In my store, I had a stack of USS Lexington kits from MENG. I was looking on them, as I really like the looks of Lady Lex and Sister Sara. So, as many accessory sets came together, I decided to go to build her.
I got following stuff here:
MENG PS-001 kit
LXMX Lexington set
Wood hunter deck
Artwox wood deck
Lots of doors, ladders, and other goodies in my store and in my private stash.
I also consider to get new armament from Blue Ridge - 5/25 and 1.1 guns, plus the .50 cal MGs either from Blue ridge or PE.
I also ordered the Eduard PE for both Lex and Sara, especially for some walkways and degaussing cables
The state of the MENG kit is consistent with the time between august 41 and april 42. I decided to show the earlier part of it, as she was painted in MS5 camo - dark grey with false bow wave. There is controversy of which color the deck was. I decided to make it mahogany stain - it was definitely repainted to blue by mid-october, but it could have been as early as june. As I like the looks, I will go for mahogany. The ref photo for weathering is this
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... 362%29.jpg, probably with the deck freshly repainted blue.
I tried to darken the deck test piece to mahogany with the Clou wood stain, it worked well. A bit lighter then on period pictures, but as she was badly weathered by october, it would work fine. As a tone ref I used these pics
https://www.pinterest.de/pin/403987029047601476/https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1a/24/3f ... 6d9c8d.jpgThe kit itself is not bad. Some small details are omitted, for example the 1.1 guns are not there at all. But as I usually replace such stuff with resin or PE, its not a big loss at all. Adding stuff is easier as sanding off the wrong details. Other things to replace are deck edge nets, too thick bulwarks on the platforms, or radar antenna, all provided by Eduard or LXMX set.
http://www.hnsa.org/resources/manuals-d ... ns-online/The great plan set is available for july 41 as a booklet of general plans, which I use. Only mod since then was radar added and 3" guns replaced by 1.1".
Painting would be done by Lifecolor sets, I had some good experiences with their paints.
As I started, the hull has some omissions:
- some portholes are wrong or missing. As it is relatively minor, and I HATE drilling portholes, I would not touch it at all.
- some prominent details missing - boat booms, tubes, fenders, doors, etc. Nothing I cant fix. Some molded on "bars" on sides are not looking nice, or are out of place. These are now sanded off, and would be replaced. Only two such bars stayed in place - one in correct place for garbage chute, and one also in place for gasoline pipe in plans.
- prominent degaussing cable is missing. Eduard set has it, but has it wrong around the bow (in photos it is plain level there, eduard has a knick in the cable path upwards), so I will need to fix it
Right now, I added the waterline plate to the hull, sanded off the wrong details, and now reconstructing them with Pe and plastic
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Model kit manufacturer and distributor:
https://b2b.modellbaudienst.deDistributor of Very Fire, Snowman, Milania Master Korabel, Falkonet, Microdisign in EU
1:350 HMS Diana 1794 - nearly released
Further kits in preparation.