Hello all
I started a thread about this project earlier, but it seemed to have been deleted by a moderator. Anyway this new thread will do the purpose.
For those who may not know about the ship, here is a short summarised info from Wikipedia:
The Lion-class battleships were a class of six fast battleships designed for the Royal Navy in the late 1930s. They were a larger, improved version of the King George Vclass with 16-inch (406 mm) guns. Only two ships were laid down before World War II began in September 1939 and a third was ordered during the war, but their construction was suspended shortly afterwards. Their design changed several times in response to the removal of treaty restrictions on size and in light of war experience. None of the other ships planned were laid down, although there was a proposal to modify one of the suspended ships into a hybrid battleship/aircraft carrier with two 16-inchgun turrets and a flight deck. The two ships already begun were scrapped after the end of the war.
Specifications from Wikipedia + my modification to match 1938 design:
Length o/a: 239.3 m (785 ft)
Beam: 32.0 m (105 ft)
Draught: 10.2 m (33 ft 6 in)
Displacement: 40,550 long tons (41,200 t) standard load
46,400 long tons (47,100 t) deep load
Armament: 3×3 - BL 16-inch mk II guns
8×2 - QF 5.25-inch mk I dual purpose guns
6×8 - QF 2-pounder anti-aircraft gunsHere is the ship's layout image:
I am going to use a few parts from my Tamiya Prince of Wales kit for this project, e.g. 45' fast motor picket boats, 45' motor launch, 25' fast motor boat, 16' motor dinghy, 14' sailing dinghies, rangefinders*, gun directors*, and 5.25 inch secondary guns, plus some usable Pontos set parts.
*Rangefinders were to be a completely different type of HACS. While one gun director atop the bridge is rather identical to the KGV's. If I cannot manage to get the Lion's rangefinders made, then I will use the ones included in the PoW kit (Mk IV HACS.)
I also did some 3D designing and uploaded my designs on Shapeways:
http://www.shapeways.com/shops/aopaurThe designs include the Lion's 16-inch turrets and forward superstructure for myself (and Maarten Schönfeld also bought one set of turrets from me, as he is also scratch-building the Lion class in the same scale. I hope you don't mind me mentioning you, Maarten
)
Here are photos of my 3D printed turrets:
Comparison to the Tamiya PoW's quadruple 14-inch turret:
It is quite a bit taller:
And here's the 4D printed forward superstructure (platform no.1 and hangar roof ) It smells a little bit soapy, fresh from the washing machines!:
Must say I shouldn't have ordered the superstructure, as it can be scratch-build considerably easy (at least comparing to other parts like turrets/funnels), but anyway here it is! Plus, I've mistakenly ordered it twice, so another useless set in the cupboard!
Thanks for looking in and hope all of you will enjoy my build! It is going to be quite a long, probably slow one, though! I have to study a lot, so there may not be much time for modelling. I am brand-new to scratch-building, and the quality shows! Experience will help me getting better at it.
Bests,
Aop.