The Ship Model Forum

David Griffith wrote:Dear All,

Count me in. I bought the Dragon 1/700 Livermore/Monssen combo at the weekend with this in mind.

David Griffith

Yes - This kit looks too good to pass up. I have to admit that I don't know anything about the class, but they look like great little builds, and 2 for 1 is a great plus. The way I build it should only take about 10% longer to build two hulls instead of one.

I experimented with, and applied, WARPIGS black wash and applied a few decals. The star on the DASH deck is a different feature, for me. Fortunately I have been holding onto a decal sheet, with the right size star, from a TAMIYA 1/35 M48 Patton tank. Its been about 20 years, or so, since I made one of those.

Here's my first entry; a modified Butler Class DE, which ship I haven't decided yet. Kit is the Skywave 1/700 Butler DE Twin Pack.

Overall shot of the hull with waterline plate and superstructure sub-assemblies installed. I'll paint all of the SS pieces before I attach them to the deck.


Two close ups of all SS pieces dry fitted to the hull





I'm waiting for the last of the glue to dry before I attach the main deck house. I'm going to add an extension to the deck edge behind the stack for a torpedo room housing fixed tubes for the Mk-35 ASW homing torpedo. I'm also going to add the topside AAW mods with the extra 40mms in place of the old triple torpedo tubes. Some radar mods will round out my whiffed DE for now. She'll be depicted around mid 1946 in Ms. 22 camo. Enjoy!

My 2nd entry is waiting on the mailman to bring me a package from a fellow board member with four DD kits in it. More whiffery awaits!

I am in.

build will be HMS Bentink (K314), ex USS Bull (DE 52), using the Trumpeter USS England, and Gold medal etch. Will get cracking on it over the weekend, and post some pics.

Some good work coming on above.

Si

Everybodies builds are looking great thus far. I wish I could find my camera to show photographs of mine. I'll have some images of the trophy prizes this weekend. I may go pickup a 1/350 Dragon DD (not sure which) kit to give to the winner as a prize as well.

What a fantastic idea, gentlemen! I will enter this build as well. I am going to be submitting two models of modified designs, one an Arleigh Burke and another built on a Gearing hull. I look forward to seeing what kind of stuff is produced.

-David

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate having to scratch build masts? Bending radars is on the bottom of my list of things to do, too.







Do you think I'll have time to build another DD before October?

Nuke you show off!!!

Try something a little more challenging this time will ya! Awesome job by the way How is the kit? Any major flaws or construction problems?

Cliffy B wrote:Nuke you show off!!!

Try something a little more challenging this time will ya! Awesome job by the way How is the kit? Any major flaws or construction problems?

Thanks, Cliffy!

It's hard to say anything bad about a JAG kit. But, this one had some unexpected pinholes in the hull. I overlooked these while air brushing it. I didn't apply a primer otherwise, I probably would have seen the holes. They are almost invisible to the naked eye, except for one on the port bow. This model won't win the Group Build Award, I'm sure of that.

The barrels and blast bags on the 5" turrets are a little big and out of scale, in my opinoin.

The PE fret should include the cross bar support under the forward O1 deck under the hedgehogs. I didn't use the kit's hedghogs. They didn't have lids, if that's what they are. I've only seen hedgehog launchers with their "lids" open. The launchers that I did use were from a different JAG kit, though.

PE for the UNREP station, amidships, would have been nice. Oh! And that reminds me........I need to add some vertical ladders as well as a few inclined ladders.

The towed sonar buoy was missing from my kit. Either it broke off the sprue before packaging or I missed it when opening the plastic wrap. There was an extra Mk37 dish in the plastic. Maybe it was notice that a piece broke off of a sprue and the dish was mistaken for the buoy.

The PE splinter / spray shields are a perfect fit!! But, I think the hole pattern in them are not correct. They may be correct for some ship of the class. I didn't study them all.

The molded-in details are wonderful. Truly JAG quality.

As I noticed on the JAG Belknap, I feel the chocks are molded a little too, close to the edge of the hull; like flush with the hull. This may be the way it is on the real ship(s) but it does not accommodate for placing PE railings outboard of them. I cut them off of the Sumner and ran the railings inboard of the chocks on my Belknap.

I also discarded the signal flag bags from the kit. They appeared too, big to me. I used some from a spare DRAGON sprue.

Thanks for asking, Cliffy. And thanks for listening.

Thanks for the mini-review Nuke!

I think those "lids" on the hedgehogs acted more as blast shields than anything else. I've never seen them closed plus they don't look they'd fit if the mortars were loaded. Maybe they did close them and secure them when the mortars weren't loaded. Although they were supposed to be ready at a moments notice you'd think the seawater exposure would play havoc on the exposed ordnance

From what I've seen on real ships of the era (and now for that matter) all of the deck fittings are inboard of the railings with appropriate railing cutouts if necessary.

