Yet Another One! Trumpy 1/200 Arizona

[Wedgie01]

Hey Nelson,

How goes the build there? Your updates seem to have become as frequent as my own! I�ve been working my AZ intermittently, mainly due work load, but hope to get a fresh update posted this weekend. She�s coming along slowly though.

[hondaman117]

Hey Nelson,

How goes the build there? Your updates seem to have become as frequent as my own! I�ve been working my AZ intermittently, mainly due work load, but hope to get a fresh update posted this weekend. She�s coming along slowly though.

Hey Steve,

Yes, saying I've been without progress lately is a bit of an understatement hahaha. For me it's been a combination of vacations, nicer weather, cars, and work. I'm currently working on the full size truck program at work, and all I can say about it is that it consumes everybody that is a part of it. As a result I have not made any appreciable progress since my last update.

I've been wanting to get back on my Arizona, I really need to get it finished up so I can get the case built and protect it. I've got one more big vacation next week, then I should be relatively free to work on the Arizona again. I need to go visit another museum ship, that always seems to get me in the mood for models again.

Thanks for making sure I'm alive! lol

[hondaman117]

Hello everyone,

After yet another hiatus, I'm back to making progress on Arizona

Trying to get my bearings back on where I was when I last worked, I decided to bend up the boat cradles since the PE fret was sitting out on the bench. Here's a few pictures of them bent up. Ironically, the etching primer I use on the PE parts is a pretty good match for 5S... lol

IMG_6625 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

IMG_6621 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


Thanks to my PE folding tool they came together pretty easily and look great. I'll get them into paint soon and then put them aside until time to install them.

Other than that, I continued on the forward super structure, but failed to get any pictures. So far it is just fitting the various railings and little parts that go on each level. I'll get some pics soon once I have more to show.

Thanks for stopping by!

[JIM BAUMANN]

That looks pretty sharp!

glad that the modelmaking Mojo returned

watching...

Jim Baumann
JBYS

[Wedgie01]

Hey Nelson,

Great work mate. Looks fantastic.

I�ve had to take a hiatus myself, as I�m retiring from active service and in the process of moving house. Hopefully will be back up and running in a couple more weeks. Sad packing up the Arizona just as I was starting to make some real progress. :0

Look forward to seeing some more of your ship progress again.

Cheers,
Steve

[hondaman117]

Well, I know I've said this multiple times, but I'm back working on Arizona again. I've taken a lot more time than I planned to build her, and I need to get back on this to get her done. I was just feeling a little burned out, and other hobbies were more enticing to me. Throw a crazy work project on top of that, and I had no energy left for models.

Also as I've said before, I really need to get this model done. Mostly to protect it. My girlfriend is actually the one that swayed me when she said it made her sad that the ship was sitting there neglected, and that she was worried it might get damaged if I don't get a case built for it soon.

So no pictures at the moment, but I was working on the forward superstructure railings and details. Getting close to tackling the flag booms. I also tried an experiment for the blast bags for the main armament that turned out well, so I have a plan for those as well.

Thanks for everyone that still checks in on this barely living thread. I'm hoping my trip to the IPMS Convention in Phoenix will get me back on track again!

[MM2CVS9]

I've had the same problem. Sometimes we just need a kick in the pants to get us going again.

I'll be watching.

EJ

[hondaman117]

Well, here I am nearly a year later with nothing to show for it. What can I say other than life managed to get in the way again. This time I will admit it was things outside of my control, and I had to put the models aside so I could focus on doing what needed done. I won't get into the details, but life was very stressful for the past year.

Not everything that happened was bad, but certainly kept me busy. The best thing that happened last year was that I was married to my loving girlfriend Kali, and we have now been married for just over 7 months and things are great!

We just recently returned from our honeymoon that we had to delay due to work and other life events. We returned to Hawaii and of course went to visit Pearl Harbor to pay our respects. We were disappointed the Arizona Memorial was still closed, but nothing we can do about that. On the other hand, we got to take a tour on an active Virginia Class attack boat, the USS North Carolina, SSN-777. A family friend is the commander of the Naval Submarine Training Center Pacific (NSTCP) in Pearl Harbor and was able to arrange the tour for us. It was awesome being able to see how these new boats operate and what they are capable of. The trip to Hawaii has re-energized me again and got the modeling spirit back.

