The Ship Model Forum

Hi everyone,

I'm working on a 1/700th diorama of lady Lex at Coral Sea, with her crew abandoning ship and being rescued by USS Morris DD417.
This is what the dio should more or less look like:


Morris is already finished: see here: http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=155076

Construction on Lexington is under way.
The superstructure is almost finshed. Only a bunch of vertical ladders and two antennas need to be added (in the process of being purchasing the PE for them), rafts (need to resin copied still) and of course all the AA guns, searchlights and directors (they will be painted separately, and also waiting on some PE for the guns).

It's not 100% correct as new information kept popping up while building, but it is at least much more than the kit.
All comments and critisism are welcome!

Marijn

Oh wow! very clean and beautiful, hard to believe it is actually 1/700! Will follow as this is one I want to build.

What PE set are you using? or is it custom made?

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CV-8: http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=153851
DD-436: http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=157123
CVL-24 http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=158455

It'll be a very dramatic diorama, and if you can capture the crew going over the side of the carrier, that will undoubtedly be the piece de resistance!

I have always been intending to do a model of Lexington on her last day as well. Back in 1982, when I was still in High School, I spent a day with Noel Gayler, who was an F4F pilot on Lex, shooting down 5 Japanese planes. it was fascinating hearing about the day she was sunk. He told me the captain told him to go survey the port side of the hull and report directly back to him. He said he went down, hung out off the catwalk and could see 5 holes in the hull, each bigger than his house. He later told me about being chief test pilot for the recovered Zero that had crashed in Alaska, and his time in command of CV-61. I just wish he had a camera and snapped a few shots of the Island that day....

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Building:
1/350 BWN California 1941, model monkey parts
1/350 Trumpy North Carolina with WEM, GMM, Lion Roar,
and Very Fire PE, Model Monkey parts
1/350 Fujimi Shokaku

Criticisms? No way, it's beautifully done.

This is gonna be good! I loved the work you did on Morris. I'll be paying attention to this one too.

Many thanks everyone!

Critiques are the best means for learning, and no model is perfect (I certainly see the things I did incorrectly on this one too, or would like yet a bit finer), so I welcome them if I can get them.

Thanks MareNostrum! You are absolutely correct, this diorama will be even more about the figures than about the ships! If you check my Morris tread, you can hopefully see that I have a system worked out for them already. After finishing Morris and before starting Lex, I did another 200 figures. I figure I will need at least another 800 to 1000, which of course takes a lot of time, so I better break it down a bit.
Creating a busy and chaotic flight-deck will also be another key to succes for this dio, and a fun challange too.
I hope it will be a dramatic diorama indeed. I'm really a diorama modeller first, and small scale ship models offer a great challenge for storytelling.

Thanks lost_texan! Morris was a fun part of the project. Because it is so small, it was the ideal testbed for painting techniques before starting the much larger task of Lex.

Wow Edward Wilson, talk about an inspiring meeting! You must feel like doing a model on Lexington too?
Five holes in the hull? I thought she was hit by only two torpedoes? I know of only one photo showing hull damage, but it is a "close-up" of one of the holes so only proves that there was at least one hole. The known pics of her port side unfortunately are too blurry to make out any hull damage of that side.
And yes, that island... Well, this is my version (minus 8 inch director, directors on the fighting top, searchlights, Ye homing beakon antenna, FC radar antenna, and vertical ladders). More historical info is always welcome, but the reality is that it is always finite at some point.

Thanks hypno7! If you want to do Lex at Coral Sea, I strongly advice getting the Warship Pictorial book by Steve Wiper as it focusses on Lexes wartime appearance. My main mistake was getting this book too late.
The Squadron Signal book by David Doyle is very nice too, with many more pics. These are mostly from the earlier years, but still show many relevant details of the ship. It also has the NARA photo you can find in the calling all Lexington fans tread, which is missing from the Wiper book.

I bought both the Gold Medal Models and Eaduard PE sets.
The GMM set is great because of the quality of the PE: very fine, yet sturdy. Railing, ladders, and quite importantly the safety netting are exquisite. I only wish it included more...
The Eduard set is much thicker and the detail is not so fine. I only bought it because it includes the aircraft crane and whaleboat davits (missing from the GMM set). I did also used a couple of parts on the island though: the parts enclosing the back of the top enclosure, the spars protruding from both sides of the fighting platform, and the walkway to the funnel (but with plastic sheet under it to make it non-see-through).

Interestingly, the Eduard set also includes the degaussing cable which is not bad, but I'm looking for a more 3D-looking solution (stretched sprue, if I can manage to make enough length in consistent and correct thickness). The safety netting and railing are really too thick for my taste. But then again, I really like working in very fine detail and like spending a lot of time on it (this project will take me at least another 6 to 8 months) so I prefer the finest possible PE. The Eduard set on the other should appeal more for those less confident with PE, as it is quite easy to work with.

