1/350 Trumpeter Type 23 HMS Montrose as HMS Iron Duke

[California Bound]

I don't have any British ships in my collection and want to add something modern. A type 45 Daring class is the first thing that comes to mind, but looks a little too strange for my taste. So I'll try a type 23 instead.

I chose Iron Duke because I like its emblem more than the emblems of the rest of the ships in the class. And I chose the Montrose kit because I believe it can make the most accurate representation of Iron Duke with the least amount of alterations.

I haven't decided whether to keep it as full hull or to try another seascape. And I don't have all of the aftermarket parts that I would like for this, but I've decided to go ahead and start the project anyway. And just hope for the best.

I still need to make a couple changes for future rigging, and figure out railing placement so that I can add/alter the life preservers. Other than that, I think this sub assembly is ready for paint.

The instructions call for the smaller platform. Good for an early Iron Duke, but pictures show that at some point the platform was enlarged to the same style as the one in the Kent kit. ( included in the Montrose kit). I cut out the square hole for ladder access from the deck below.


The same situation applies to the platform on the right side of the hanger.


Photos show that Iron Duke has now been upgraded and carries a new dome here. Mine is a spare one I had left over from my JPJ build. Also, all the PE used so far has been from White Ensign. The Trumpeter stuff included in the kit has been too frail for me.


Thanks for looking.

Dan

[roy allen]

Hi Dan,
good choice, i'm ex RN and will never build the type 45, ugly
I never did like the type 22 either

Leander's, type 21 and type 23 your current build are superb designs. It is a kit I have on my radar for future build along with one of my favourite US Class the Perry.

Take your time and enjoy

Roy

[Raverdave]

I just got this kit last week and am waiting on the WEM PE to arrive before I make a start, so I will be following this thread with interest.

[California Bound]

Hi Roy,

I like the look of the type 23 a lot. Below the waterline, not so much, so I'm leaning towards a dremel and trying another seascape.

I hope to do some improvements without getting bogged down in every little detail so it should remain enjoyable. I've checked the railing layout and the planned slight change to the life preservers will be OK.

First impression of the stack seems to show problems. I'd ignore them except for the fact that if the problems are there, they'll interfere with the emblem. Since the emblem is one of my primary important details, I'll have to correct it.

Raverdave,

I think the White Ensign PE is a must. It's not perfect, there are a few pieces where Trumpeter is more accurate, but everything is so frail that I doubt I'll be able to use most of it. I even mangled the little antenna that goes towards the rear of each side of the hanger and had to make them from stretched spruce. I don't think I'd even build this kit without the White Ensign PE.

Dan

[California Bound]

Things continue to move along nicely on this project.

In the left half of the first picture you can see where I improved the life preservers slightly by putting them on ramps.



Thanks to some great reference photos of Iron Duke provided by Phil Reeder, I've been able to correct some accuracy issues, and time period issues.

In the right half of the above picture you can see a platform on the back of the mast with what resembles a small R2-D2 on it. Photos show that by 2010 R2 is gone. So I've gone back and removed it, leaving the empty platform.

Moving on to the middle sub assembly...

Every thing has gone together pretty well. I've made some changes along the way though.
A) instructions call for putting a small hoist on the left side and an optional one on the right side also.
Photos show that Iron Duke only has a hoist on the right side. So I only opened the optional hole.
B) I've drilled a small hole through this piece to help with rigging later.
C). Photos show that at some point between 2010 and 2012, the large cranes at the rear of the platform have been
removed. The ship now uses the twin boom type mounted more towards the center of the deck.



The stack will have to be painted separately but I've placed it here to show the finished sub assembly.

It looks to me like the caged ladder attaches to the back of this assembly. Not to the front of the hanger assembly as WEM instructions state. I ended up using generic ladder and only the center section of the cage, attaching the two pieces individually.

The stack side walls were actually a little taller than the front/back piece. But not enough to worry about. Side details looked to be about 1 mm too high. Again, not something to worry about. Except I want as much room as I can get for the emblem. So I moved the details down. The only actual problem area was the large horizontal bar at the top of the ladder. It extended too far back for Iron Duke, causing interference with an antenna mount. I trimmed it down, and I noticed that the bar length and antenna mount location seems to vary from ship to ship.
Antenna length also seems different from ship to ship. I just estimated 27mm and 33mm.



I think I'm gonna skip the bridge and do the forward weapons next.

Thanks for looking,

Dan

[sirpaul]

Dan she is looking great so far. You don't like the Darings? I think they are the best looking modern warships. The WEM PE should fit like a charm.
Ill be following your build.
Cheers
Paul

[California Bound]

Paul,

I don't know how well the Daring's perform, but they just don't look quite right for my taste. The hanger top radar looks too bulky. I don't care for the bridge tower/ball design. And I'd prefer a more aggressive shape to the bow.

