by Rob Kernaghan
1/700 HMS Ariadne (Matchbox)
I bought Ariadne a while back on ebay, started her in January 2005. Other projects came along and she got left to one side for about 8 months. I picked up the build again in October and got her finished over the course of about a month.
She is much-altered from the kit. Trying to keep with the spirit of the kit, I used as much as I thought possible, but did replace all the splinter shields, hollowed out the bridge and replaced all the small parts.
Donor parts came from a scrap Tamiya Hood kit, a Tamiya O class kit, various small parts from WEM, Hasegawa and Skywave. Photoetch is a mix of WEM and GMM. The masts are brass rod. She has an Eduard crew.
I am sceptical over the 4-colour camo-scheme suggested in a published source, but it is such an attractive pattern that I went ahead with it anyway.
The whole ship was built, then as one piece, sprayed all-over with WEM light grey, then everything else was brush-painted in. After a heavy weathering job consisting of washes of oils and dry-brushes of enamels and acrylics she was rigged with stretched sprue.
She sails in a sea of PVA glue, acrylic gel and acrylic paint.
Essentially, this is not a bad kit despite it's age. It does require a little TLC, but is good fun. Not expensive or difficult to find, so I recommend her.
References:
Profile Morskie
Roberts
Buxton - "To sail no more"
Photographs, thanks to Jim Baumann.
