The Ship Model Forum

What a fantastic model and reassuring back story for those of us with stalled builds going back years. One small point, the Supermarine Walrus would not of carried a fin flash in 1938 (introduced in May 1940).

Thanks for the pictures Steve. Amazing work...truly a fine representation of that ship. I know the class well from years ago in the Naval Wargaming Society in London we gamed the Graf Spee events, and there were County class Cruisers bearing just the same Walrus Planes as you show. At first i used to think the high sides of the ships was a detraction but over time understood the reasoning for that as they operated often in the North Sea and high sides were an excellent help for such stormy seas.

Your attention to detail and achievement of it is sterling in quality thank you so much for sharing the development, I have read thru many pages of it and plan to go back to the start and follow to the completion now. thanks

Chris

This is my model of HMS [i]Dorsetshire[/i], finally completed 20 years after I started her construction. To briefly describe her, she is built at 1/192 scale or 16”=1ft, the starting point was a fiberglass hull, which I purchased from an English shop called Midway Models. In addition to the hull, Midway Models provided vacuformed funnels and turrets and a potpourri of miscellaneous fittings from a variety of sources, none of which were used on the model. Also included was a set of plans by Norman Ough.
Decks and superstructures were fashioned from sheet plastic, a master gun turret was made and four resin copies were cast. Fittings were purchased when available or scratch built when not. Ship’s boats and a few other items were purchased from John Haynes, back when they were obtainable. The wood decks were individual 1/32”x1/32”x1” bass wood planks laid in the proper pattern. For those interested, many of the steps in the construction are documented in the preceding pages of this thread.
Prior to 1939 [i]Dorsetshire[/i] spent most of her career on the China Station. The ship is shown as she appeared on a goodwill visit to Sydney Australia in 1938, with union jacks painted on the tops of B and X turrets for aerial recognition. I assume this was in response to the Japanese attack the year before in China on the gunboat [i]USS Panay[/i].

[attachment=9]Dorsetshire 01.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=8]Dorsetshire 02.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=7]Dorsetshire 03.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=6]Dorsetshire 04.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=5]Dorsetshire 05.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=4]Dorsetshire 06.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=3]Dorsetshire 07.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=2]Dorsetshire 08.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=1]Dorsetshire 09.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=0]Dorsetshire 10.jpg[/attachment]

A remarkable saga of your build thanks for sharing and for updating. those pics of the model in the dock are unique in my experience, an unusual idea!

they were lovely ships...i got to know them years ago when planning a detailed naval wargaming campaign of the search for the Graf Spee and there were county class cruisers involved. The Royal Navy sent me plans and a lot of help wow that was in 1973 or so. Never did manage to pull of the campaign. But i still have 1200 scale County class cruisers in my collection of waterline models . they survived all of these years.

Look forward to seeing the finished photos of your build thanks for returning to your thread and working to update it.

Chris

Back in 2005 I started this thread as an in-progress build log of my 1/192 scale (mostly) scratchbuilt model of HMS Dorsetshire. I contributed to the thread pretty consistently until mid-2008 when several factors (collectively known as “life”) slowed my, ‘til then, fairly steady progress on the model. Over the ensuing years I did make slow (sometimes very slow), but erratic, progress on the project until this year, 20 years later, I finally declared her finished. At some point most of the photos I had posted illustrating the build disappeared, so as part of the process of finishing the build, I have been going back and restoring the photos that I still have. One of the last posts made before the thread died was made by Mike E, who posted photos he had obtained from the Imperial War Museum of the justly famous Norman Ough model of Dorsetshire in drydock during her 1936 refit. Mike had sent me copies of the photos and I recently contacted him and obtained his permission to repost them in the thread. Here they are so County Class fans please enjoy!

I will be posting photos of my completed Dorsetshire model soon.

[attachment=9]HMS Dorsetshire 1.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=8]HMS Dorsetshire 2.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=7]HMS Dorsetshire 3.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=6]HMS Dorsetshire 4.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=5]HMS Dorsetshire 5.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=4]HMS Dorsetshire 6.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=3]HMS Dorsetshire 7.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=2]HMS Dorsetshire 8.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=1]HMS Dorsetshire 9.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=0]HMS Dorsetshire 10.jpg[/attachment]

Very nice job BTW!!!!

[quote="Steve Sobieralski"]
The main porthole issue was the rigols, the semicircular rain gutters above each one that is exposed to [/quote]


Those are called "eyebrows over the portholes"

What a great job! This was a good build, I hope I can learn to do work as good.

Allen

Many thanks for posting the phots, Mike. I saw this model in 1975, and have been disappointed by its disappearance since then.

Hi,

This is a great build you've done here. I have always liked the look of the County Class, a very British design and look to them. At the start of your thread, you mention 1/200 card models, where did you get tham, and are they still avaliable? The card models can make a great set of ready made templates.

Timmy:

Ah yes, that seemed to do the trick! Thanks for the tutorial.

Regards,

Mike E.

I'm not sure what image width problems you're having - I can see the whole picture (plus a lot of white border) quite normally, and it shows up as the same size as when I view it by itself in separate window.

Ah, I see what it is. The problem you're experiencing is limited to those who use the "prosilver" board style, which places all the user information on the right side of the screen. If you use one of the other two board styles (subsilver2 or SkyLineBlue), the user info is place on the left hand side of the screen, and so the pictures will show up completely.

To change your board style, open up the User Control Panel (Upper left of screen), click "Board Preferences", and then where it says "My board style", select either SkylineBlue or subsilver2. You will have to get used to the "new" style, though (I put new in quotes because subsilver2 is actually just a slightly modified version of the old original board style from a year or two back).

wonderfull job and environment.
i liked so much this type of Diorama. realistic
five stars :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1:

[quote="Laurence Batchelor"]Excellent many thanks for sharing!
How did one get access to their reserve stock?[/quote]
Also a question I would ask , non the less one of the most famous of dioramas .
Dave Wooley

Excellent many thanks for sharing!
How did one get access to their reserve stock?

All:

It looks like the above images are too wide for the format of modelwarships.com, and that the right margins of some of the photos have been cut off. However, if you rightclick each individual photo-pair and save it to your computer's hard drive, and then view the photos there, you will be able to see them in their entirety.

My apologies for this!

Mike E.

All:

Below, please find a series of photos of the late Norman Ough's HMS Dorsetshire Diorama, which belongs to the Imperial War Museum. It has not been displayed in public for many years now.

I hope you enjoy these.

Photos courtesy of the Imperial War Museum. Many thanks!

Sincerely,

Mike E.


[img]http://i29.tinypic.com/24mz6mu.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i26.tinypic.com/5ajp1g.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i28.tinypic.com/15mhddt.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i29.tinypic.com/or17gz.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i27.tinypic.com/2vay2c4.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i25.tinypic.com/2yobq8l.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i31.tinypic.com/ng7yj5.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i29.tinypic.com/2lcs1tu.jpg[/img]

Enjoy!

Mike E.

This is just a word of encouragement on the model. Sounds great. My dad was the navigator on the Dorsetshire Walrus from before the Bismarck episode to the sinking. I was surfing to see if I could find a model for his 90th birthday. I'll watch this space for developments!!

Fantastic work! :thumbs_up_1:

:thumbs_up_1: