The Ship Model Forum

Absolutely great Work! Turning some wooden chumps into a sharp Model is a modeling class of its own.
Excellent Sir! Gratulations!

Really outstanding.

Really impressive builds. Great Work!

Time for some "K"s, specifically K-75 Cassiopeia and K-117 Zaurak. Both ships were present at Leyte Gulf. These ships were in the USN Crater class of cargo ships and have been built from the Trumpeter 1/350 Jeremiah O'Brien with Tom's PE. It was fun to do some plastic kits with minor modifications after two "involved" projects.

Cassiopeia entered the Navy in the winter of 1942 and according to a history written by crew member David Friedrich was repainted "gray" in the South Pacific. I tried to portray the "trampiness" of a liberty ship that was in the Pacific for almost two years.

Zaurak entered service in the spring of 1944 and the goal here was to be clean and 100% NAVY.

Jim

I like comparisons and the T-3 has not yet been put away. I thought some shots of both types would be interesting. Most of the T-2, C-2 and C-3 hulls that I will do in the future are between these ships in size.

Type..............LOA...............Beam..............Displacement.............Speed

EC2-S-C1........442...............57..................11,570......................12

T3-S2-A1........553...............75..................24,800......................18

Jim

The next project is a conversion of the Dragon 1/350 DD-484 to DMS-22. I started off on the wrong foot, purchased the 1942 Buchanan when it came out. Some months later Dragon released the 1945 Buchanan, which will yield a much easier modification. If anyone is interested in a list of modifications required, I have posted one on Calling all ships/Destroyers/Benson-Gleaves/page 25. Link is here..
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=24483&start=360

The first few photos show the mods roughed out.

Jim

The DMS is done. This was one of those builds that just seemed a little off kilter..why is a puzzle.

Jim

The Gleaves conversion joins the flushdeck DMS's already done.

When I did the flushdeck DMS's I fell in love with the ships and took the APD out of the stash and completed it.

Some of the pre-invasion "slow element", OBB, DE, DMS and APD.

Jim

You Sir are a great builder.

Jim, in that third photo in your last post. Is the BB under the MS21 NM class on the right hand side Maryland? Did you use the ISW pre-ww2 Maryland kit and convert it? I'm interested in doing Colorado and would like to know more about how you did it.

gtb,thanks

Jon, good eye , the answer is here viewtopic.php?f=13&t=25746 The meas 21 ship is the Idaho, the tell is the single 5"-38's in houses.

Jim

http://www.historylink101.com/ww2_navy/ ... s/107.html
http://www.historylink101.com/ww2_navy/ ... s/107.html
http://www.historylink101.com/ww2_navy/ ... s/109.html
http://www.historylink101.com/ww2_navy/ ... /2206.html
http://www.historylink101.com/ww2_navy/ ... s/224.html

http://www.historylink101.com/ww2_navy/ ... s/556.html
http://www.historylink101.com/ww2_navy/ ... s/554.html

Time to start.......again.

The new ship will be APA-6 - Heywood. There were four ships to this design - APA-6,7,8 & 9. They were built in the USA to a British design late in WWI, sold to merchant service between the wars, and acquired by the USN in 1940 to eventually become what were called Attack Transports. The four ships gathered 26 battle stars during WWII, most in the Pacific.

The ships were 507' LOA with a beam of 56' and a speed of 16.8 knots.

The only plans I found were the 32-9T camo design sheet, which is in Friedman's Amphibious book and online. There are plenty of pics so I should be able to get close. The one area of the hull I was nervous about carving was the counter stern. It turns out that the 1/570 Titanic scales out to a 56' beam when converted to 1/350. This was considered an OMEN and the initial plan is to use the Titanic hull. It only cost $15 and if it does not work out I will still have a good pattern for the stern if the plastic bash is a bust and I have to carve the hull from wood.

The pic roughly shows how much the hull has to be shortened. It will also be waterlined.

Jim

A photo of the shortened and semi waterlined hull.

Plans to the extent that they are drawn.

Jim

I had to straighten the new stem after cutting off 1.3 inches from the hull (pic 1). The left is the straight Titanic stem and the right is the curved new stem.

Water at 195 degrees F for 20 seconds did the trick (pic 2).

Straight stems. More bend to the bow was also added to make up for that cut off. Pic 3 is the result.

Jim

Pic#1 The wood core roughed out.

Pic#2 The Titanic hull sides have been epoxied to the finished wood core and sanded down to the main deck and waterline.

Jim

Following your thread is really informative! Your idea to use Titanics 1/570 as a base for your 1/350 Heywood is excelent
How will you replace the planking at the bow and stern, where you have used wood?

Christian,

The wood core will be completely covered by plastic. The hull sides with the Titanic hull and the main deck with styrene sheet (yet to added).

The project has gone better than expected. The only problem will be removing/covering up all the "Titanic" detail on the hull sides.

Jim

Everything rough. I guess the construction method for the superstructure could be called sandwich and pin. So far all has gone well, I am starting to like this ship.

Jim

I'm amazed at the versatility and the speed of your scratch-building skills!