So, I've got a short list of things I want to accomplish this year:
1. FINISH THE AZ! It has been too long already.
2. Build an LA Class Attack sub for my friend at Pearl Harbor. In the past he was the CO of the USS Chicago SSN-721. I figure the best thank you I can give for the sub tour is a model of the boat he used to command!

That's the short list for now. I've got a kit or two I'm probably going to sell as I've lost interest in them. But otherwise, do my best to get back into the swing of things. Last night I cleaned up the modeling bench and tried to figure out where I had left off last. I'll make a post later with an update on the Arizona.

[hondaman117]

Just to prove I have done some work, here are the turrets ready for the aerial identification paint on the roofs. Got everything for the main armament done except the roofs and blast bags. I have paint for both, so I can get them wrapped up and ready to go on.

20190821_174707 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

20190821_174710 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I put all the Arizona parts into storage bins to protect them while I work on the USS Chicago. As soon as I get that wrapped up I'll get back on the Arizona. Tentative goal is to have her done for the local IPMS chapter show in November and show her. That at least gives me another date I can let slip by again! lol

[Wedgie01]

Hey Nelson,

Great to see you and your AZ back online; and congrats on the wedding mate. Fantastic.

I too have been so slack on my AZ front; moving house, retiring and now building a house, I have pledged to get back into it, even if only working smaller assemblies until the house is finished and I can get back into a routine.

I look forward to seeing your progress again.

Cheers,
Steve

[ArizonaBB39]

Looking forward to seeing new updates on this!

[Jimbo63]

Great build so far Nelson, I�ve been enjoying reading through and soaking in your detailing etc. Very nice to see and remember for when the time comes for my AZ build. Just waiting for time, the greatest gift of all LOL. And congrats on your wedding
Thanks for sharing;

Jimbo

[hondaman117]

Hey everyone, back again lol.

No more excuses this time, the Arizona is getting finished. I've said it several times before, but unlike the other times I have an unmovable deadline that must be met. My wife and I are expecting a baby boy to arrive in October, and my hobby room needs to be transformed into a nursery for him. So with that for motivation, I have been working furiously on the Arizona. Combined with a bunch of free time due to not working for almost 3 months while my facility was shut down, I have made good progress!

The main armament has been effectively completed, just need a few small details before install. The catapult is ready for turret 3, i have just not attached it yet. My trick of making the half blast bags turned out good in my opinion. I used the ones that came in the kit and cut/sanded them so they only covered the upper halves of the barrels. Based on pictures of the wreck this is as close as I think I can get to what she had when sunk. Color is the only thing I was not sure of, but I think this is a safe guess.

20200604_164254 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

20200604_164308 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


With the turrets done I turned my attention to the ships boats. Initially I was not going to do them since in theory if the ship was in harbor they would not be on board. but I thought that would make an empty looking model do I built them up. Adding all the PE details took quite a few days. And I also guessed on the paint for the boats. I was confident of the black on the bottom, but was not sure about the tops. I know in prewar gray most of the boats had exposed wood on top, and the motor launches had white roofs. I'm not sure if this would have been painted over to match the camouflage scheme, but that's what I did. If anyone has any more info to show me I'm wrong please let me know, I can still go back and fix them at this point. Otherwise, they are ready to go on!

20200604_144511 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

20200604_150902 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

20200604_150232 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

20200604_150236 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I've got more coming, just getting the pictures onto the computer.

[hondaman117]

In continuation of my last post:

Once the boats were done, Spent a good amount of time reading through the assembly manual and PE instructions trying to figure out what needed to be done in what order. Once I did that, I got going.

Next item up was the superstructure and foremast. I had most of this done, but needed to work the rest of the way up. The mast legs, decks, and railings all went on with a little effort.

