Gpm Uss Missouri

Kevin G

Kevin G

Member
Nov 27, 2003
105
0
16
Muskegon, Michigan
Have started my build of the USS MISSOURI!

Publisher: GPM
Pages: instructions 1
diagrams 16
full color pictures 2
plain paper formers 11
cardstock parts pages 24
stand is printed on back cover of book
Parts: 7000+ (I can not find an actuall count anywhere and I didn't take time to count them all)
Estimated time to complete: the rest of my life, or until my family does me in and burries me in the back yard!

So she is started the same way as any ship is, with the formers. Formers were glued to very thick Illustration board and then cutout and assembled. Fit was as close to perfect as I have seen and she is ultra strong, straight, and I was very impressed with my work.
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And a shot to give it some true scale. That would be my Five year old girl holding it up.
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Next came the fancy red bottom part and this is where the trouble began. I am going to say right up front that I will take SOME of the blame for the problems with the hull plating, but not all of it! I am sure that my cutting skills had something to do with the poor fit of the hull plates. But in all of the photos on and in the book there are visible gaps and seams that are not lined up correctlly. Also there were three (yes 3) different colors of red in the parts and it would look like a barbershop pole if I used the parts provided. I could get no further than 1/3 of the hull done before the alignment was so bad that I could not live with it and had to remove it. I am currently designing my own platting to use so the fit will be better and the color will be consistent for the whole hull.
Guess that is it for this post, hope to see some advice when you guys think I need it and someone to tell me to quit gripping if I do to much of that too!

Total time to this point: 17 hours
 
hulls

Hi

Most people fill the gaps sand it smooth and paint the bottom half. If you look at Scorpios Bismark on Kartonbau.de or any of the polish sites you will get some good tips on the painting.

Looks good in the pics you have sent in.

regards
 
Keep up the momentum! Looking great and I'll be a devoted viewer of your posted progress reports on the build. This model will take a lot of time and determination and being one of the first to build also means that your a pioneer of sorts. I've found that when things don't fit right it's either me or the model. Mostly it's me doing something several steps ago that led to the foul up but sometimes it is the design and that can really give you a case of creeps for the rest of the build. I suspect that you'll also be doing a lot of design work on the details as seems to be the case with many of the larger ship models. But what ever you do just keep putting in a little time on her each day or so and give us a photo or two to keep us satisfied.

Best regards, Gil
 
Is this the new or old GPM Missouri? I've read that the old one had fit problems, but the new one should go together rather cleanly. Good luck on your build, BTW.

Kevin G said:
Have started my build of the USS MISSOURI!

Publisher: GPM
Pages: instructions 1
diagrams 16
full color pictures 2
plain paper formers 11
cardstock parts pages 24
stand is printed on back cover of book
Parts: 7000+ (I can not find an actuall count anywhere and I didn't take time to count them all)
Estimated time to complete: the rest of my life, or until my family does me in and burries me in the back yard!
Click to expand...
 
Hi, Kevin! :smile:

Fret not with the poor fit...Rob (JRTS) is re-doing the earlier GPM version and has mentioned on more than one occassion how the fit of the design is poor in many places. I know how such a thing can be a bit frustrating, but please do keep at it, I know it will work out very well in the end.

As Barry mentioned, a lot of folks building the big red bottoms have had the same fitting problems, and most if not all have used some sort of filler material in the gaps, sanded it smooth and just painted the entire bottom to finish. I gather some use a primary coat, perhaps glossy, at first, and finish with a nice, proper dark red color in matte...it corrects the gap problems and gives you a very beautiful bottom in the end.

As for filler material, well that depends on what you have available. Some folks use watercolor paints in PVA glue, some a modeling compound sort of like Squadron green putty, others a pasty medium like Gesso (used by artists on as a base coat on canvas), but whatever you eventually use, it should fill the little gaps and be easy to sand smooth. Hopefully there are other suggestions forthcoming for you to consider.

Keep at it, Kevin! That's a very nice hull you've built there so far. I look forward to your updates as you are able.

Beautiful little 5 year old modeling mate you have there! Hope she develops an interest in your modeling; still trying to get my 7 going on 8 year old more interested, but no luck so far. :smile:

Cheers!

Jim
 
cygielski, This is the new kit from GPM.

As for an update, no pics this time since there is nothing new to show.
I have tried everything I can think of to make the hull and have failed everytime. I have tried so many things that the formers have suffered structual problems and I had no choice but to remove them. The hull problem has become so stressfull that it has taken all of the fun out of doing the model so rather than mess with it any longer I have decided to convert it to a waterline model and get back to the fun.
I will have more updates soon with new pics. Thanks for all the encouragement guys, It means alot!

Jim, I guess i am lucky that my kid loves my models. She is always asking when we get to work on the big boat again!

Now to be fair to GPM, I am sure that the hull can be built and am also sure that all of the problems I have had are at least 90% my fault and not the fault of the designer. It would be wrong of me to blame the designer of the kit for my poor modeling skills. So don't let my problems sway you away from this kit.
I have the rest of the week off from work so look for updates soon!
 
Found the digital camera so here are some pics of last weeks progress.
Side plates are on, I really like the way they designed these. Each side has four pieces. If the pieces were numbered 1 thru 4 with the bow piece being 1 they are installed in this order, 1 2 4 3. Part 3 has an extra 10 mm of length that you trim to fit. The edges have been colored since the pic was taken
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Next comes the hawse pipe and the side chain pipes. I could not get a descent pice of the hawse pipe so you will have to take my word for it that it is there! Here is a pic of one of the side chain pipes. These are extremly annoying to build but they look great after you fiddle with them for 45 minutes each.
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Sorry for the quality of the pic but my camera doesnt like to zoom in on anything (read "I have a cheap camera").
Next step in the manual says to build the superstructure floor 1. This is a long job but I am really impressed with the finished product.
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The piece on the bottom of the pic is glued onto the rest but I wanted to show the formers. This thing is solid. It almost didn't need any glue to stay in place. There are some problems with the diagrams at this step, parts are shown in the diagram with a part number printed on them but they are labeled as a different part. This is really not a problem though as long as you dry fit everything first. These parts will only fit in the right place anyways but thought I would mention it. Next I have to add the walls and a bunch of fiddly bits to the above structure. More pics when I get some more building done. As always, questions and comments are welcome. Thanks for looking!

Total time to this point: 30 hours
 
Hi Kevin

First don't let any bad fit problems get you down, with the old kit most of did not fit.

The hull formers in the old kit also had to be redesigned before I could use them. Also the number of formers had to be doubled, to prevent the hull plates from sagging. Another point is (with the old kit) the hull formers also had to have struts/ beams fitted in between each former for extra strength. The formers warpped without them!!

I was going to get the new kit but I have put that on a very long term hold as I don't need another redisign project right now

I wish you the best of luck with this kit and keep posting updates, it will be more than intresting to see how this kit works out in the end.

Have fun and if I can help in anyway just shout

Rob
 
jrts,
I have been following your build of the old kit. I must say you are doing an excelent job on it! I honestly do not think that the new kit that I am building would be in much need of redesigning. Up to this point everything with the exception of the red hull plates has fit almost flawlessly and I am sure that the hull plates would have fit correctlly if I was a more experienced builder. I have also noticed that many of the parts in the new kit look much better than the ones in your kit, for example the crane. The crane parts do not suffer from any of the problems that you mentioned in your build thread, same goes for the catapults. Of course I am talking about the original kit parts and not your expert redesigned parts!
I am gonna keep with this and see it thru to the end. All the encouragment and comments are greatly appreciated!
Hope to have another update soon.
Is it just me or do you spend 3 hours cutting out parts that only take 45 minutes to assemble?
 
Just so everyone doesn't think I have given up, I thought I would post an update. Lots of work done but almost nothing to show for it.
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This is one of the parts that make up the bulkheads for the first deck of the superstructure. It requires 142 parts be added to it before moving on to the next part. Some of the parts are as small as 0.5mm wide, meaning that cutting them out is almost impossible and coloring the edges is even worse :-D .
I am loving every minute of this build though and with each part added I get a little more confident in my building skills. Stay tuned for more updates!

Total time to this point: 36 hours
 
Keep up the good work!

I too have the GPM Missouri. I'm awaiting that day that I start with anticipation. I'm closely following your build with much interest. Keep up the good work and updates.

I know, it can be demoralizing when you don't see substatial progress for some time. That's one of the attractions to card modeling. I find I see progress much sooner than with plastic or resin models.:-D
 
Wow sorry for the long delay guys. Hit a rough spot there for awhile and didn't get any work done on this model. In the process I lost some (many) parts and also lost my scans so it will be awhile until i can afford replacements. This project is on hold until I get a replacement book. Sorry guys.
 
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