Calling all American Civil War Ironclad fans

[Macbeth]

Hallo Devin,

These are great news! I was already wondering if David is allright. Since I want to order a larger quantity of plans I would be very thankful if you could provide me with Davids current email adress. I�m not in a hurry.

best regards, Klaus

[Devin]

Klaus,

I honestly don't have a current email address for David. I've only been in touch via Facebook over the past year or so. I sent him a message last week asking about his selling status and if he had a direct contact email, but have yet to hear back from him. I'll let you know when I hear something.

-Devin

[mike_espo]

Any reviews or feedback on either the ISW or the Samek 1 350 monitor kits?

Are they good quality? Don't fancy having to fill a bunch of pinholes...

Thanks

[Kenneth Hagerup]

Does anyone know if the Verlinden 1/200 USS Keokuk came with a set of instructions? My example was sourced from eBay and came without any instructions. Could anyone recommend a set of plans for placement of davits, ship's boats, et al.?

Regards,

Ken

[Devin]

Ken,

I don't believe Keokuk had any instructions. Going off of the photo on the box and the engraved location marks on the hull, you get most of the parts correctly located. The boat davits are a bit tricky, but you can get them close from the photos, too. I can look once I return home this week and see if I have any better drawings. There's not a lot out there on Keokuk.

That being said, the kit is actually quite accurate. I did sand the hull bolts off on my example, but left them on the gun towers, as thats closer to her actual appearance. Also remember that she only had one fun in each tower that would pivot to fire through the three ports.

-Devin

[Kenneth Hagerup]

Devin,

Thanks for the information. I have always had a fascination for the Keokuk -- even in an era of quirky warship design, the Keokuk stood out.

Best regards,

Ken

[Devin]

For those that've been asking about David Meagher's plans/drawings, he's resurfaced! He says drop him a line at csstennessee@gmail.com and he can accommodate you. I recommend buying direct from him if you can, as he ships direct prints, not copies like Taubman Plans, and his prices are better, too.

[Charles Landrum]

USS Onondaga spent her brief US Navy career blockading Richmond as part of the James River. In 1867 the US Navy sold her to France, where she served under the name Onondaga as a harbor defense ship in Brest until the turn of the century. She was eventually scrapped. I had only found one picture of Onondaga in French service, until now. In researching French warships, I discovered the French have a Reserve Fleet location on the L'Aulne River river at Landevennec. The river has a broad bend, sheltered by the point, with sufficient depth for an anchorage. In 1903, Onondaga was put in lay up (or "ordinary" to use the US Navy term at the time) in this location as depicted in a post card image, which can be found in this French forum - http://forum.netmarine.net/viewtopic.ph ... ed1dfe40d2

http://www.hostingpics.net/viewer.php?i ... vennec.jpg

I would love to find more pictures, but for now I am very excited by this find.

[Dan K]

Cool pic, and a great find.

[PetrOs]

I am toying an idea to build USS Monitor in 1/350 as my next project, first after a larger break. I got the ROP Samek kit in my stash. I want to build here as in combat with CSS Virginia, maybe even as a small 2 ship diorama. But I am not sure if the kit shows the Monitor appropriately for the battle:

The kit has the railing on the turret roof with a sun shade. Most paintings show none...
Small smokestacks, boat and similar gears on the deck - once more, no such things on the paintings....

Most paintings also show it in black, but some in grey...

Was it so that all these devices were removed before combat? Were these later additions?

[Captain Morgan]

Monitors little square smokestack trunking was removable.
Go here you can find more information.
http://www.monitorcenter.org

[Devin]

Pretty much everything on deck was stripped away for battle, boats left behind. Going into battle she basically only had the turret, the pilot house, and maybe some bitts/chocks mounted. I haven't seen the Samek kit for some time, so don't remember, but for the battle the pilot house forward should be a block/cube, not the later slope-sided version.

[PetrOs]

Thanks! Samek kit has the sloped sides on the pilot house, so it is probably a later state. Then I will probably just go on as it OOB, as I just want to get back to 1/350 ships after some 5 years doing either RC or 1/700 or aircrafts

[Miguel]

Future plans I have is a very interesting warship, and as I never built something close ,wish to ask some advice .
It is the USS Choctaw 1863 resin model in 1/350 scale from Ropo's (ex Samek)Models,this little fellow is packed with lots of detail and IMHO is a quite simple and straight forward build,my main concern is the paint to use,honestly I don't have any experience in this type of vessel, and will appreciate any info about which paint to use and the appropriate colors. May main concern is using the new Gunze Sanyo Metal paints,has anyone experience with those?
Thanks in advance

https://youtu.be/m1t_PtrT5GY

[Devin]

For the Choctaw, you're pretty safe going with a dark gray/black. There aren't may photos of her, and what few there are suggest that she was painted those colors. There's one shot of her that leads me to believe that she MAY at one point have been painted a lighter gray -- many western river ironclads were, as a heat reflecting measure -- but most of the photos make her look pretty dark gray to black.

I have a little experience with the Gunze Sanyo paints. In my opinion their metallic nature is going to be too strong in this scale, and that would be assuming that she was unpainted, bare metal. I've not found any mention of an unpainted ironclad.

Hope that's of some help.

[Miguel]

I have a little experience with the Gunze Sanyo paints. In my opinion their metallic nature is going to be too strong in this scale, and that would be assuming that she was unpainted, bare metal. I've not found any mention of an unpainted ironclad.

Hope that's of some help.

Thanks Devin ,much appreciated ,Ok I thought those vessels were not painted ,and that's why assumed to use natural color metal paints ,like the iron and gunmetal, then darker grey paints can do the job .So for an example a Tamiya panzer grey XF54 can do the job o if there else any suitable paint for the USS Navy Ironclads in the Civil War?

regards

[Devin]

Yeah, I think that gray, and have some German Grey XF-63 on hand, and give some mixing experiments and weathering between the two.

If you're on Facebook, check out Rene Hieronymus. He did a 1/72nd scale scratch build of Choctaw recently. Very nice build, great paint and weathering, and it's in a river bank water diorama that's simply amazing: https://tinyurl.com/yb25bha9 One photo below.

[Miguel]

OMG , that Choctaw is truly a masterpiece and 1/96 is BIG!!!

Thank You for the link ,then those cool ships were painted ,I thought they were left natural metal , but the shade of the paint in Rene's Choctaw looks blueish tone similar to the Tamiya Kure paint ,the panzer grey is more darker,

Anyway ,a great reference ,I got the FB model pictures of Rene ,a great reference indeed, and Devin , just if possible to ask ,how those vessel were painted in the hull, same grey and below waterline anti foul red ? Can You give me any suggestion please? I am planning a full hull build.

[Devin]

I honestly don't know what the lower hull would be like on her. She was converted from a merchant steamer, so I assume it would've been however the hulls for those type ships were done. I've read of some ships being left bare wood, some traditional copper, and some with the lead paint, either red, white, or sometimes a green. I just checked Canney's "The Old Steam Navy" and it doesn't address the lower hull materials at all, only saying that, after conversion, the lower hull and paddle wheel boxes were the only things left of the original ship.

[Miguel]

Great ,then will try leaded red color ,or a mix of red chocolate color with pencil powder .

Thanks again for your help Devin