The Ship Model Forum

Just for that Jason I hereby elect you as the newly appointed official "Trumpeter USS Iowa Class Rear End Rebuilder". This means that you are now chosen to supply detailed instructions on how you redid your hull bottom, complete with templates, photos, and step-by-step procedure for the rest of us idiots who were dumb enough to buy this monster.

Your pay for this privilege: Zip, Zilch!

BTW: Happy Labor Day!

You're right... this isn't just a hobby... it's a holy calling! I can't rest until ALL trumpy Iowas are the right shape by thunder!

Here are my instructions:

Step 1... buy a jumbo-sized bottle of vodka.
Step 2... drink it
Step 3... when/if you wake up the next morning, go back to your hull and say "ya know, I can live with it as it is".

Step 4. If step three didn't work, 50+ hours of crazy work has gone into your Iowa hull and you still think it doesn't quite look right despite the lavish praises of your modeler buddies, go buy a HMS Nelson instead and carefully remain blissfully unaware of the kit hull's accuracy or lack thereof.

Step 4. If step three didn't work, 50+ hours of crazy work has gone into your Iowa hull and you still think it doesn't quite look right despite the lavish praises of your modeler buddies, go buy a HMS Nelson instead and carefully remain blissfully unaware of the kit hull's accuracy or lack thereof.

What he said!

OK Gents, frivolity aside, I've been doing a little "Pre-Build" and ran across a few questions for you experts. These all pertain to the USS Missouri in the 1945 era.

1. What color were the life preservers on the ship? I've seen them modeled in white, orange, and even red.

2. How high was the hull lip above the deck? From all the pictures I can find, it looks to me to be about 8" or so. Does anybody know for sure? Regardless, it's going to be hard to model in 1:200 scale. 8" turns out to be 0.04", somewhere in the neighborhood of the thickness of 2 credit cards. Now how in the hell does anybody model that?
3. Does anyone know the width and how deep the waterways were? I tried to make a guess from the width of the deck boards here, but they're all over the place.
4. What in the heck is this thing? And did the Missouri have then on the hull back in 45?
5. When Jason did his hull mod, he used hull cross sections to form the correct shape. I ordered my BB-63 plans from the Floating DryDock last night and haven't gotten them yet. Do these plans have the hull cross sections in them? And if not, where can I get a set?

I guess that's it for now. Time to go back to that big bottle of vodka

Steinerman, my cross-sections came from Floating Drydock's TFL? Missouri plans, resized to just under 1/200 scale (as they're 1/192) and leaving enough room for the wood strip and auto body putty base. I then made some 1/200 reverse cross-section cards and used them to reshape the bow as well as check my stern profile once I had it built up. The bow is off by quite a bit too... it's not just the stern, FYI.



As for the hull lip, you have to cheat as the height of the kit hull matches the profile plans. I went with .010 X.020 evergreen styrene strips to make the rise as minimal as possible and to not throw off the general profile appearance but have the rise still existent. As for the width and depth of the gutters, you'll pretty much get them resolved by the Pontos set if you skip (or inlet) the brass provided to line the stick-on wooden deck.



On the outer side I blended out the seams between the styrene strip and the hull side so it looks like one piece and I will eventually top it off with very thin brass rod like Tom did on his scratchbuilt 1/192 Modern Missouri.

The big vertical strip thingy on the hull is a gutter to keep water washing off the decks from staining the sides of the ship... it's a modern era addition that wasn't on any of the WW2 Iowas.

Channell is correct about the half round covers on the side of the hull. They go over the deck drain ports. BB-64 currently doesn't have her's rigged (they're in storage) but we have extensions that stick out a few feet and keep the water off the side fairly well.

I'll measure the scuppers for you tomorrow; easy enough!

Okay, sorry for the delay but I finally measured the scuppers on the Main Deck and 01 Level. If you would like 02 and 03 let me know and I'll get them next week.

01 Level = 1' Wide
Main Deck = 14.25" Wide
Round over on Main Deck = Approx. 2.5" in diameter

The Main Deck Scupper where I measured by the port boat davit has a plate in it on the outboard side that 5 9/16" wide outboard-inboard.

Attached are photos of each scupper where I measured. The one with the sounding cover is the Main Deck.

Thanks guys!

More information to store away.

Larry,

A couple observations in regards the last few posts:

1) The half-round overboard discharge covers were added to NEW JERSEY in 1967 - whether they were for keeping the discharge from staining the sides is debatable - I think it was more for keeping the discharge from spraying other ships, piers, etc. and directing the flow down into the ocean. Building the 1945 MO eliminates these details. These discharge covers were added to all 4 ships in their '80s refits.

2) The round lip of the upper edge of the hull has been discussed on the forum in earlier posts - you (like the rest of us) simply need to find where it was and print it out. I can't off-hand recall which forum it was on, but back in 2013/14, I think. Sorry, but this comes with the territory!! It may be on my build, but I'm not quite sure. The photo you provided gives an idea as to the size of the lip. I will need to do this lip also - when I do, I will post the size of steel wire I use for this.

CliffyB is our WISCONSIN "go-to" guy (he's a volunteer worker on BB64) for finding things that are still available on the actual ship. Keep in mind MANY exterior details have changed and cannot be relied on for building a WWII version of any of the 4 IOWAs.

Hope this helps,

As to the deck edge detail, the lip coaming rises only around 4" above the planked deck level and is surmounted by a round lip, perhaps 1 1/2" in diameter. Looking at my BB63 photos, I will opine that the coaming was not extended during the life of the ship, as the butt straps tying the external STS plating together extend all the way to the rounded lip at the top. Visually for the modeler, this lip at the top is an important, if small visual feature. The other item on the hull sides is the butt strapping, the subject of considerable discussion on the CASF Iowa Class theme.

Cheers: Tom

Stupid question, gents,

Would an oak base look out of place on my Missouri? I plan on making a base similar to this, with 3/4" wood blocks supporting the ship.
I have enough of both oak and walnut stock to make it out of either. Walnut would look darker, but oak with a nice dark oak stain and several coats of hand rubbed poly would look classy too.

Any suggestions? Right now I'm kinda leaning towards oak.

Hank and I were looking toward a base using scale keel blocks to the actual pattern used for dry-docking. Of course neither of us has got that far as yet.

My Alaska is of course a waterline model.

Cheers: T

I like the Grain of Oak, so I would go with oak. That is what I intend to do and use with my Arizona when I get to that stage.

I like the oak option. You want a method of mounting that doesn't pull the viewer's eyes away from the model, and oak has a good color/tone. If you spent a buttload of time on the hull putting in details, plating etc. you might want to mount it over a mirror to show off your work. I've seen some great model ship mountings with mirrors incorporated on the base..

off topic...

Current progress CB1.

OhMyGOsh! How great is that! Beautiful work there. Who's quad's are you using?

Larry

Those are the Trumpy quad based with the Pontos upgrade parts that I got from Hank. However the Vetran Quads have a more detailed trunion structure.

Cheers. Tom

Tom,

Your ALASKa is really looking good. Those parts you've done a great job with - glad they're working out!

Hank

Hello Tom:

I echo the sentiments of the others here, your Alaska is looking great. This would certainly be a worthy subject to put out by the model companies. Your work on this is truly noteworthy.

Hey Guys, Have any of you ever tried Frog Tape to mask off your hulls? I've got a couple rolls of the stuff that would be better than me spending more $$$$

My fear with the Alaska, now that the book is on order, that there will be many further corrections to make. One reason that I have been procrastinating on paint.

Thanks for the encouragement! Tom