The Ship Model Forum

I can't just sit around and do nothing for long now that 'Zona is done. I'm jumping back into another long term project. This one I've been wanting to do for quite some time now. When it's all done there will be 5 ships and a bunch chaotic activity going on in this diorama.
The two main ships are Tennessee and West Virginia. I originally built these two ships about 15 years ago (long before I knew what the heck I was doing) and they are ready for a MAJOR overhaul. I will be stripping both ships down and building them back up to create this diorama.

Here are the first pics of the new project.

Looking forward to this, your work is always excellent.

_________________
-Abram
ModelWarships Gallery Page
Joslin Models Facebook Page

Hi Jeff:

I will be following along on this venture. Looking forward to it.

_________________
Mark
Master Gunnery Sergeant USMC (Ret.)
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

On the bench:

1/200 USS Enterprise, CV-6

Nice!!



Bob Pink.

Ditto.

_________________
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

same here...lookin nice!

It seems so painful to me to break this diorama down for a rebuild. It looks so nice. Wouldn't it be easier to just start with new kits?

Yes, new kits would be an easier route but painful to the pocketbook. These two kits are now selling for $325 each. It was an easy decision to rebuild the old ones I already have.

The first step is complete. I had to waterline both ships. Thankfully West Virginia was already a two piece hull. It wasn't too painful to waterline her. Now I have to figure out how to sink her.
Tennessee, on the other hand, is a one piece hull.


So I had to take her outside (it's 15 degrees today) and bandsaw her lower hull off. Now both ships are waterline and I can start the tear down process on both kits. Things are going to get ugly before they start to look good.


Tennessee also got a bath. That's why she looks wet in this photo.
I also started to visualize how the scene is going to look by laying an upside down Kingfisher on Weevee's deck, adding burn marks of life rafts on her third turret, and darkening Tenn's decks.
We now know that Tennessee's decks were stained as early as August 1941.
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/3ebd90b8062cb6ed_large

**edit** that's also good to know about Tennessee's decks.

_________________
-Abram
ModelWarships Gallery Page
Joslin Models Facebook Page

The yard work on the Tennessee has begun. Oh my aching heart! I keep telling myself it will look better in the end.


Nearly everything I have taken off so far will be replaced with new, including new after market 5" guns.

There are a couple of things I noticed right away that I need to replace on the quarter deck. First, the gun tub is all wrong for 1941. This is a '42 tub.


So, I'll be scratch building the proper tubs that look like this.


I also need to cut down that two story shed. The port side was two story because I believe it housed the projector room, but the starboard side had a single story shed that can also be seen in the gun tub photo above.

The main guns are in good shape and need just a little work.


I added the first sign of battle damage to Tennessee. On top of turret #3 a bomb penetrated through the catapult before entering through the turret roof. This bomb did not explode.


The center gun on Turret #2 took the only other bomb to hit Tennessee. The bomb landed right on or right in front of the blast bag. Photos right after the attack suggest that the blast bag survived somehow.

_________________
-Abram
ModelWarships Gallery Page
Joslin Models Facebook Page

Ship number 5 arrived in the mail today. I'm super excited to start this beauty. It's amazing how much bigger she was than the tug and garbage lighter. Now all I need is a Panair boat and the scene will be complete. Anybody know of any 3D guys that may be able to print out a 1/350 scale Panair for me?

Tennessee is the first ship to get reworked. This is the old Classic Warships kit. She has her share of inaccuracies that I am correcting. A few things on the superstructure were corrected and I scratch built two aft gun tubs.


As far as damage from the attack, Tennessee was one of the lucky ones. She was struck by two bombs. One penetrating though the catapult on turret #3(but did not explode) and one exploding on the center gun right at the face plate of turret #2. Considering what could have happened, this bomb caused minimal damage.


Other damage that the ship sustained was from the oil fires in the water from USS Arizona's explosion. Her aft decks sustained quite a bit of fire damage and the hull was scorched as burning oil drifted towards the harbor's entrance.


I've started working on the fighting tops, I'm trying to get them to look exactly as they appeared during the attack. One interesting thing about the aft fighting top was that one of the yardarms was sheared off by the same bomb that hit the catapult on turret #3 but remained hanging by one of its support wires.

Here is one pic showing what I mean. You can see it in other pics as well.


I wish there was 3D printed cage masts in this scale! Unfortunately there are not any. The cone shaped photo etch masts are a bit of a bummer.

Looking good Jeff, I'm glad to see some progress on this.

_________________
-Abram
ModelWarships Gallery Page
Joslin Models Facebook Page

Hi Jeff:

Nice to see a post as to your progress and the direction you want to take this. Hopefully one or some of our 3D printing associates will be willing to come up with a solution to your need.
I am looking forward to seeing your work on this.

_________________
Mark
Master Gunnery Sergeant USMC (Ret.)
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

On the bench:

1/200 USS Enterprise, CV-6

Looking good, Jeff. I had asked Carl from 3DModelworks about cage masts in 1/350, but he said it's more complex than just scaling up the 700th versions. Hopefully he will be able to work that out.

_________________
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

Thanks Martin. I have spoken to Carl as well. Hopefully he can figure it out. Unfortunately I don't think there is a big enough demand for them since there is no plastic option of the Big Five yet. So it's probably not on top of his priority list.

Damned inconsiderate of him!

_________________
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

LOL!
Maybe if we make him feel bad enough about not having any available yet he'll make them just to shut us up.

Here's a couple of test shots of West Virginia now sunk. She is still a little high in the bow so I have to fix that, but I think this may work. The tough part is still ahead of me. I have to figure out how I'm going to show all the port side damage to her.