The Ship Model Forum

Hi,

I'm Mark and I have been working on and off on this build for since early 2010. Life has had a way of interfering with the build as well as all the issues I have had with the kit. I started this build as a work up for the Banner/Hobby Boss/Trumpeter 1/350 kit I received as a present from my father. I have never really built a ship before and I wanted to use the Revell kit as a shake down cruise for the "real thing Hobby Boss" kit. Since it was a budget build, the only after market I bought was the PE set from Toms. However there were some things I could not abide by namely the turreted 5/51 secondary guns and the not even close 5/25 dual purpose guns. I wound up hodge podging them from various Niko 1/400 gun sets. You'd think after 50+ years someone would have done a couple of aftermarket sets for this kit.. Anyway here is where I am. The masts are not permanently attached yet since I want to wait on the yard arms and 50 cal. guns until I get the ship's motor boats installed on the boat deck. I am a bit of clutz and I can see me destroying the PE yard arms while I'm jamming the boats on.....





It has been a fun time getting here.

5/51 gun work






More fun with the 5/25s





Have a lot to go. I am working on the ship's boats and once they are done and installed, I will complete the fighting tops and start the boat cranes and air craft catapults.

Thanks for looking and comments are welcomed.
Mark B.

Edited to replace photobucket hostages with uploaded files.

Looking good! I really like your modifications to the guns!

Timothy

Thanks Timothy

It took me several tries on the 5/51s and I really had to work on the 5/25s. I wound up using various 1/400 weapons kits from NIKO and brass barrels from Master Model in the end.

The 5/51's were made using Niko 15cm Tbts KC/36 GUN bases, scratch built gun breaches and recoil tubes, with brass barrels from Master Modeler's IJN 12.7cm/40 Type 89 w/o blast bags set.

The 5/25s kind of put me in a pickle due to the multiple stations on the platform. In the end I scratched the base plates and modified some mounts from Niko’s Twin 4'' mk. XVI gun on mk. XIX sets. I then cut the barrels and sides off of the kits 5/25 guns and used them as the breach with Master 1/350 USN 5/25 barrels. I think the barrels are little too long and light but they do look a lot better than the original plastic ones in the kit.

An update on where she is:

It's been a long journey (some 18 Months or so) from here:

& Here:

& Here:

To Here:

& Here:

But it has been fun and worth it.
I did have some problems along the way. The fit is not the best. The following shot shows the worst of it. Several parts, the masts, mast bracing legs, fighting tops, boat cranes, search lights, and capstans to name a few were on two sprues that suffered some sort of misalignment of the molds. It was like the bottom half of the mold was just about 1/16th of an inch off and shifted to the south. See red arrow. Not sure what happened but it did cause some headaches when assembling the masts and fighting tops. Since I am using a Tom's Model Works PE set I'm not really worried about the cranes.

You can see how the far side of the platform brace is lower than the near side. This caused several painful days of trying to get the foremast, machine gun platform and foremast brace legs and the main mast, main mast brace legs, search light platform and the range finder platform to play together. After several days of dry fitting and gluing them together with Elmer's white glue-all I was able to figure out that the best approach was to file down the "high" sides on the braces and the low sides on the main and fore masts.

See next post for some more shots

Edited to replace photobucket hostages with uploaded files.

Some detail shots:





And a couple of general overview shots:


Sorry about the picture quality. My desk lamp broke and the replacement uses one of those florescent pretzel bulbs. I need to figure out how to use the camera with the new lighting.

I hope to get at least the turret 3 catapult done this week. Life is picking back up again. Got the PICC line (whatever you do try to stay away from osteomyelitis bad juju here) removed and the gov called us back off of furlough so my modeling time is gonna take a hit for a while I fear....

Any and all comments are welcome.
Mark B.

Edited to replace photobucket hostages with uploaded files.

Agreed on the secondary guns, looks excellent!

