At 'Em Arizona Fans!

[ArizonaBB39]

hello all,

what would everyones, comments if i built a 1921/1941 hybrid model of arizona ???1941 from main deck upwards and the hull would be as built no blister,as i cant seem to find plans only what i have in paul stillwells book and ships data,let me know your comments

Floating Dry dock has plans for the ship in 1941, I have a set here in my room that I ordered from them.

[nzmatt]

I have less patience with trying to figure out text that is badly constructed and punctuated...

well tracy i dont have much experience on the pc when it come to that so please dont judge........


and thanks for that,i might do uss pennsylvania bb38 instead useing the floating drydocks plans and the twf of the ariziona.

cheers matt

[Tracy White]

Let me try this again... are you mainly interested in the 1921 hull lines and only doing the 1941 superstructure due to lack of information, or do you want to actually build a hybrid?

Redacted some of my earlier responses....

[nzmatt]

yes tracy that is correct.

but if i did one would look odd?or would the best bet would be doing the her sister ship pennsylvania in 1945 useing her plans from the floating-drydock and the twf drawings of arizonas hull stations of 1941 to help?or my second pick would be the uss maryland as i have all the plans i need for those which helps?i tried nara for the arizona plans but they were to expensive even for the body plan,i have to decide to pick one,thats why i want to know what would be more popular.

cheers

matt

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Thought I'd share some construction issues with the Dragon 1/700 Arizona. According to the Chesley drawings at the back of Stillwell's Arizona book, the tripods appear to have the fighting tops pretty much even in height above the waterline.

That is without taking measurements. The drawing I studied is of the Arizona at her time of demise, and is in 1/600 scale. When I get back to this, I'll be converting the 1/600 drawings to 1/700 and possibly making all of the tripod legs a little shorter.


Not sure yet, but they look a little too tall at a glance. At this stage of construction, the fwd fighting top is noticably lesser in height than the aft tripod. Funny thing, this was my issue, as the photos on the side of the box, (in all of their glory), look okay. Is it just me? Maybe!
When making the center fwd tripod leg from brass tubing, I was about to maintain the same center tripod leg length. This would have been a mistake.

Here are two pics that contrast the 5-S with and without a flash.



Don't worry, none of the sub-assemblies are glued down yet!
Tony

[ArizonaBB39]

Looking good Tony, and thanks for the pics!! Without the flash 5-S doesn't even look blue, it looks like dark grey (atleast on my monitor)

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Abram,
I painted some of the Arizona parts with the Acryl 5-S with a little white added. I do this with all paints I use on all of my 1/700 builds.
I studied it over and over and it just looked too light to me.
When I got around to painting more of this project, I decided to add some black to the 5-S. This made a dramatic difference. I split my computer screens, comparing my Arizona with the pics posted on this thread of Don P's 1/96 Arizona, (BTW..thanks Seeling), and my Az was a tad darker. After applying my darkened 5-S, I thought I'd nailed it. I PM Tracy telling him I'd found the shade I'd been looking for. Now, I think maybe I went a teeny bit too dark. If anything, I'd like it the same as the 1/96 Az, or a tad lighter...1/700 scale remember?
When seen outside, or with aflash, I still like what I see.
Any input from the Az fans?
Thanks, Tony

[dick wood]

Tony:

First off she is looking great so far.

Second using a divider I just measured the distance from the top of the rear top (using the peak of the roof) using the plans on Stillwells book to that of the forward top. and is off by only a foot or so in 1/600 scale. Not much of a diffrence to me.

I just opend the Banner box this morning and I am getting my ducks in line to start on my, 1/350 full hull version ( I am not wimping out like you Tony!! . I am wondering if you have any info on the bilge keels which I want to replace. The Stillwell book shows them in elevation, but I wished I had a better layout. I heard that Toms Model works has a timplate for placing the. Is this true?

Keep her going tony.

P.S. I really love teh Mark I fly sawtter in yellow on the wall! Sorths of matched the yellow display Box!!


Keep her comming guys

[ddp]

tony, that aft tower is taller then the front tower then shown in the book

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
The Chesley drawinngs show both fighting tops to be the exact same height above the baseline. Not .001" different.
DDP,
Got any numbers?
The Dragon kit I'm building is a w/l model, (not the most recent release with a hull bottom), so I can only use the drawings from the baseline for a few references. The w/l may be a little arbitrary, so I'll take all measurements from base of fighting tops to attach point area flush with the decks. In 1/700 scale we won't be overly concerned with the main decks camber, since it would be negligable. In 1/96 scale it is another matter.
The difference between 1/600, (drawings), and 1/700 is .8571 when reducing. Likewise when enlarging, (I won't be doing), the magic number is 1.166666.
The mainmast vertical leg is 1.640" in 1/600 x .8571 = 1.405" in 1/700 scale. The actual 1/700 Dragon is actually too short, as it measures out to 1.350". Too short! Not by much though.
The foretop center leg is .560" in 1/600 scale, after reducing = .4799" should be the amount the center formast leg length. I already trashed teh foremast center leg, so no measurements to compare, but I do know teh correct length..according teh the Chesley draings.
More to come, gotta go.
Tony

[ddp]

no tony as i'm just comparing the line drawing in your book compared to your photographs. this is a link from navsource, see what you think. look for a 131k picture of Arizona (BB-39) at anchor with other ships of the Pacific Fleet during the later part of her career
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/39e.htm

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
I painted the model once more. This time with a little more of the 5-S from the Testors bottle added to my darkened, "homebrew", 5-S. I think I've got it! Finally!
The hull has been re-painted, and a whole lot of overspray is on the decks. Later.
The Clipper barrels and the blast bags will be used. There is a problem though: the Clipper blast bags will need to be changed to more closely resemble the real Arizona's blast bags. They are to poofy! Out of the package won't cut it.
I have painted the gun barrels and the broadside 5"51 guns.
Here are a few of many questions to come.
Should I paint the broadside guns, "turret", a different color. I know this is not really the way they were on the real ship.
Also, the upper surface of the mainmast tripod's 36" searchlight platform; is it 5-L or 5-S?
Are the capstans, paravanes, searchlights, gun directors....ad infinitum all to be painted 5-S?
Here are some progress pics for your(s) to review...........



