Not sure if I´m not overkilling myself with too many open projects, but...
It´s not often realized but when we are speaking about destroyers at the beginning of the Guadalcanal campaign, we are automatically speaking about the entire Bagley class. All eight members of the class were present in the vicinity of Guadalcanal from the very moment of the invasion on August 7, 1942, representing over 50% of destroyers within the invasion force. Six Bagley-class units (
Bagley, Blue, Helm, Jarvis, Patterson and
Ralph Talbot) got into contact with Vice Admiral Mikawa´s force during the Battle of Savo Island and two (
Patterson and
Ralph Talbot) were damaged in the fight. Of other classes, there were
USS Wilson and
Ellet (Benham class),
Buchanan and
Monssen (Gleaves class),
Selfridge (Porter class) and
Hull and
Dewey (Farragut class) close to Guadalcanal and Tulagi, but only
Wilson participated directly in the Savo Island battle out of these other classes.
The history of my Bagley-class research and build(s) is closely related to the one of
Benham-class‘ USS Wilson. After dismissing the Midship kit as the starting point we had some initial discussions with Justin (Red Devil Designs) and then the actual work started with Matt (Kraken Hobbies), who created the first 3D attempts on Bagley already in 2021 and provided me at first with a test set of his Midships upgrade kit that was expanded to two full 3D printed models incl. waterline hulls - just this week.
This is how the 3D parts look like (I´m not showing complete sets for two ships here). The grey-coloured parts come from Matt´s older printer and the darker/blue-grey ones from the new 8k printer. Interestingly, the print layers seem to be more apparent on blue-grey parts, especially under LED light. Perhaps it´s because their vertical sides are so shiny. But details are definitely much sharper and crisper on those blue-grey parts.
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In the meantime, I prepared the design for a complementing PE set and had a prototype etched. After testing the fit an updated version of the PE sheet will be prepared and it is planned to become available at Kraken Hobbies in the not so far future. The sheet should include all necessary PE parts for all class members in 1942 incl. measured railings and radar variants.
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To be continued
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.Am looking forward to see the WIP pics soon. Have a great start!
