The Ship Model Forum

Hello all,

After prying myself away from Hood and making myself realize that I can't work on two 1/200 kits at the same time I went back to my beloved Arizona.

Last Friday before I went home for the weekend I had started on the 5" AA guns, so I got them finished last night.

IMG_5995_zpsctahju35 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I forgot to grab a picture, but I found a better way to mount the 5"/51 guns so that I don't have to drill the deck to make them the correct height. By using the Edward PE base for the guns I was able to remove the round base the guns normally mount to. My test fit has the guns at the perfect height in the casemate and you can't tell that I left the part off so I'm happy. I need to get the remainder of the PE bases built and I can have the broadside guns ready to install.

Also, I've done enough research over the past few weeks that I can agree with painting her in 5S. After reading some more interviews and talking to people I have a good feeling that at least some of the ship was 5S, and I would rather have the whole ship one color than half-painted. So I'm going to use Testors Sea Blue for the 5S unless anyone has a better suggestion. I really liked how that paint looked on Randy's Arizona. Now that the decision has been made, I can start painting pieces as needed!

hondaman117 wrote: I really like the size of the kit, it looks impressive sitting on my work table. And the parts are bigger which is good for my big hands haha. But Edward still manages to include minuscule PE to go all over the ship

Pontos was the same on my 1/200 Iowa. This is also my first 200 model. I guess going forward, the larger the scale the more of miniscule PE. Heck there are pieces I could not pick up or hold without tweezers used for micro surgery. Needless to say these were not used. In some cases I could see where a fellow modeler or scratch builder may notice, but in most cases would go unnoticed. I have also noticed that in some cases the original plastic was far better than the final PE, though this is rare in my opinion. In short I've learned to pick my PE battles.

Keep up the great work!�

Scott56 wrote:I have also noticed that in some cases the original plastic was far better than the final PE, though this is rare in my opinion. In short I've learned to pick my PE battles.

Keep up the great work!�

Thanks! And I've learned to do the same, sometimes it's not worth the effort for a part that is not noticeable. I've found that things like kit pulleys for the cranes tend to be better for me than the PE replacements. Yes, they may be overscale, but it makes it easier to add rigging and in the end makes them look better.

I had a little bit of time on Sunday to work on Arizona and continued to knock out smaller items.

Here is a picture of what I'm going to do for the secondary guns to lower them. Instead of drilling the deck I'm going to remove the round part of the base that the kit supplies and attach the gun directly to the PE base. In the end the gun is at the proper height and you cannot tell the round part is missing.

IMG_5998_zpsqyzqfnyo by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

I don't know what ship this was supposed to be on, but the gun looks similar to mine after removing the base.

http://navsource.org/archives/01/017/013891b.jpg


I also decided to get the cranes finished since they were on the same PE set I already had out.

IMG_5999_zpswed6q3kn by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


This picture is a little light, but they both look pretty good to me.

IMG_6000_zpsti4oj04v by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I also put the PE on these vents for the same reason I worked on the cranes.

IMG_6001_zpsmp2znly6 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


Thanks for checking her out!

Coming along very nicely......cranes will add alot of eyeballing on the final presentation...it's a natural draw1

Great progress!

gott_cha wrote:Coming along very nicely......cranes will add alot of eyeballing on the final presentation...it's a natural draw1

Great progress!

Thanks! I had to leave a pretty large piece of PE off of the cranes because it would not fit around the main boom. My initial diagnosis is that Trumpy molded the upper support braces too narrow, I had to sand mine a little to get them opened up. Because those are too narrow the PE is also too narrow and I couldn't make it work.

I started on the rear catapult the other night which is probably the largest piece of PE I've ever worked with, I kinda wish I had waited until I had a PE bending tool. I had to make several passes with tweezers trying to straighten everything, the brass was pretty thick and did not want to bend easily. I don't have a picture, but I plan on finishing it up next week as I'm going on a short vacation this weekend.

Hi Nelson:

I like your solution to the 5" Casemate guns, looks good. You may want to check your references for the cranes. The crane only had only one railing. When the cranes were stowed facing forward the railings were inboard. They look great the way they are though.
I should be in Apache junction on or about the 13th of July at Park Place East, a Park Model complex, until we find a house.
Until that time

Nelson,

Your model is coming along nicely!!! I too like the casement 5" mounts.

Hank

Mgunns wrote:Hi Nelson:

I like your solution to the 5" Casemate guns, looks good. You may want to check your references for the cranes. The crane only had only one railing. When the cranes were stowed facing forward the railings were inboard. They look great the way they are though.
I should be in Apache junction on or about the 13th of July at Park Place East, a Park Model complex, until we find a house.
Until that time

Hey Mark,

I'll admit that I didn't really do any research on the cranes, I just put the PE on straight off the sheet haha. Seeing as the cranes are not attached to the ship it should be an easy fix to snip off the inner railing. Thanks for catching that!

I was getting really worried about what to do with the casemates until I realized that you can't really see in them unless you're really close. Once I realized that it was a simple test fit and I was happy. For now they are waiting until I get far enough to put the deck down, which may be a while.

Glad to hear your move is going well! I'm also in the process of closing on my home in Yuma, I'm sure I'll see you at some point in the near future!

BB62vet wrote:Nelson,

Your model is coming along nicely!!! I too like the casement 5" mounts.

