1/200 Arizona finally DONE!

[J. Soca]

You've done one hell of job on that mast




Jose

[boomstick68]

Beautiful work Jeff.

[Jeff Sharp]

Thanks guys! It's good to be back at it. My goal is to have her completely done by December.
I am really impressed with the deck railing supplied by KA. They actually detailed chains in between the stantions with proper chain lengths that attach to the open chocks in certain spots.

[Mgunns]

HI Jeff:

Looking forward to more of your work as we continue on towards December. Where did you get the KA deck railing? Sounds like neat stuff and a lot less fiddly than the Eduard Deck Railing.

[MartinJQuinn]

I love the rigging. Great work - both figuring out where the hell it all goes, and pulling it off on the model.

[Jeff Sharp]

The KA rails came with the photo-etch / wood deck package. I bought mine through Pacific Front.
Here's a couple of shots of the rails attaching to the chocks.





The chains look real good! The best photo etched railing I have ever seen. In this scale however, the stanchions look flat to me so I am experimenting with adding dimension to them by glueing .4mm styrene rod to them. This also allows me to add taller pieces to represent the awning extensions on the bow. I doubt though that I will want to add an awning after all the modifications I did on the bow.

[tegunn]

I like the "scaleness" of the chain. I have the Eduard set in which you drape each run of chain over the stanchion hooks. I'm curious how they will look..

[Angeliccypher]

Those are the best I think I have ever seen. Did you drill small pilot holes for the stanchions to get them to line up? Your skill with and attention to detail with this build is amazing!

[Jeff Sharp]

I have not seen the Eduard set. It sounds labor intensive. Does it look good when done?

I am not drilling holes for the styrene rods, just glueing them to the photo etch.

[Mgunns]

Hi Jeff:

The chain looks great. Do you have to attache the chain to the stanchions or are they etched as one piece? The addition of the plastic stock adds that additional touch of realism by adding depth and dimension to it. Is there any reason why you didn't paint the top of turret one red?

[Jeff Sharp]

It is all one piece.
The turret top I discuss in detail on page 1 and page 9. The real question is: Was it eventually painted red when the ship was painted into MS-1?

[tegunn]

Jeff, Eduard has the stanchions separately with hooks on them to hook the PE chain over. This is prototypical and I'm looking forward to see how they look. I was impressed how big around the stanchions are, particularly on the main deck level. Here's a picture of the Texas which had the standard stanchions as well..

[Jeff Sharp]

I'm starting to assemble the ships boats.
Here is my initial attempt at one of the 50' motor launches.







Unfortunately, even the boats need some tweaking. The detail on the inside is boring, too thick and not quite right. So all of these boats will be going under the knife for some much needed improvements.

Finding detail pictures of the inside of these boats is tough to find though. I did find this nice pic of a 40 footer.



Does anybody know if these 40 and 50 foot motor launches had some sort of decking for the crew to stand on? Or did they stand directly on the bottom of the boat? Also, I'm looking for detail of the actual motor as well.

[Jeff Sharp]

Here's my first modified boat. Still trying to figure out detail in the section of the boat with the motor but I'm happy with how it looks so far.

Here is a comparison pic. Unmodified on the top and my version below it.


Pic of the boat on the racks.

[Channell]

HUGE difference with the boat and definitely worth the effort.

[Mgunns]

I think it looks pretty darned nice. Are you going to nest them or leave one exposed to show your work?

[Jeff Sharp]

Most of the boats I'm going to place in the water around the ship. I'll probably have one or two on the racks.


Currently I'm researching the officers barges. The kit comes with four of them. Admiral Kidd's barge will be depicted just like the one in this photo. I'm assuming the hull was all black on Admiral barges only with white upper works. I believe the Captain's barge was overall light gray.
This leaves two more. I wonder if these two were assigned to another officer in particular.

[Mgunns]

Somewhere on this forum, someone posted a picture of either Admiral Halsey's or Nimitz barge. It was overall dark blue and I think the top was white, it's been awhile since I have seen it. One of the barges could have been dedicated to the XO and the fourth a spare or a senior DIV O. I painted mine black and the other three grey, all with white tops. Your boats look great and will certainly add a bit of life and a sense of activity to the model. Heck, you could even have one of them rescuing an errant air crew member who fell off the Kingfisher!

[Jeff Sharp]

I wondered if the barge was dark blue.
What you said about rescuing crew members reminded me I need to add 4 Franklin life buoy systems on her.

[Jeff Sharp]

I painted mine black and the other three grey, all with white tops.

I'm pretty positive that the light gray gigs all had light gray tops, not white. I always thought as well that the tops were all white but there are quite a few photos that show them as light gray.
I like these two photos dated Sept. '39. The first is the fleet's officers gigs all coming to shore. Notice the two different Admiral barges, one with white top and one with black. I wonder why the difference.
The second is two of Maryland's gigs tied up to her.