Hi folks,
Firstly, Steve, I somehow missed this but the name plaque would be great. I have something else to run by you so shall get in touch separately...
Right. After a number of years on the lookout for photographs of HMS Imperial during wartime, when my great uncle was aboard, I found the single one earlier in the thread of Imperial damaged after striking a mine. My father recalls Alec telling him about that incident so with nothing more than a distant image, I did my best.
Not long after finishing the model Richard Dennis stumbled across a collection of high quality close-ups of the stern area in a damage report file in The National Archives. Needless to say, there are some differences and once seen, never unseen and all that. I always intended to fix the model but struggled with a mental block as far as actually damaging it in order to remodel it went!
I've finally made a start though.
First of all the rigging was cut.
The tripod mainmast I made has been unmade.
The stern end was subject to the photographs as the mine fractured both propeller shaft A-frame brackets and buckled the whole stern upwards damaging deck plating, the side plating and stoving in the keel plating right to the very stern. The photographs show the stern from a number of angles above and below and from these it's possible to see that there's no mainmast but also that the camouflage pattern was a bit more wavy here, terminating on the quarters to display the pendant number on a field of 507C right at the stern. There was also camouflage on Y position gun shield but apparently not X gun.
Atlantic Models pendant number decals
Some masking of the boot topping since I am not very precise with a brush and this is absolutely not the optimal order in which to build, paint, and embed a model ship in a sea base!
Lastly, there's a new stub mast fitted to the back of the searchlight platform as other I-class seem to have been modified to.
I still need to reattach the rigging to it.
Other I-class destroyers also had their aft funnel cut down (I went out of my way to extend this one
) but in the towing photograph the aft funnel still looks equal height to me?
Cutting it down will need re-rigging again and I hate funnel stays so I'll leave that for the time being.
Lastly other I-class destroyers had one of the pentad torpedo tube mounts removed and the remainder had its centre tube removed. I haven't touched this yet.
