Hello friends,
Before moving to the model I’m currently building, for anyone interested I thought it would be polite to give a short introduction since I’m new to this forum (or go immediately to the interesting bits two paragraphs below!

).
As for myself...My name is Bas Flipse, I’m 25 years old, I live in the Netherlands and I’ve completed my very first model last year (she can be found elsewhere on the board
here). I must admit I’m one of the (if not the) slowest builders around. Due to various reasons (new job, moved to another address twice, etc, etc) my first build took ages and that will properly be the case with my Buckley class as well (got married last year, long honeymoon and last but not least we've bought a house which consumed most of my free time).
References and PESo, my second ship

. I've purchased an eBook from Floating Drydock, GMM PE, Master Models 3" gun barrels and I'll use the l'Arsenal 20 mm's and 1.1". I also have to mention that after my first ship was nearly completed I’ve read David Griffith’s great book ‘Ship models from kits’. I really do recommend it to any newbie such as myself as it gave me a lot of techniques and ideas how to build the Buckley.
I haven't decided which particular ship yet; I'm still looking for a Buckley with the 20mm gun tub in front of the depth charges (which I already installed) and also is wearing MS22. Between this it basically can be any ship, but I do prefer one with an interesting history. I’ll see what I can find.
HullConstruction started with the deck and the hull. Although I believe (with my very limited experience) the Trumpeter Buckley basically is a good model, I'm not terribly happy with how she fits together. I'm doing a full hull model, so the lower hull part fits to the upper hull part. Particular at the bow section the two parts did not line up and this required quite some sanding in order to get things right. The conning tower is another example of a part that does not fit together; the picture I included shows the huge gap between the left and right piece after I glued things together.

Further details on the hull were supports on the 3” and 20mm gun shields, PE hatches, braided anchor chains (yes, I got that trick from David Griffith’s book), and opening the chocks.

SuperstructureI’ve already completed most of the superstructure (prior to painting at least). I've replaced all doors for their PE counterparts and added some additional details such as steam- or oil pipes. All the K-gun arbors on the bulkheads are a nice feature of this kit however there are too much molded on so I had to remove some of them. The same goes for the aft house which has the 3" gun on top; the house itself had a door and a ladder at both sides so some of the arbors had to be removed here as well.


The conning tower is still plain looking but after painting the whole thing more details such as a pelorus, range finders, railings, etc will be added. Both the portholes on the sloping sides were a bit odd; it looked like they were drilled from the front side instead of a right angle in respect to the panel. I've filled them and drilled them again. Also all portholes were fitted with eyebrows.


And the pieces completed:

FunnelThe funnel was relatively easy, opened at the top and provided with PE. I still intend to add the siren and whistle, which were prominent at the forward funnel platform, however I'm still not entirely sure how to represent these in this scale. I've created supports for the rigging out of a ECM antenna that was still in the USS Fletcher PE fret. I've removed the outer pieces so a triangle remained and this was bent to the right shape of the support.
MastAfter some doubts I decided to replace the kit's mast by a copper mast with the GMM PE. Although the kit mast wasn't bad, it was not circular at the part where the yardarms were supposed to fit. Using the GMM yardarms, this had to be corrected. Furthermore the floating drydock eBook shows that the molded-on fighting lights are incorrect for at least most of the Buckleys, so they had to be removed. Overall I thought it would be easier building a new one from a 1 [mm] copper wire rather than do all these modifications. The only thing I used from the kits mast was the mast platform, the radar platform (after reshaping it to a crescent shape) and a triangular support which function is unknown to me.

3" gunsAs mentioned before, I've bought the Master Models 3" barrels and these are a major improvement. With GMM's PE added, the main guns look much more attractive and three-dimensional than the original and sober molded-in-one-piece 3" guns from the kit.


And that is as far as I am right now! Next will be the 1.1", al eight 20 mm's, hedgehocks and the depth charges. After that I'll do all the smaller details such as cable reels and ammunition lockers.
Any suggestions, hints or tips will of course be greatly appreciated!
Best regards,
Bas