The Ship Model Forum

This is an account on building Niko’s 1:700 Garland as HMS Griffin in November 1941. She will be the third ship (besides HMS Valiant) to be featured in my diorama depicting HMS Barham’s last sortie. The kit is a fine resin model with delicate castings and a small photoetch fret. Being a sister ship to HMS Griffin I thought she would be the most suitable kit to modify. Still, during the build process I encountered numerous difficulties originating from the differences between the sister ships and the possible inaccuracies of the kit itself.
When I start this account I am already well into the build so the first phases will be described in retrospect. I do not deceive myself into believing that this build will generate much interest – a small, standard type RN destroyer is not something most modelers care about. Therefore, I try to keep my build report concise.
After obtaining the kit

I prepared the necessary references shown here:

Norman Friedman’s book on British destroyers and the Shipcraft publication were very useful. Norman Ough’s drawings and the original builder’s plan provided much detail information along with the superb John Lambert drawings of destroyer weapons. The Osprey booklet helped more than expected, too. As for original photographs the only one taken around the time depicted that I could find is a poor quality broadside shot with a second ship behind making interpretation of details difficult.
During construction I used photoetched sets from WEM, Flyhawk, Lion Roar, Starling Models, L’Arsenal and some other manufacturers,

turned brass barrels from Master Model. Micro Master’s superb 3D printed accessories became indispensable in my current builds.

Painting was done with Colourcoats and Humbrol enamels and photographs were taken by my Canon EOS 450 D camera. I prepared a hand drawn plan in my usual fashion to keep track of the modifications during the building process.

As usually, I started construction of the model with the hull. A plate of styrene was glued to the underside of the waterline hull and sanded flush to compensate for the loss of freeboard when the ship will be recessed in the seascape. Without the artificial sea the ship is riding unusually high only to be rectified when the diorama is completed.

I deemed the two rows of portholes too high and not in a straight line, therefore filled them with putty and drilled another two rows directly under the original ones.

To my surprise I could not make them line up perfectly despite great care when drilling. With hindsight I should have left the portholes alone – the new ones seem somewhat to low to my eye.

I attached PE rigols from Flyhawk

with varnish over the portholes and tried to ameliorate the irregularities in the line portholes by positioning the rigols in a really straight line.
Primer was sprayed on the hull after applying strips of Tamiya masking tape to simulate strakes.
Fittings to be replaced, like depth charge throwers and small cordage reels were cut from the upper and forecastle deck, and some PE details: small fairleads, doors and engine room vent covers attached. I glued small strips of stretched sprue around the ground tackle to simulate raised deck lines.



The major superstructure components as well as the funnels will be secured to the deck by lengths of steel tube glued into the latter which in holes drilled into the former. With these tubes in place I could move on to provide additional detail to superstructure parts.

The forward superstructure is the largest structure on deck.


I glued the shelter deck and the bridge together and filled the seam. The ready-use 4.7 in shells were simulated by little bars against a low bulwark – not a bad effort, but railing must go between the two, so I cut them off (here and at every other location where it was present). The flange at the perimeter of the open bridge, acting as a wind deflector was thinned down considerably. A pair of little galleries, protruding from the bridge sides were fabricated from sheet aluminium. The same material was used to form a cone at the base of the rangefinder. Vents were fashioned out of styrene rod. Portholes were drilled out, 0,2 mm thick stainless steel bridge wing supports, PE doors, splinter mattresses, signal flag lockers, ladders, grab rails, windscreen and ship’s wheel were fitted.


Separate with more additional parts:


The much simpler after deckhouse was modified along the same lines.

The 3 in AA platform was constructed entirely out of PE and its railing as well as that of the searchlight platform was provided with canvas dodgers made out of white glue.

The 0.5 in AA platform

had its splinter shields thinned down and its lockers were given a PE lid, its underside PE supports. Like the ones on this part, some other splinter shields had an odd appearance: their lower half was of double thickness compared to the upper. I could not find any photographic evidence to verify this and duly sanded the thick portions down.

The funnels had their openings drilled out,

received multi-part PE grilles (the construction of one is shown in the pictures)
Steam pipes were constructed from Albion Alloys Brass tube and were attached to the respective funnels by PE rings with their tiny lugs glued into pre-drilled holes.


The after funnel has PE sirens and their platform. With the after funnel completely adorned with its PE details I realised that it was not yet cut down at the time shown, as in the kit.

It was a pain to heighten it retaining the delicate items already added. I formed a plug, resembling the shape of the funnel’s bottom and around it went some sheet aluminium . I then tried smooth the joint between the two funnel parts with moderate success.


I think any imperfection will not be really noticeable among the wealth of tiny details on the completed model.

Not many use more accessories and books for such a tiny warship than you do.
Demanding as always

Thank you, Szabi!

PE lockers, inclined ladders, cordage reels, support girders, davits, as well as scratchbuilt semaphores and searchlights were prepared separately and temporarily attached to a piece of cardboard for ease of painting.

This other piece holds two Vickers 0.5 in quad and two 20 mm Oerlikon guns, plus two depth charge throwers (Flyhawk PE), depth charge rack, rear gantry (WEM PE),scratchbuilt smoke generators, two large elaborate scratchbuit winches and two paravanes as part of the TSDS gear plus some davits.

