The Ship Model Forum

Cliffy,
Thanks for the posting. I hadn't seen that photo of Olympia's 5"/51. While the photos of both the Texas's and Olympia's guns show them painted pretty much all over, I am sure that was done by the museum staff to avoid the maintenance required of bare metal. All photo's I've seen of active service ships show bare metal around the breech area of the guns.

On the photo of Olympia's 5"/51, I noticed what appears to be spots of rust around the breech. That strongly suggest that that portion of the gun must have been steel. Also, the bottom of last ring that attaches to the recoil cylinders appears to show brass. Perhaps some of the black paint flaked off in that area? Very interesting!

Well, in lieu of anything else, I will go ahead and paint my next gun that way. I'll post a pic in the next day or two.

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Rob

Here are a couple of pics of my 5"/51 painted the way I think they might have looked. The "painted" parts of the gun are in 5D for Measure 1. The breech area is in white metal while the recoil ring is brass.

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Rob

Wow. Nice work. What scale?

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

What Martin said! I'd love to know more.

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-Abram

I don't have any manuals for that gun, so I have absolutely no proof for this, but I think brass is too soft of a metal for the recoil ring, as you put it.

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

The recoil portion of a gun barrel is simply unpainted natural metal as I understand it. Maybe its coated with something but I don't think its a different kind of metal, could be wrong.

The guns look great man! You missed the brass parts of the sights though. Look at the NavWeaps photo and you'll see what I mean.

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Drawing Board:
1/700 Whiff USS Leyte and escorts 1984
1/700 Whiff USN Modernized CAs 1984
1/700 Whiff ASW Showdown - FFs vs SSGN 1984

Slipway:
1/700 Whiff USN ASW Hunter Killer Group Dio 1984

Guys,
Thanks for the feedback. I know that brass was used on guns. And I agree with you that brass is a very soft non-ferrous metal. It would make sense that the ring around the breech would be steel for structural reasons. I took another pass looking at all the pictures I have of this gun. In the black and white photos I can't distinguish any textural differences nor shades of grey nor brightness differences between the ring and the barrel. So, I would have to conclude from that that you are correct. Thats an easy fix.

Cliffy - you are right about the sights being brass. I'll have to make that change as well.

For those interested, most of the elements of the gun were cast using 2 part urethane in using RTV molds. Not being familiar with that technology, I can tell you there were months and months of trial and error before I could actually cast the various elements of the gun. I certainly would not say its a great representation of a 5"/51. Alot more detail could be added. But for my purposes, its adequate. Most of the gun is hidden in the casement.

The model I am building is Nevada as she appeared on December 7th. Its 1/48th scale and will be an R/C model.

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Rob

While doing some searching on google I found some art work I found interesting. Why have the artists colored parts of the bridge/superstructure of Nevada white/5-L?

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/ ... 4s8l98.jpg

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs13/f/2007/ ... s_Nala.jpg

These were both found through a google search and are from the site http://www.deviantart.com

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-Abram

Not sure if it suggests anything, but the author of both those pieces are "signed" as the same person.

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De quoi s'agit-il?

Maybe he got the idea from this pic and what he took for 5-L or white is actually fire damage or primer (?).

Pic courtesy of Navsource.

I thought that was a possibility too Jon. I messaged the artist, so we'll see what they have to say.

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-Abram

I think if you look closely at that picture of Nevada, you will see sunlight reflecting off the sides of the bridge. That combined with the paint damage gives one the impression that that portion of the superstruction was white. Here is a better image of that part of the ship. Its all measure 1 5D.

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Rob

Well I got a reply from the artist and they are dead set on believing it is white. Here are the replies:

ME:I would like to know why it is you have colored parts of the bridge/superstructure white? Thanks.

The Artist:That is one of the reasons: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... -19940.jpg

ME:What are the other reasons? These pictures all show the same area not white:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/013662.jpg
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/013632.jpg
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/013661.jpg
http://navsource.org/archives/01/036/013630.jpg
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/013600c.jpg

It looks more like fire damage to me. The drawing is great, I'm not saying it isn't I was just curious about your color choice. Thanks

The Artist:The battleship was repaint after attack (1942 standard).
Even white false-bow wave disappeared...
Fire damage could destroy a paint, but not make STS or MS / HTS steel to be white (it should be dark grey).
Here is painting sheme on both sides of superstructute (navigation bridge):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... attack.jpg
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/onli ... /fig16.jpg
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/6738/45813820.jpg

...and on my painting:

http://lioness-nala.deviantart.com/art/ ... 75880&qo=4

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-Abram

I don't think it's worth our time to argue with them. =P

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

Jesus... where to beging with?

It's clearly fire damage.



Yet, the picture with the "white" bridge is while the ship is still burning.



It didn't have to. White or light grey aren't the only colours that show up as white or light grey on B&W pictures, for heavens' sake. Inform the smart lad that it could actually be any shade of orange or red... you know, the kind of shades you get on burnt-out metals. The kind you use in primers, even.

Marco

USS Nevada 1941
by ~Lioness-Nala

Not sure of gender....

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

Compare against this view:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/013632.jpg

That looks like burn damage, not a deliberate area of lighter paint. Now, perhaps it is Standard Gray showing through after the surface coat of 5D (or 5S?) burned away or peeled off from the heat. Wasn't paint adhesion over the glossier Standard Gray a common problem in those days? So coming off en mass from a large area like that seems feasible.
(BTW, in reference to this photo, as the wood looks to be uniformly the same color as the anchor chain scrape plates, it would appear that Nevada's wood deck was painted. Does anyone have any information about what color this would have been?)

I agree with the artist's assessment on the February photo; they must've painted over the area sometime after the fires were out.

- Sean F.

The fire in the bridge area was too hot to merely slough off one layer of paint. It melted Brass. Look at the inside of that area (and the next three photos). Any paint in that area cooked from the inside.

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

Tracy,
Thank you for posting that report of the battle damage to Nevada. While I had seen parts of it before, I hadn't seen the overall document. Its great to have for reference purposes.

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Rob

Guys,
One of the things that has puzzled me since I started on my Nevada project has been the Measure 5 false bow. As far as I know, these false bows were only applied to Oklahoma and Nevada. Does anyone know why?

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Rob