top of the stripe and painted the green with two coats, sanded between coats like the hull. This technique did not work as well with the red for the bottom. I masked the red with Tamiya tape as before and painted the first coat with Testors Model Master Flat Insignia Red. After drying it looked bad, as expected, since this was only the first coat. I wet sanded the paint with 600 grit and added a little thinner to the red paint. After it dried it was apparent that it would take many coats of paint to achieve satisfactory coverage but with a globed on look. I decided spraying was the best way to get it right. The bottom was masked off and Testors Flat Red spray was used with satisfactory results.

Installing the Transom and Rudder

The transom has a large piece of plastic on each side for the ramp pivots. This makes it almost impossible to install the transom without doing damage to the model. To remedy this I cut on of the pieces off the transom and it installed quite cleanly. I plan to glue the ramp in place anyway, so if it does not operate that's ok with me. I cut the prop shaft in half because it was too long and hit a support inside the hull. I'll install the screw (prop) later. Right now it will probably get knocked off at some point during the painting and assembly. The rudder and support installed cleanly, I glued the rudder in place and used a little white glue to fill a small gap between the support and the hull.