I'm awaiting a pair of the old Albatross 1/700 Gearings in the mail right now. They'll hold me over until Dragon releases theirs later this year (can't wait!!!). I'm going to model one in a 1950's fit with twin 3"/50s and a later radar fit among other things. I've got about four or five DDs/DEs I want to build right now, not sure which will be 2nd entry. Might be the two I have planned for a whiff dio with one of DMLs 1/700 CVLs. We shall see what amounts after I sit down and figure out what exactly I'm doing So many ideas I can't decide!

This little GB shows great promise gents. Can't wait to see Dave's finished Burke whiffs and Quincy's RN DDs.

Wow Nuke, slow down so the rest of us have a chance Some really nice looking work and some really nice promise coming forward. I just got home from a 3 day all expense paid trip to the Hospital, My wife and I welcomed our 2nd daughter into our lives on Sunday so my mind has been elsewhere. Tonight with baby and momma asleep, I snuck down to the lair and did some dry fitting on my entry, so nothing really to brag about but I think I may actually pull this off within the time alloted even with a new born in the house. Looking forward to what everyone else has going on!

Matt

Congrats man!!!! Glad everyone is doing well. Did you two pick a name yet?

Alright! Nice to see a 4-Piper in the mix.

Excellent model, Nuke!

I'll try to take the plunge and come up with something as well; only that it has not yet arrived.

Jorit

I just got my USS Gearing in today, and I have to say this is one impressive model. It's pretty small for being a 1/350 scale model, but man oh man is it good looking. It offers a lot of beautiful details. I must compliment all those who worked on it (Cad-man?!)

Small update, I waterlined the ship tonight and drilled out the portholes to give them a better definition. The darn thing Hogged so bad after I did this, it really did look like a banana! I already tried a couple of tricks to get it to righten out but it keeps going back. This ate up all my build time tonight Oh well, hit it again tomorrow, the baby is a sleep and I think I will nab this chance to catch some Z's myself. Later
Matt

Progress continues and almost finished. Some weathering/wash to the mast and then the rigging and antennas. I intend to hold off on creating a water base for this one and let it be part of my in-progress navy base, for awhile.

USS Allen M. Sumner DD-692 (1967 DESRON 16)

(I like the look of a black mast and radars, but it was gray in 1967 when it had the star on the DASH deck.)

Cliffy B wrote:Here's my first entry; a modified Butler Class DE, which ship I haven't decided yet. Kit is the Skywave 1/700 Butler DE Twin Pack.

Overall shot of the hull with waterline plate and superstructure sub-assemblies installed. I'll paint all of the SS pieces before I attach them to the deck.

I'm waiting for the last of the glue to dry before I attach the main deck house. I'm going to add an extension to the deck edge behind the stack for a torpedo room housing fixed tubes for the Mk-35 ASW homing torpedo. I'm also going to add the topside AAW mods with the extra 40mms in place of the old triple torpedo tubes. Some radar mods will round out my whiffed DE for now. She'll be depicted around mid 1946 in Ms. 22 camo. Enjoy!

My 2nd entry is waiting on the mailman to bring me a package from a fellow board member with four DD kits in it. More whiffery awaits!

Cliffy,

I'll be anxious to see what you do with this kit. Your plans sound great!

Do you have a particular ship in mind? If you can, please post a pic of the real ship. Thanks!

mike mccabe wrote:Interesting to see Carl's build of the Fram Sumner, I', almost finished with my build of the kit as the Argentine Hipolito Bouchard. A nice kit, certainly to be recommended. Very nice clean job so far Carl if I may say.

Just need to find some 700 scale Argentine roundels, any ideas anyone?

Mike

Mr. McCabe,

Your Hipolito Bouchard build sounds really interesting. Do you have in-progress pics somewhere else?

I'm not familiar with "roundels". What is that?

Nuke, roundels are basically national insignia. For example, the US has the "stars and bars", the Canadians have a red maple leaf inside of a white and blue circle, the Aussies have a kangaroo instead of the leaf, etc...

Here's a good collection of roundels from around the world and across the ages.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Roundel

According to that list the Argentine Navy just uses an anchor, like the French Navy does just minus the circles. The Fin Flash is just some stripes in the colors of the flag. You should be able to download the anchor graphic and print some up in 1/700 and either paint the tail (if needed) or make some decals for those too. Let me know if you want to go that route and don't have any graphics software. I can re-size a sheet of them for you in Photoshop and mock up some fin flashes if need be; would just need the aircraft type.

Recieved my 1/350 Tamiya Fletcher and detail goodies in the mail today from Pacific Front Hobbies.
I hope to get this build started this Sunday.
This build will consist of the following

Tamiya's Fletcher kit #78012
Gold Medal Models' Fletcher PE #350-14
Gold Medal Models" Watertight Doors #350-11
L'Arsenal's Mk 37 Directors #AC350-17
L'Arsenal's Structural Parts #2 #AC350-53
L'Arsenal's Twin 40mm guns #AC350-12
L'Arsenal"s 20mm guns #AC350-38
L'Arsenal"s Mk 51 Directors #AC350-11
L'Arsenal"s 40 lpi Black chain #CH250
Corsair Armada's 5"/38 guns #CAP350-001
Dragon's Benson/Gleaves DD KIts Barrels