20200609_120928 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I finally attached the yardarms to the foremast top, I had been holding off since they are so easy to break off. I added some supports on the bottom side to hopefully help keep them attached. Over scale for sure, but if they stay on I don't really care.

20200610_100048 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

20200610_100056 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

20200610_100046 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I've had the main mast mostly complete for years, but I got it down to put some of the small parts on it I was afraid of breaking before.

20200610_141119 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


With that done, I permanently attached the fore mast to the superstructure. In this picture I set the main mast in place just to make sure the main tops were at the same level. Everything was good, so I put the main mast back on a shelf to keep it safe until it is time to go on for good.

20200610_143847 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I have no more pictures at this point. The past couple days I started the task of rigging on the foremast and yardarms. Right now it is a balance of doing what is easy now, but not adding lines that make my life harder when trying to install other parts. Also finding accurate rigging diagrams are hard, I've been leaning heavily on Jeff Sharp's build and my Stillwell Arizona book. I think in the end I won't have it 100% right, but it will look good.

Unlike before, more updates will be coming shortly!

[hondaman117]

Hello Everyone,

I've made more progress over the past couple weeks. First thing I worked on was adding the degaussing cables to the ship. I used the Arizona CASF page for most of the routing references. The picture Jeff posted on this thread and on his own also helped, I feel I've done a fairly good job of representing the cables.

Bow
20200623_205615 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


Deck Break. I put the entry in what I think is the correct spot based of what I saw at the AZ memorial.
20200623_205624 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

Stern. Again, my best guess based on pics available.
20200623_205629 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


Since the foremast was finally installed I started adding some details to the superstructure. I made some small guides for the forward machine guns and got started on the rigging. The funnel & incinerator were installed once the signal flag rigging was in place. In hindsight, I should have put the funnel on first since the ladders to the bridge were very hard to install with the rigging in the way. I also added netting to the yardarms using some fine brass mesh I got from a forum member a few years ago. I think it turned out good.

20200612_143853 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

20200623_205602 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


The main mast was installed at this time. Heavily referencing Jeffs build I got the rigging installed.

20200623_205555 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


At this point all the amidships rigging is completed to the best of my ability. I can't do the fore and aft rigging until the railings and jackstaffs are installed.

20200623_205526 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


The Arizona is finally starting to look close to done. I've got a list made of everything I can think of needed to complete her, it's not too long lol. Next project is to make the rolled up canvas covers for the secondary armament. I also started painting the railings in preparation for installation. I've ordered 3d printed anchor chains and some PE letters to put her name on the stern. Everything else I have and just needs to be painted or installed.

More progress coming soon! Thanks for stopping by!

[MartinJQuinn]

She looks great! The rigging is really nice. Every time I see one of these being built, I have a pang of regret for selling mine. Then I look at my stash of un-built kits and think "when would I have gotten to it"!

[ArizonaBB39]

Excellent work!

[Marco]

Enjoying very much this project progress!

Marco

[hondaman117]

Thanks everyone!

More progress has been made, punctuated by a week vacation to see family in the midwest.

Since my last post the following things were competed/installed:

AA Armament
Ships Boats
Stern Railings and bow railings started
Cranes
Aircraft Crane
Stern Catapult
Turrets 3&4
Paravanes, rafhts, and other small details.

20200723_205942 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

20200723_205956 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

At that point I went on vacation and was waiting for some parts to arrive. I got Aber PE letters to put Arizona on the stern from a shop in Poland, and some 3D printed anchor chains from Shapeways. Those arrived while I was gone and I got them installed over the past few days.

She finally has her name where it can be seen.

20200723_210031 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


Chains and anchors went on.

20200723_210124 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

20200723_210138 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


Just some small touchups are needed after those were installed. I'm looking for suitable chain for the paravanes, that will be added once I have it. I also made AA director platforms to add near the rear gun tubs, just need to paint them.

My list is getting short! If everything goes well I will be able to get her completed this weekend! Wish me luck!

[ArizonaBB39]

Beautiful work!