Whoaaaaa, that's excellent! it would be even for a 1/350, but the fact that this is 1/700 is just unreal!
You sir do very crisp, straight, clean details. BRAVO! That's my criticism for now.
Very interesting subject indeed!

happy modeling: Laci

Thanks Laci, I'll take it!

Marijn:

Outstanding work! I, like others, will be following this.

A quick question: what thickness of brass or wire are you using to simulate the very fine conduits (?) criss-crossing the stack/funnel, and how do you affix it without creating a holy mess? Superglue? Klear? Some other method?

Please advise. I love your technique.

Best,

Mike E.

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Mike E.

Thanks Mike!

The "conduits" are not made with brass wire, but with stretched sprue. I used tan colored sprue, hence it looks like brass in the pics. I tack one end in place with gel-type superglue, so I can still move it around a bit to the correct place, while holding the entire thing horizontal so it lies flat. Then I fix it firmly with plastic glue. I use the Tamiya square bottle with green cap: it leaves no residue whatsoever and evaporates very fast, making it ideal for glueing thin items like this. I use a smaller brush to apply than the one stuck to the cap of the bottle.
I find this technique much easier than trying to superglue fine brass wire.

All the supports of the different platforms are stretched sprue also, as are the windowframes of the bridge. I have some really fine brass wire (from Lion Roar I believe), but here I only used it for the small flagpole at the rear of the top of the funnel and the landing light support at the port side of the funnel. I have to check the package to know the diameter, but I guess it must be about 0.2mm.

Be careful with the positioning of the "conduits" though, and certainly don't copy what I did here!
This is actually the biggest historical mistake I made. I copied the rectangular shapes at the 4 corners of the funnel cap from a starboard pic of Lex, not realising that they are ammunition hoists for the .50 guns, and only present at starboard side. I only realised this when seeing a pic in the Wiper book I purchased too late...
The vertical "conduits" are in fact the rails leading to the hoists. So below both hoists, there should be two rails, exactly below the corners of them.

I'm still considering redoing this, but it wouldn't be easy with all the other detail already on the funnel... It still bothers me though, so you just might have given me the decisive nudge.

Other mistakes I certainly won't be correcting:
- the entire 20mm platform at the base of the funnel should be positioned a bit lower.
- the structure in front of the base of the funnel doesn't have portholes and has a different shape.
- the funnel cap has small openings on the side.
- the radar contral room (item hanging to the front of the funnel) should be a bit smaller back to front, and I suspect it to be rounded instead of having squared-of corners.

But I hope these will be easy to overlook when the diorama is complete though. At least, I can certainly live with them, and that's all that counts.

Brilliant work. Sprue is quickly becoming one of my favorite building materials to add these detail. Your little tutorial helps a lot.

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- Chris

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

Marijn:

Thanks so much for the tips! I will be following this!

Great work!

Mike E.

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Mike E.

WOW!!!! That's all. Great work, be very proud

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On the Table - 1/350 USS Arizona

In the Stack - 1/700 Titanic

Hello Marijn

a work always clean and well done you are the only person I know,who succeeds
to do get fatter an crew in PE with flour
well done
cheers
Nicolas

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https://ladiagonaledubosco.blogspot.fr/

Thanks everyone! Your kind words are very encourageing!

Thanks Nicolas! The technique is really not so hard to do. But I have to point out that at least half of the final look comes from very carefully painting them with added highlights and shadows. Not too hard to do, but it takes a bit of experience.

I couldn't stop myself from redoing the ammunition hoists at the funnel. Silly, I know, as it doens't really contribute to the effectiveness of the storytelling in the final diorama which is my main focus, but I do feel a lot better of it now... Historical accuracy is not my main goal (although I don't mind it either), but this was bothering me too much. Removing the detail turned out easier than I though: simply cutting and scraping gently with a scalpel. I just had to be careful not to damage any other detail.
I added some detail too on the hoists and removed the ones from the port side.

Ziet er goed uit. Doe zo voort.

Great way of doing that detailing. I never succeeded in getting an even thickness of stretched sprue over a decent length. No spots of glue either! (another thing I've never succeeded in ).

Curious how this will turn out, and certainly how you will make all that crew!

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The merchant shipyard

Really fine work - can't wait to see more!

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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

Love the extra details. Very clean work.

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We like our history sanitized and theme-parked and self-congratulatory, not bloody and angry and unflattering. - Jonathan Yardley

Thanks guys!

A little update: the aircraft crane. It is a relatively simple but very small crane. For scale: the vertical brass rod is 0,8mm diameter.
The brass PE is from the Eduard set, the handrail (half height) from Lion Roar. I added some small plastic sheet and sprue details. The wind measuring detail at the tip is a chopped up and bended piece of handrail.






Bedankt Neptune!
For the crew, I have a system already: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=155120

Example of it's effect on a model:


It just takes a lot of time to make the 1000+ crew I will need. So just to break it down a bit in more manageable numbers, I did another 200 already before starting construction on Lex: