1/200 Arizona finally DONE!

[Jeff Sharp]

Thanks guys! This film is an absolute gold mine for detail. Everytime I look at it I notice something else.
Check out this shot of the quarter deck port side looking forward. Notice the speaker configuration on top of the projector room. Two speakers facing aft for maximum sound.


Slightly different from what we are used to seeing with one speaker facing forward and one aft as seen here.


I wish someone would publish inhanced versions of these images. The person who eventually does publish these images will have images of 1941 Arizona never published in a book before.

[Jeff Sharp]

OK, I think my spring fever has finally broke and now it's time to get back to work.
I purchased some more chain from Pat and I put one anchor in the water.

Now I'm just waiting on the release of the pelican hooks before I can finally call the anchors completed.

Tracy recently posted this comment about the ship's paravanes, "did you know Arizona lost TWO paravanes in Sept 1941". Tracy, does this mean they actually "lost" them at sea? Or does it mean they "removed" them from the ship on purpose? Either way, the February Arizona had them...


...and that prompted me to work on the paravanes. The kit comes with four but in every photo I see with the paravanes present I can only see two. One on each side of turret two. I decided to stick with just two.
The kit supplied paravanes need some work.
All wings need to be removed and replaced with photo etch. The tail fin needs to be repositioned to the bottom of the paravane.


They should look a little more like this:




One strange thing I noticed about the splinter shields are the vertical supports again. Not only does one hang down onto the bulkhead but two others on each shield are very pronounced triangle shaped as seen here:




Ah, detail, details, details!

[Tracy White]

Tracy recently posted this comment about the ship's paravanes, "did you know Arizona lost TWO paravanes in Sept 1941". Tracy, does this mean they actually "lost" them at sea?

[Jeff Sharp]

I went ahead and purchased the Eduard's life boats photo etch set. This is photo etch set #3 and is the best of all the sets Eduard offers for this kit. The other sets in my opinion are not very accurate or necessary (especially if you already have the KA and/or the WEM sets). This one however is pretty cool but is not for the impatient builder. There is some pretty delicate PE bending involved in the boat racks. Here are a couple of pics of the first boat rack I assembled. This one took me 45 minutes to assemble and has 12 pieces to it. It is quite the upgrade though from the kit supplied rack that it's worth the effort.



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Here are two racks in place. I had to make my own bumpers. Strangely the set doesn't include any. I really like the looks of these things though!


All boat racks are now in place. I really like these things! Highly recommend them!

[Jeff Sharp]

I just got Pat's anchor chain stoppers in. Man, these thing are insanely small and cool. They amazingly have movable parts so it's easy to position them to the chain. Here is a couple of pics of the first one in place.




A couple of shots with all stoppers in place

[MartinJQuinn]

Nice - I especially like the work on the boat cradles!

[Jeff Sharp]

Now I can finally start concentrating on the superstructure. First I'll start with everything below the flag bridge. I eliminated a door on the starboard side of the Conning tower and will add the vents that were left off. Four vents need to be added on this side as pointed out by the arrows. The two I have in place by the Con are a bit too small, I'll have to replace those with bigger ones and the one I have on the deck between the two 5" guns needs to come forward a bit.


Next, on this center arch, there was some sort of awning or what looks like a half opened garage door here. What exactly it was, I have no idea.


It should look something like this.

[Jeff Sharp]

Progress has been a little slow still. I'm having too much fun outside to put any serious time at the work bench. I have been doing some small detail stuff on the decks and weathering up the hull a bit.


But the major update for this post is I have confirmed that the top of Turret 3 was painted in deck gray.
I've been aware of this photo for a few years now but never really studied it until recently.


As it turns out, this is a very important image! It shows Arizona right in the middle of her 1940/1941 refit. I was able to positively identify which ship was Arizona and here is a crop of just her.


One area of concern is that the top of turret 2 is much darker than the top of turret 4 but I think it can be explained by the heavy shadows going directly forward over the bow making the red on turret 2 photograph darker and the gun barrels from turret 3 add to the lightness of turret 4.

Here is my version so far:

[marengtech]

Hello Jeff,

Great work!

Can you tell me where that photo was taken?

Thanks

[Tracy White]

Over Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
I'd be a little cautious about forming hard opinions about ships undergoing overhaul though.

[Jeff Sharp]

Over Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
I'd be a little cautious about forming hard opinions about ships undergoing overhaul though.

No hard opinion, just my opinion for my model. Anyone is free to take this info and either prove or disprove it if they wish.

[Tracy White]

I hemmed and hawed over my earlier response a bit but was in a bit of a rush and left off the part that I couldn't quite put down the way I wanted it to sound. I wasn't really happy with "hard opinion" either.

No disrespect meant towards your photo interpretation skills! I'm just personally more comfortable saying "I don't know for sure" than "this photo shows that." There's a lot of people who take a little bit of photo and a lot of opinion and run with it, so I try and get people to take interpretation (both their own and others') with a little bit of salt and keep their mind open.

[Jeff Sharp]

No worries! I completely understand what you're saying.

[Jeff Sharp]

I've started to add these exaggerated support braces on the 5" shields


Thats when I noticed that Trumpeter accidentally put two shields on the wrong side of the ship. The third shield back on each side should actually be on the opposite side.






Thankfully its an easy fix! Just flipflop them.





I'm not positive yet but I suspect I may need to do the same thing for the 4th shields as well!

On a side note, its worth noting that after the installation of the splinter shields in 1941, the after two 5" guns on each side were stowed facing aft.


For some reason this was not the case prior to the shields being installed. Before the shields, all the 5' 25's were stowed facing forward.

[Jeff Sharp]

As suspected, the 4th shields need to be flip flopped as well. And in doing so, I discovered my next challenge. Both the 3rd and 4th shields sit too far aft on the deck. They need to be moved forward a bit to get the point on the shield in the proper spot above the bulkhead.
What started out as a simple little adding of some support braces has now turned into quite the project of flipping 4 shields around, moving them forward, and trying to hide the old locator slots on the deck.
Here are some pics of the actual shields which show the proper locations and some pics of my progress so far.












Completed shields on port side.

[WingRider68]

Hi Jeff,
I'm new to this site. I am very impressed with your build so far. I'm working on this kit myself. Your detailing is magnificent. I wish I would have found this site sooner. After seeing your pics, I'm going to try to incorporate as many changes as I can to improve my kit. Keep up the excellent work. I look forward to following your progress.

Dan

[Jeff Sharp]

Hi Dan and welcome aboard. Thanks for the kind words. When I first started this project, never in my wildest dreams did I think I would have to make this many corrections to the kit. But, with that being said, it has been both fun and challenging. Also, I still think this kit makes a very nice model out of the box. What I'm doing to it is a bit obsessive!

[WingRider68]

It might be obsessive,,but still very impressive. I'm using the Mk.1 PE set and a few of the Eduard PE sets. Eduard is offering 1/200 WWII crew and officers. Haven't decided if I'm going to get those or not. I'm hoping to post some pics soon.

[MartinJQuinn]

Great stuff, Jeff. I admire your effort and persistence to "getting it right".

[Jeff Sharp]

Started detailing the Signal flag bridge.

First I reshaped the signal flag platform that extends out from the search light platform and added the proper support braces underneath the platform.


Then I added the storage racks that hold the signal flag ropes that extend up to the yardarms.


I also added a couple more antenna trunks on both sides of the conning tower.


Worth noting! The railing at this level was 2 bar railing. Both WEM and KA got it wrong by supplying 3 bar railing for this deck.





I still need to add a couple of saluting guns to each side. I'm not having much luck finding a detail pic of these guns as they appeared in 1941 so I may have to wing it.