by JimRussell » Fri Oct 26, 2007 9:52 am
A 20 dollar 1/350 BB was a project I could not refuse, and while I had no interest in a 1941 Arizona, a 1944 Pennsylvania was a ship I wanted to build.
References were Friedman's U.S. Battleships (page 371 has an A. Raven drawing of a 1945 BB-38, WATCH OUT the top and side views are a different scale!!???) and Smith's Keystone Battlewagon which has a good Chesley 1/500 side view rendering of a 1945 BB-38 and some very useful pic's. Also used were pictures at SN of the never produced ?? ISW resin kit (I felt no guilt, I am a GOOD customer), a long ago post by someone whose name I did not record (thank you) to mount the barrels on the back face of the turret rather than the slots to get the correct length. In 2003 Jon Warneke posted on SN a list of conversion items which totaled 37, this ended up less useful than I thought it would be because I ended up redoing everything. This project really is a scratch build.
Major modifications to plastic parts were:
Hull
1 - Remove all deck detail
2 - drill out and fill over 200 portholes
3 - Raise the waterline
Funnel - Sand down searchlight boss to funnel profile, open stack, add incinerator exhaust pipe.
Forward superstructure support - remove conning tower, narrow rear searchlight projections and deck between searchlight and flag bag to clear 5"-38 gun house.
Fighting top - butcher the first story of the three story structure.
Turret - mount guns on back face of turret
So far this has been nothing but fun, it stands a good chance of being a reasonable facsimile of BB-38 - 1944.
Jim
- Attachments
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- The next two photos show most of the conversion roughed out
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- As you can see from the first photo, this conversion requires MAJOR
surgery, I think it qualifies as a scratch build! The fact that the initial
investment was so small released any inhibitions about chopping away.
A 20 dollar 1/350 BB was a project I could not refuse, and while I had no interest in a 1941 Arizona, a 1944 Pennsylvania was a ship I wanted to build.
References were Friedman's U.S. Battleships (page 371 has an A. Raven drawing of a 1945 BB-38, WATCH OUT the top and side views are a different scale!!???) and Smith's Keystone Battlewagon which has a good Chesley 1/500 side view rendering of a 1945 BB-38 and some very useful pic's. Also used were pictures at SN of the never produced ?? ISW resin kit (I felt no guilt, I am a GOOD customer), a long ago post by someone whose name I did not record (thank you) to mount the barrels on the back face of the turret rather than the slots to get the correct length. In 2003 Jon Warneke posted on SN a list of conversion items which totaled 37, this ended up less useful than I thought it would be because I ended up redoing everything. This project really is a scratch build.
Major modifications to plastic parts were:
Hull
1 - Remove all deck detail
2 - drill out and fill over 200 portholes
3 - Raise the waterline
Funnel - Sand down searchlight boss to funnel profile, open stack, add incinerator exhaust pipe.
Forward superstructure support - remove conning tower, narrow rear searchlight projections and deck between searchlight and flag bag to clear 5"-38 gun house.
Fighting top - butcher the first story of the three story structure.
Turret - mount guns on back face of turret
So far this has been nothing but fun, it stands a good chance of being a reasonable facsimile of BB-38 - 1944.
Jim