Time to prime the fighting tops..........and paint still some more 5-S.
I wish I had time to paint the turret tops the Insignia red tonight....
The turrets have the bottoms cut out to closer fit to their respective barbettes; otherwise the turrets sit about .010" off the barbete. Wrong! I compared the pics of the ship and the drawings. Now, it looks like teh turrets are where they're suposed to be.
The guns and blast bags will be attached from the outside.
Tony

[Tracy White]

Broadside guns were one of three ways in appearance.
1) hard steel shutters that were the same color as the rest of the vertical surfaces.
2) lighter colored canvas coverings that hung down. If you've got the stillwell book look to pages 190 & 194.
3) oen, with the canvas rilled up and tied off; you can see both 2 & 3 on page 220 of the Stillwell book.

I don't know for sure what color Arizona's canvas covereings would have been, but SHIPS-2 (Rev 2, Sept 1941) called for them to be dyed to a color similar to deck blue. The pictures I've seen (November 1941) suggest they were rolled much of the time in Hawaiian waters.. not a big surprise given the dark paint and hot sun. Note the canvas coverings on the 5" boat deck guns... lighter than the paint... perhaps a little lighter than the blast bags....

*Edit* when stoed, the 5"51 broadside guns were locked into position painting fore and aft along the axis of the ship... many modelers "radial" them out and this wasn't the case... too dangerous to sailors walking the deck!

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Tracy,
According to the November 41 pic, it appears that the levels of 5-L are not even from the foremast to the mainmast. I'm sure that's an illusion.
I printed some of the 1/96 Az pics for later reference.
Boy is that useful for me. I'm going to duplicate the 1/96 bridge facia, as the Dragon kit leaves a, "liars gap", from 01-02 levels below the forward bridge level/armored conning tower area. There are no vertical surfaces to speak of in this area. I also noticed some empty gun tubs on the 1/96 model. I will duplicate most if not all of the 1/96 models' paint and external details...if time permits. I noticed that the armored conning tower cylinder does not continue, (visibly), below 03 level.
Also, from the Stillwell book, I noticed later pics that I focused on of Arizona underway with the fore and aft jackstaffs, (normally stowed on later ships), very much in place. I filled the deck locator holes for the jackstaffs, so I will now have to make some new holes; albeit much smaller diamter.
Gotto go to the store...
Tony

[ddp]

tracy, aren't they supposed to be all hands on deck ':big_grin:'

[Tracy White]

There are no vertical surfaces to speak of in this area. I also noticed some empty gun tubs on the 1/96 model. I will duplicate most if not all of the 1/96 models' paint and external details...if time permits. I noticed that the armored conning tower cylinder does not continue, (visibly), below 03 level.

The conning tower was just on that level, but an armored tube did extend downward, and the area below the conning tower was boxed off so there shouldn't be an empty space. The forward fighting top's mast extended down to this deck level as well and should have a boxed in area around it, visible in the Chesley plans in the Stilwell book.

The forward two gun tubs on the superstructure deck level (aka "boat deck") were empty; they were for the quad 1.1" guns that she was to have received but never did. From all appearances Pennsylvania had just received hers or was in the process of receiving them; her action report lists 5"/25, 3"/50, and .50 cal ammunition expenditures but not 1.1", so it's a sure bet she didn't fire anything during the attack; however the MOUNTS for the guns can be seen in high-res copies of this photo sans barrels. They may have been installing the mounts at this time, but we don't knof for sure; that same photo, dated December 10th CLEARLY shows that the 5"/25 *GUNS* are gone but the mounts are there... yet the guns and mounts were present on December 7th, as you can see in this picture.

Sorry for the digression.....

[dick wood]

Tony:

I think you nailed the head on the revised paint color. IMHO I would paing the cancis shutters either a slightly darker or lighter shade of your new 5-s. and have them in the opened position.

Good going so far Tony

[Seeling]

Tony-
I had taken about 50 photos of the model in the museum and only ended up posting about 10. Are there areas of the model that you want to see that I did not post? I can check and see if I have anything that would help. I especially liked the details on the forward superstructure and midships areas. These seemed to be areas that the model companies ignored the actual details such as the incinerator and its connection to the stack and the stairs & platform between the lower aft deck and the boat deck.
As for the gun tubs, what I recall reading from the Stillwell book was that the 1.1" tubs near the bridge and near the aft fighting top were empty since there were not enough of the gun mounts to go around at the time of the last refit.
Let me know about the pics.
Jeff Seeling

[bb-56]

Is that trumpeter kit rear tripod too high or what, you have it going down to the deck right?

[Tracy White]

The above picture isn't of a Trumpeter Arizona. Digital Navy, perhaps?