Another piece of cardboard holds stove pipes, the rangefinder and some depth charges, all of which are to be painted black.

The commanding officer’s chair is fabricated out of PE railing, covered with white glue (not really visible in this poor photograph). Some oars and the equipment of the emergency control position is here, too.

Two boards (lead foil) with tiny PE letters (Artist Hobby) spelling out the ships’s name were prepared as shown.

The ship carried two 27 feet cutters and a 25 feet fast motor boat. The former are items of Admiralty Model Works‘ range,

while the latter was modified from a crude WEM resin boat

embellished with PE (leftover from the Tetra QE set).

I like to fabricate nice little boats but alas I am unable to reach the standard of Micro Master’s offerings, so I will most likely use their boats in my future builds, just like the six Carley floats shown here, along with some sheet aluminium shields.

Masts were fabricated out of various gauge brass rods (Albion Alloys) and brass yardarms from Master Models were glued to them. The crow’s nest is a somewhat oversize kit item which had its wall thinned down.
The gun director needed a few PE parts to make it look fit for its task.

The ready use 4.7 shells are simulated by PE grab rails cut to pieces (too thick for its original purpose). The rail will be glued to the deck and spikes will act as shells. Careful painting is hoped to make it more or less credible.The ready use 4.7 shells are simulated by PE grab rails cut to pieces (too thick for its original purpose). The rail will be glued to the deck and spikes will act as shells. Careful painting is hoped to make it more or less credible.

All the main armament of four 4,7 in guns and the 3 in AA gun needed were brass barrels. In every other respect they are just perfect thanks to the careful research and flawless, incredibly detailed 3D realisation by Micro Master. The same applies to the bank of four torpedo tubes from the same manufacturer. I only added some PE railing to this wonderful part.
The model without

and with all its parts prepared for painting can be seen here.

Note that nothing is glued to the hull yet – hence the slightly misaligned position of masts and funnels.

You are off to a fine start - looking good!

_________________
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

Thank you, Martin!

I don't agree! If one is interested in quality modelling, your work is always a treat to follow. In that regard this little ship is certainly up there with the big battleships!
Thanks for sharing György!

I agree with Marijn. The cutter and the motor boat are little masterpieces. And so is the Destroyer. Moreover,I dig your sketches. Keep it up!

_________________
http://www.3xblackcats.wordpress.com

Marijn, SG1, thank you.
I am really motivated by your interest in my little destroyer!

That is some very nice work.

Agreed. Dont sell yourself short zs180. PE has always been my Personal Enemy, but that is nice work in 1/700. Congrats.

Paul

Dan, raggs, thank you for your kind words!
I wrote what I wrote because I sensed a bias for USN and IJN subjects and capital ships here.
In fact I am surprised at the interest generated by my humble work!

Here is the description of the painting.
At first I thought I would paint a disruptive camouflage as shown in Alan Raven’s ‘Warship Perspectives’ Volume One. This would have been in good accordance with the other ships in the diorama, HMS Barham and HMS Valiant. However during the build I stumbled upon a very nice build of a member named robgizlu at britmodeller.com. He had built HMS Griffin based on the 1:350 scale kit of HMS Glowworm by Atlantic Models. His account proved most useful to me. I hereby wish to express my gratitude for his helpful insights. He had discovered that HMS Griffin was unlikely to have carried the camouflage shown in the Raven booklet at the time in question. Instead she probably had her hull painted AP507A, her upperworks AP5017C, so I chose this option. I found a very grainy photograph of HMS Griffin online which, I believe, shows her in 1941. It shows her in the camouflage described above with a false bow wave, one band on the fore funnel and two on the after one.

The colour of the funnel bands cannot be ascertained to my knowledge. Based upon some information gleaned from the internet, I opted for red. I had to determine the deck colours, which is a kind of hit or miss. For the base colour I chose Humbrol 87, for the parts covered with Semtex, Humbrol 92. The latter’s original colour is a very light cream, but it was often mixed with pigment and after much time spent on looking at models, most notably the ones built by Norman Ough, I chose dark grey.
I sprayed the steel decks H87, masked and applied H92.


With hindsight a reverse order would have been easier with regard to masking.
The black (in fact very dark grey) parts came next,

then the hull’s 507A (somewhat lightened WEM paint).

The next picture shows the false bow wave sprayed on and deck details picked out with WEM 507C using a fine brush.
Pendant numbers are kit decals modified (from H37 to H 31), Plimsoll marks are Five Star decals. All decals were applied over and covered with a layer of gloss varnish.

After some masking WEM 507C was sprayed over the superstructure parts. Funnel bands are from TL decals according to the suggestion of Jim Baumann –thank you, Jim! Their bright red colour will by subdued at a later phase. Adding some details like brown name boards, black light AA barrels, sidelights, white foremast top, etc. completed the initial painting.



Next, washes from the AK line were applied: in all six colours were used, in a different fashion to the decks and the hull. A small amount of chipping and rust streaks were added



then shades have been accentuated using the AK interactive shading oil paint. Highlights were drybrushed and painted with middle grey over the dark grey, and white over the light grey surfaces. As a last step of the painting process, matte varnish was sprayed all over the hull and superstructure parts.

She really looks the part of a busy, war weary destroyer that's seen hard service. Great work! I'm enjoying following along.

_________________
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

Martin, thank you so much for your kind attention to my work!