A Tale of Two Fletcher�s by DD-555
This is a nonfiction story of the two Fletcher Class Destroyers I am currently building. With 175 Fletcher�s to choose from, I put a lot of thought into the two I chose to build. My first choice, the USS Haggard DD-555 is a tribute to the brave men who lost their lives and to those men who kept her afloat when she was struck by a kamikaze April 29, 1945 fifteen years before I was born. My second Fletcher, the USS Bennett DD-473 is a tribute to my grand father whom worked at the Boston Navy Yard during WWII where the Bennett was built. Both the DD-555 and DD-473 suffered damage and loss men by kamikaze attack.
The building of the USS Haggard DD-555 began in early 2011. At a time when finances for building a ship model were almost nonexistent I was able to purchase a new Lindberg Blue Devil kit on E-bay for $40 dollars. As many of us know, this kit is the worst representation of a Fletcher being sold today. I knew this before I began the build. The best thing about this kit is the fact that I was forced to perform very through research of the Fletcher Class Destroyer, which is an ongoing project in itself.
The hull is the biggest and most prominent part of any ship model. The Blue Devil�s hull is without a doubt the most inaccurate Fletcher hull in existence. I have never built a hull, so I decided to use the hull as is and rework everything from the deck up. If you�re interested in taking a look at my DD-555 build use this link and feel free to leave a comment.
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=98554
The story of the USS Bennett DD-473 began more than a year after the DD-555 on this site April 29, 2012. I had and have high expectations for this build. Unlike the scale of the Haggard 1/125, almost every fitting needed for a 1/96 scale Fletcher is available and I imagined the hull would be more realistic as well. I placed orders for fittings, deck structures and the hull. As I waited for the hull to arrive, building of the deck structures and anti aircraft guns from John R. Haynes were underway.
Finally, on October 3rd I received the hull and remaining fittings from Lee of SSY. I gave the hull a quick once over and I noticed that the deck I got along with the deck structure set from CNC wasn�t the same shape as the bow and stern of the hull. Any way I set it aside and took inventory of the fittings I received using a copy of my order form and I�m still waiting for the roof of the bridge casting and a couple torpedo tube tips.
Last week end I began working on the hull. I glued the wood strips inside the top of the hull to support the edge of the deck and began making the stringers or cross support beams. I placed the hull upside down on top of the main deck plans and was shocked to find out the hull doesn�t match the shape of the deck as can be clearly seen in the photos.
Incorrect shape of the Bow:
I traced the shape of the bow and stern on a piece of card stock and cut them out. The card stock cut out is on the main deck plan as seen in four photos in this post.
Photos of the USS Cassin Young DD-793 at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston MA taken this father's day. These photos show the shape of the leading edge of the bow. Notice at the top it is almost the same width as the bow chock. Also notice that below the radius at the top of the bow the hull comes to a knife edge and at the bottom it bulges out.
A couple photos taken of my hulls bow with the chock similar to the photos of Cassin Young.