As for the WEM PE, now that I'm at the forward weapon assemblies, I can say that I've encountered my first "issues" with this project. And they are with the PE.

First, the WEM PE doesn't include enough generic ladder to cover the entire ship. You will have to adjust your plans accordingly.

And second, WEM 's harpoon and harpoon blast deflectors are taller than Trumpeter's harpoon assemblies. I planned to use Trumpeter's full plastic harpoons with WEM's blast deflectors, (because WEM's internal 4-way divider is shaped more accurately) but can't. They won't fit together correctly because of WEM's increased height. In order to look good, you will have to use either all of WEM's harpoon related PE or none of their harpoon related PE.

Annoying...

Otherwise things continue to move along nearly effortlessly.

Dan

[sirpaul]

Paul,

I don't know how well the Daring's perform, but they just don't look quite right for my taste. The hanger top radar looks too bulky. I don't care for the bridge tower/ball design. And I'd prefer a more aggressive shape to the bow.

As for the WEM PE, now that I'm at the forward weapon assemblies, I can say that I've encountered my first "issues" with this project. And they are with the PE.

First, the WEM PE doesn't include enough generic ladder to cover the entire ship. You will have to adjust your plans accordingly.

And second, WEM 's harpoon and harpoon blast deflectors are taller than Trumpeter's harpoon assemblies. I planned to use Trumpeter's full plastic harpoons with WEM's blast deflectors, (because WEM's internal 4-way divider is shaped more accurately) but can't. They won't fit together correctly because of WEM's increased height. In order to look good, you will have to use either all of WEM's harpoon related PE or none of their harpoon related PE.

Annoying...

Otherwise things continue to move along nearly effortlessly.

Dan

Dan,
I forgot i built the WEM Type23.
I just built Airfix's Daring and it came with Harpoons. I could trade them with you for the Trumpy ones. The Airfix ones are smaller and i'm thinking they would fit the bill for you. Just let me know and ill trade them with you.
Yeah the ladders come up very short. I ended up getting a different set of just ladders so they would all match. I used the wem ones for bridge windows for a few of my 700 scale builds. I plan on building on of these as well so i will be following closely.
If you want to trade the harpoons just let me know? They also come with blast pads and you could just have those as i won't be using them.
Paul

[California Bound]

Paul,

Thanks for the offer, but I already took care of the problem. I ripped the WEM PE harpoon exhaust deflectors off and just went ahead and used the Trumpeter PE ones instead. Although they look slightly less accurate, the difference is barely noticeable.

I'll have the harpoons and the Sea Wolf VLS ready to post this weekend.

I've got WEM's kryten resin turret to do also. I know its gonna need some work, but I haven't really looked into it that much yet.

When I built John Paul Jones, I bought a set of GMM generic stairs and ladders. I haven't looked yet, but hopefully they will look about the same as the WEM ladders.

Dan

[Phil R]

I would like to point out that I first thought that the WEM kit was shorter than the Trumpy one ,but after measuring them both again later on they are both the same length ,I pointed this out further on in my WIP.
Just to put the record straight.

Keep up the excellent work Dan,I`m following it with interest.

Regards Phil

[California Bound]

Thanks Phil,

This is going together much faster and cleaner than I expected. So far, this has been the best ship kit I've ever worked on.

Dan

[sirpaul]

I would like to point out that I first thought that the WEM kit was shorter than the Trumpy one ,but after measuring them both again later on they are both the same length ,I pointed this out further on in my WIP.
Just to put the record straight.

Keep up the excellent work Dan,I`m following it with interest.

Regards Phil

Sorry Phil.

[California Bound]

I probably shouldn't have bothered with it since the result is a little crooked. I decided to add some missing details by slicing the upper mast into sections and adding a couple disks.

I also added the little hoist to the back of the stack. I've only seen one picture of it on another of the class, so I don't know if Iron Duke actually has it.



I also finished the forward weapons.

The harpoon brass parts aren't shaped quite right, but they're close enough.

The VLS structure of Montrose is an apparent older style with only two hatchways on the right side. Photos show Iron Duke has the same style. I've also added a missing hand rail to the back of it from stretched sprue.

For the deck gun I added ladders to the back and cut ladder pieces in half for the top rail. Unfortunately, the rail along the top has since fallen off. I don't plan to add them back again. I preferred the narrower look of the Trumpeter barrel, so I trimmed the back of the barrel base so it would fit perfectly into WEM's resin Kryten turret.



Thanks for looking,

Dan

[California Bound]

I decided that for me, the best thing to do would be to build the forward assembly as two separate sections. Below the bridge as one, and the bridge and above as another.

