1/350 USS New Orleans CA-32 (1945)

[nick]

Thanks Dave!

But it's because of the age gap! I'm still an amateur 14 yr. old and your a living legend!

[Dave Hill]

OMG!!!...there are kids still interested in ship modeling!!!...was starting to think this was an old man's hobby ...be proud of your work young man

Dave

[CL40]

Simply amazing. I've been away at the hobby for several years, getting back into it. I have this kit (CA-38 in 1944), and I am awaiting a resin Kit of the USS Brooklyn.

Oh the fun is going to be good...

[Dave Hill]

Hi all!!!

Update: 5"/25 guns

The guns are Veteran Model kits built per instructions except for the addition of brass 5" barrels from L'Arsenal...I cut the brass barrels to the correct length and attached them to the gun body with CA.

That was the easy part...the problem was what color to paint them!...Initially I planed to paint them 5-H but after looking at photos of NO in '45 they're dark in color. I one good midships photo of NO's 5" guns look to me to be the same color as the hull ( 5-N ) so I painted them 5-N.







Dave

[Dave Hill]

The finished guns



New Orleans in 1945







Dave

[Quincy]

Nice guns.



Bob Pink.

[Dave Hill]

LOL!!!!!!

Dave

[Elvis965]

Nicely done, Dave.

The brass barrels make such a huge difference in the finished profuct, IMHO.



Bob

[Dave Hill]

Hi all,

Minnie update: Finishing the masts.

Finally recieved the 20-B paint needed to get the masts painted.



The foremast with the SK and SG radar added.



The mainmast with the SM-1 and SG radar.

Dave

[Dave Hill]

Hi all,

Update: 5 and 8" gun directors.

Had to scratch build these because the 8" director for NO was a little differant and the 5" director was just wrong even for the SF!

I started by cutting out a 1/350 pattern from my drawing and attaching it to .020" styrene sheet. The drawing only has a side profile for the 5" director so the dimentions are not 100% but the overall shape is there. I then assembled the Mk 28 radar from the WEM pe set and detailed the assembly with assorted pcs of sheet stock and round rod. The 8" director base is round rod and I needed to modify some of the Mk. 25 radar pcs from the WEM set to get the correct look.





The new directors with a kit part.





*Edit*...After studying different referance photos I was able to build more accurate versions of the directors.

Dave

[Cadman]

Those look cool Dave, nice work.

[MartinJQuinn]

Those look cool Dave, nice work.

Yeah - what he said!

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Awesome Dave!
Those directors with the SF kit are pretty much useless.
After seeing your most recent post, there's no way I'll be using either the YMW Mk28 directors or the Trump SF ones on my project.
Your is the correct method of achieving authenticity. Your work looks pretty darn accurate.
This is gonna be a B-E-A-U-T!!
Tony

[Dave Hill]

Thanks Tony!...My drawings provided the side profile but I had to use this photo to guestimate the width and hight. I know it's not very accurate but my drawing fell short here!



Dave

[J. Soca]

Marvelous job on the directors Dave keep it up



Jose

[Dave Hill]

Hi all!

Update: 20 and 40mm AA

The construction of the L' Arsenal twin 20mm mounts were per the instructions with no mods...the twin barreled guns are cast resin and they are nice!!!!!!!...I never imagined something as delicate as a 1/350 Oerlikon barrel could be cast with such good detail. I painted the bace and guns seperately then assembled the mounts.







Next came the quad 40 mounts which were also built per the instructions except for the two mounts on the forward superstructure. In photos of NO in 1945, a Mk19 radar dish was fitted to each of the quad 40 mounts. At first I planned to exclude this feature because there is no PE part for this radar unit and I couldn't find a good photo of the Mk19 radar. Then recently I stumbled onto a USS Kidd (DD 661) photo gallery web page which has a sweet photo of a 40mm quad mount with the MK19 radar!. I then dug through a bunch of old PE frets and found a part that resembled a radar dish and scratched together a mounting out of brass pcs and attached it to the gun assembly.


New Orleans showing the Mk19 radars






The finished mounts painted 5-N like the 5"/25's.

Dave

[MartinJQuinn]

I've really run out of superlatives to describe the quality of this build. I guess "Holy Sh*t!" will have to suffice. Outstanding work - the radar on the 40mm is crazy!!

[roy allen]

As always Dave, a pleasure to look at your workmanship

by the way, how do you do those 360's very interesting way to show your work off.

Roy

[Dave Hill]

Hi Roy,

That little trick is called a "Animated GIF" it's a feature of PhotoScape...the free photo editing program I use.

Link: http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php

Dave

[Elvis965]

That's some kind of delicate work, Dave. Nice job!

Bob