As to why there isn't as much aftermarket support. I think there is for the 1/700 and 1/350 kits but the Revell 1/426 kit is fairly old with poor detail so most people tend to use kits from Academy, trumpeter, Dragon, etc. And likewise there are aftermarket PE, deck, barrel kits available easilly at hand.

My arizona is built as it came out of box. My next build will probably have some PE in it. I have already ordered several barrel sets for the kits I have waiting.

_________________
-Shane

Dallas, Tx

Working on: Revell 1/426 USS Arizona BB-39

In the Stash: USS Arizona 1/700 Dragon Premium, DKM Bismarck 1/700 Dragon Premium, Admiral Graf Spee 1/700 Trumpeter, & Prinz Eugen 1/700 Trumpeter

SNOW DAY!!!

It's been a long dry spell but the NAS Pensacola was closed this past Wednesday and Thursday due to the ice storm here NW Florida so I got to work on the Arizona a little. I was able to get the catapult on turret no 3 finished. It is from the Tom's Model Works Arizona set. Here are couple of shots to show the overall status


Here is a closer shot of the catapult.

Hopefully I will get some more time between work and house projects to get the stern cat, & the cranes done soon...

Edited to replace photobucket hostages with uploaded files.

Nice job, especially for a first!

Are you going to be at the Pensacola show? Ship modelers are gonna have to represent!

_________________
- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

Better than my first build. Of course that was about fifty five years ago. Nice job, keep it up!

_________________
Any ship larger than a Destroyer is a waste of metal.

Yes indeed, looking mighty fine! First ship too, very nice. I'll echo Chris, hope you come out to the Pcola show next month - we need all the models we can!

Kyle

_________________
Shipmodels Gallery \/

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

Hello again and thanks for the encouragement.

I was finally able found some spare minutes for modeling and was able to finish the stern catapult. Hopefully once the new testing release goes out this Thursday I will be able to get off the 12 hour work days and find some more time to work on the boat cranes… So here is where I am at now.

Stern Catapults:


Here are few overview shots of where she's at now.

And here are a few more detail shots:




I am really hoping to get this finished in May so I can start my next project, the venerable Revell Yorktown CV-5.

Good modeling and thanks for looking,
Mark

Edited to replace photobucket hostages with uploaded files.

Looking super lean, loving the build of a trusty kit. Keep at 'er, I wanna see this Yorktown!

Kyle

_________________
Shipmodels Gallery \/

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

I like this......you keep on staying with it!!!
You seem to have the insight for detail above the avg modeler.......its the little things for sure.

Good work my friend......post more as you are able.

Ok a little more work on the glacial build. Got way to many things going right now. Overtime at work and building a house, well having it built anyway... But I have made some progress on the boat cranes.

I used the PE booms from the Tom's Model Works PE set, the top part of the kit's crane and fabricate the bottom parts from some evergreen rod and a couple of disks punched out of some 30 thou evergreen sheet. It seemed the only way I could get a decent representation of the base of the main boom attachment point.

Here the major parts (main boom, support boom and mast) have been assembled. The crane on the right has the hand rails attached to the circular platform where the main boom attaches to the mast as well.

The finished but unpainted cranes with the kit part as a reference.

And partially painted. Hope to get them finished and installed in the next day or so...I will post some pictures of them on the ship when I get them installed.



Edited to replace photobucket hostages with uploaded files.

You new cranes look a lot better than the old clunky Revell plastic.. Keep it up.

_________________
- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

Thanks.

Here is the latest. I've finished and installed the boat cranes.


Couple of overview shots:




Edited to replace photobucket hostages with uploaded files.

I am currently working on the stern aircraft crane.


But I have run into an issue. The PE set I'm using (Tom's Model Works) does not include a base for the crane? Does anyone have any drawings or a good photo of the base of the crane. So far I have had no joy in my search of the Internet and both of my references do not show the base of the crane to good advantage.

Thanks in advance,
Mark

Edited to replace photobucket hostages with uploaded files.

These are probably the best views I have in my limited library. Hope they are of some use to you.

Thanks. These will be very useful.