USS Washington BB56 - Pyro 1/1200

[davinort]

I'm back in the ship-building world, after not doing it (for no valid reason!) for several years. The focus will be old 1/1200 Pyro and Eaglewall kits.

To see what I did with 1/1200 kits in years past, here are links to:

Pyro 1/1200 USS Hornet

Pyro 1/1200 IJN Yamato

The newest build is the Pyro 1/1200 USS South Dak.... uhm, wait a minute. This kit is NOT a SoDak class ship at all! Pyro advertised four USBB kits (North Carolina, Washington, South Dakota, Massachutsetts) but used the same mold for all four. So - this will become USS Washington, Atlantic Service early 1942. (I also have a Pyro 1/1200 KGV and a Bismar... no it's really a Tirpitz kit ... on the shelf, thus the Atlantic choice.)

[davinort]

Rough dry fitting of the upper and lower hulls, deck and main superstructure. I will get all these put together and do the main paintwork before adding the "little pieces" like masts, cranes, and the gun turrets.

[davinort]

Not much progress the last two weeks. This is fortunate because I (almost too late!) realized that there's a clear visual difference in the conning tower silhouettes of USS Washington vs. USS North Carolina. Specifically, the NC has an extra external platform level* halfway up the tower.

Well, easier to remove than to add.

I will mention the alignment pins of the tower and stack structures are (surprise surprise!) not 100% right. So there ends up a tiny misalignment, but in-scale it'd probably be something like 8" to 12" akimbo. So lots of fine-detail sanding needed.

*I'm sure there's a "real" name for this feature....

[davinort]

It's starting to look more like a battleship here. Basic paint applied and initial details highlighted. I can sure tell my eyesight and hand-steadiness are not what they were 10 years ago.

Lots more to go of course. Guns, cranes, masts, and Measure 12R camo.

[davinort]

Build completed, photos here: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=317521