Guess the boat type....

[DrSchmidt]

Easier than 3D-printing would be 0,3 mm styrene sheet with drilled holes. Hard stencils have the issue that if you try to apply a thick coat (needed to get the surface relief) you always risk that the color will penetrate into the gap between stencil and hull due to capillary forces. The result usually is a huge mess. Archer Transfers work fine for me. An expensive solution when you plaster a boat like I'm doing it right now, but the result is very good and for a project that in the end will have taken 3-4 years, I can accept the cost.

[redboat219]

UV resin applied with toothpick or fine wire?

[DrSchmidt]

Could be done, but yet again, for the amount of rivets that go on that boat, it would be a allot of work, and I doubt you could match the precision and regularity of the surface detail transfers.

Here's and Example how they are applied:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aptnvFeEqio

[Subculture]

I believe Archer have ceased trading, so new old stock availability only, but there alternatives e.g. https://www.railtec-models.com/rivets.php

[DrSchmidt]

It actually worked out quite well. After a few tries I managed to 3D-print all parts of the 20 mm Madsen deck gun for my 1/72 scale Type II submarine Vesikko. Primer + paint should be the easy part….

[DrSchmidt]

I believe Archer have ceased trading, so new old stock availability only, but there alternatives e.g. https://www.railtec-models.com/rivets.php

I ordered from their website https://www.archertransfers.com/ last week ... stuff is on its way ... at least I have a tracking number and something is moving throgh the USPS network.

[DrSchmidt]

Madsen 20mm AA gun is done. Looks good even in a macro photo. For size comparison: this is a gun on a toothpick . Still waiting for decals to continue the build of the submarine that this gun is meant for.

[DrSchmidt]

Still waiting for the rivet decals from the US.....on their way. So I worked a bit on the remaining details. The kit's railing is far too clumsy. 1 mm diameter struts would translate to 72 mm columns in real life. Not scale at all. So I copied the method shown on a similar kit on youtube (https://youtu.be/hdhhQDrhcuY?si=iQVUHjmJ3rNOKOfy). I use 0,4 mm outer diameter brass tube for the railing struts. There are not all straight, but there ist a set of curved and angled ones. To get theses right, I designed a master pattern and 3D-printed it. This pattern was then used to bend the struts....worked astonishingly well!