I've got the lower section and the two extra platforms ready for paint now.

I ended up using all GMM ladders on this section. They're slightly narrower than the WEM ones but not enough to be noticed as long as the two brands aren't placed next to each other.

Photos show that the platform at the front is still there, but that it no longer carries any equipment on it. It just sits there with the hole in it now days.

A missing antenna has been added to each of the front corners.

I added all of the side platforms now so that the paint won't get marred as much later on. I hope this isn't a choice that comes back to bite me in the butt later.

The instructions say to put two boxes at the back of this assembly and one box on either side. Good for early on but photos show that by 2010, the side boxes have been removed and only the two at the rear are there now.

There is what appears to be a small, fold able frame on what would be the bridge wing area. It appears to be used for some sort of signal flag. After a couple failed attempts to get it to sit properly, I glued the stretched sprue assembly in the folded up position flat against the bridge wing wall instead.



This continues to be a trouble free project. I only have the bridge and formast along with a lot of their PE left to do prior to painting.

Thanks for looking,

Dan

[California Bound]

I made some progress and can call the bridge and above sub assembly ready for paint now.

It seems like a shame not to do something with the bridge windows. I opened them up and removed the structural support behind them. I haven't fully decided what to put in the windows yet but I've got a few ideas. I'll also have to block of the back of the bridge so a large hole won't be seen.

The first platform up the tower mast was missing some details. Trumpeter made the nub on the bottom of the platform but I had to add a stretched sprue pole. The PE antenna on the end is WEM's. They say it goes on the sides of the hanger but I haven't seen it in any photos and it's nearly perfect for my needs.



For Iron Duke, the Trumpeter mast PE details are more accurate than WEM's, but I think the slight loss in accuracy is more than made up for by WEM's more solid PE. I would have never gotten the Trumpeter stuff to turn out so straight.

I decided to use plastic rod for the yard arm supports and added a couple missing diagonal supports and antennas to the front of the tower from more stretched sprue.



For the details on the back of the mast tower I decided to not use the PE and make it out of plastic rod, with stretched sprue for the three horizontal support cables and the "x" support pattern inside it. Two more support cables will be added once everything is attached to the deck.



And here's a look at the over all project. The sub assemblies are sitting on the deck and it's taped to the hull.



Thanks for looking,

Dan

[LE BOSCO]

Hello Dan

I like the aggressive shapes of your ship ,and more a very good job is done here
cheers
Nicolas

[California Bound]

Thanks Nicolas,

The aggressive shape is one of the things I really like about the ship. And it'll look even more aggressive if I decide to waterline it.

Dan

[Raverdave]

Hi Dan,

Any progress?

[Suricata]

Awesome build, currently working on the Trumpeter HMS Westminster, although I'm at a stand still on it now whilst I wait for the WEM PE stuff to arrive.

Just wanted to point out that you shouldn't take the fitting of the ship so exact from the photo referances. Most equipment on ships is swapped around depending on the ships deployment, (For example the R2D2 looking thing on the rear mast, DLF3 on the forward sponsons, Sea Sentor on the bridge roof). It's the RN's way of saving money for not having to have every ship fully kitted out. So yeah, whilst things like boat davets and aerials are more obvious, equipment itself alters on a month to month basis. For my build I'm pretty much having the ship fully equipped.

Would love to see where you are with this build currently

[California Bound]

Hi guys,

Dave,
I've been busy and wasn't able to do any work on the ship until this weekend.

Suricata,
Thanks for the advice. I'm using various photos for unknown areas while trying to maintain an overall match for a 2012 tour with its new Artisan radar.

I was able to do some building this weekend. I still need to add a few PE scrap pieces to help with rigging, but chose to work on the deck instead.

Next to none of the lower area will be visible with the nets in place, but I painted the lower area just in case. After that, I added the upper deck piece, putty, sand, paint, and decals. The circle decal could have turned out better. Sanding off the raised bump for the PE landing net made placement of the circle harder. I cut off most of the "M" in order to make the Iron Duke deck initials.


I realized too late that the taller resin turret wasn't meant to be taller. It was probably meant to be put down into a hole in a resin hull. The base should be removed and the turret attached to Trumpeter's base. So, I had to cut a hole in the deck and put a piece below the gun area. So the turret was lowered the thickness of the deck. I also scraped off the molded on anchor chains, enlarged the holes, and used real chains.

Although it doesn't match the photos, I'm going with a sort of faded, returning from tour, 3 tone gray color scheme. Vertical surfaces will be light gray, decks will be neutral gray, and non deck horizontal surfaces will be light ghost gray.


Thanks for looking,

Dan