The Ship Model Forum

This is the FROG HMS Exeter in 1/500 scale. Built it back in the 60s and found it again at a model show a few years ago. For nostalgias sake I built it straight oob, no PE, rigging etc. A couple of parts were missing (Pom Poms and Walrus).

FROG ("Fly Right Off the Ground" I think) were a British company who made (in my opinion) some very interesting kits for the tine (not just the stamdards). As someone pointed out earlier they cast in 1/500 with Royal Navy ships like Exeter, Revenge, Torquay, Undine. In truth the detail was not great but at the time they were IMHO the best deal in town
Barry

Continuing my set of improvements to the Trumpeter kit:

I revised all the doors and portholes in the lower part of the superstructure under the bridge. In fact only one door appeared to be in the correct position, and only one porthole. The rest needs to be filled up (see white spots) and new holes drillled (1 mm). Note the rather different pattern on the left (port) side, as there are the seaman's heads, like on most if not all ships of the Royal Navy. On the starboard side rather less portholes are needed.

The 8 inch turrets seem to be rather good, in shape and dimensions, but lack many details, like the sighting ports, maintenance covers on the top, periscope, and doors at the rear of the turret. I tried to do these details justice. One can also buy a replacement set from Micro Master (Simon Percival) offered through Shapeways, but I didn't want to go that far.

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"There are more planes in the ocean, than submarines in the sky" - old carrier sailor

Turning my attention a bit further aft, the rear superstucture leaves also a little bit to be desired. Again, a lot of doors and portholes, practically symmetrical made by Trumpeter, but lacking support from photographs or drawings.

As drawing references are scarce, I used here a plan from Raven & Roberts 'British Cruisers of World War 2'. The plan is from HMS York, but I don't see much reason why it wouldn't apply with Exeter well in this particular case.
As you see, the internal arrangement (officer's cabins-3, commodore's cabin-4, officer's WCs-1 and bahrooms-2) dictates very much where the doors and the portholes are located. So I arranged those similarly on the model. I also added a few doors to the funnel uptake casings, also inspired by the same drawing. Also, note the two forward corners of this deckhouse should be rounded off, as can also be seen on the excellent overhead photo in the Panama Canal.

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"There are more planes in the ocean, than submarines in the sky" - old carrier sailor