Hank

Thanks Hank!

I was able to get the stern catapult finished up last night, it now awaits the day I begin to paint everything. I still need to build the cart for the catapult, that should be a nice little exercise. I've decided I'm going to wait until my PE bender gets here to work on the turret catapult haha. I think I'm going to return my attention to the hull details and prepping to join the hull halves for the time being.

IMG_6005_zpsbcdfci9u by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

IMG_6006_zpsbqgazrnf by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I also removed the inner railing on the boat cranes as Mark suggested, so they are correct now. No picture at the moment.

Thanks for checking in!

Hey guys,

I'm still making progress, the past week at work has been a busy one. Combine that with being in the final stages of home buying I have not had too much spare time to devote to Arizona. But, I have been picking away and have some pictures to share.

I worked on the casemate walls to get them ready for paint. I removed the molded on kit doors for the guns and added the Eduard pieces. I also took a tip from Jeff Sharps build and cut off the incorrect fire hose stations and the electrical boxes. You can see my attempt to recreate the boxes from pictures. Not perfect, but better than the molded on ones. Last thing I need to do to these is to thin out the gun openings.

IMG_6007_zpsnurpms4r by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I also started correcting the bulkhead at the deck break. Again per Jeff's build I filled in the bad porthole, added a new one, and began to correct the doors on the starboard side. I still would like to add some details to the double doors so they don't just look like blank sheet. This piece will need more work to open up the passageways by the main mas legs and other things, but I got a start on it.

IMG_6009_zps08iubkpl by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


Last night I finished adding the details to the top of the torpedo blisters. There's about 20 of those little hatches on each side, I need a better pair of sharp tweezers as it was a pain to get them all on straight.

IMG_6011_zpsmzbjzx7l by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


Hopefully soon I will be ready to glue the hull together, until then I will keep to the smaller details. Thanks for stopping by!

Hello everybody,

Well, I've joined the world of homeowners! I got the keys to my new house a couple weeks ago and have been moving, which is my excuse for not making any progress on Arizona recently! Here's a picture of the casa, and yes I know it looks like a bowl of pea soup... hahaha Paint is cheap and it will be fixed!

13710656_10210222818677274_5379467121934301392_o_zpsieqoash0 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


Not that I've gotten my stuff relocated to my new house I was able to get my hobby room set up and return to making progress on my Zona. The first thing I stated on was getting the mounting system built into the lower hull before the halves can be joined. I used some 1/4"-20 nuts and some epoxy resin to secure them into the base. Like on my Bismarck I added the wood pieces around the nuts to make sure they won't come loose. I plan on making a "Dry Dock" base to mount her to with 1/200 scale dry dock wood blocks.

IMG_6012_zpskav6ur83 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


Once those were in I decided to work on the hawse pipes since they were easier to get to with the hull halves separate. I stated with the dremel tool and files and started to reshape the openings so that the anchors can pass through like they are supposed to. To make the hawse pipes I decided to try a new item I noticed while at the local Home Depot.

IMG_6013_zpscamlkgrr by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


This repair putty comes in a little stick that you knead to activate and then place it where you want it. Relatively quickly the putty begins to harden and once it's fully cured it can be drilled and sanded. I placed putty under the hawse pipe openings in the deck and while it was still soft I used a drill bit to open up the holes. I then took the deck off so that I could work on the putty without hurting the deck.

IMG_6014_zpsxjoj2kh2 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I still need to go back and touch up some spots, but overall I think this experiment worked well. I may even be able to use his to make blast bags for the main guns if I want. I'll be sure to get some pictures of the finished hawse pipes to show the results.


While the putty was hardening I turned my attention to the main mast. I scraped all of the braces off the bottom of the mast house to replace them with the Eduard pieces. This is when I noticed a small issue with the PE. The round cutout in the big PE piece is lot large enough for the part of the mast that attached to the house. I had to start making modifications to the mast that would allow it to fit without making it shorter so that the other legs of the mast would not need to be changed. I used some plastic rod that fit inside the mast and sheet plastic with the same size hole drilled in it to locate the house of the mast. I then cut away the part of the mast that interfered with the PE.

IMG_6016_zpseay9znsl by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I didn't get a picture of the mast leg, I will get that next time. But the end result is that the main mast assembles as it should with the nicer Eduard PE on the mast house. I will have to make the same modifications to the fore mast as well.

IMG_6015_zpscuzhicsf by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I'm really excited to be back to working on the Zona. I really want to have her finished up before I go to Hawaii in December. I'm finally going to make it to Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th and I would like to have her finished so I have some pictures that I can show to some Pearl Harbor veterans I'm hoping to meet. I'd like to see what they think of her.

Until next time,

Nelson

Looking neat!

And mi casa is more like guacamole!

Cheers, Jabb

Congrats on the New Casa!
hope the move went well for you....I now you are proud of it.

Glad to see you back on the Zona project...updates look good my friend....keep them coming as you have time!

Hi Nelson:

Nice to see some progress on your build. I am looking forward to getting into our house in late September and picking up on Pennsylvania where I left off. Hopefully no major or minor damage to the kit and parts during the move and storage. I am also hoping my Arizona survived the move as well.
Looking forward to your next update.

Mark good to see you, hope your move/relocation has went well.

Thanks everybody! It's definitely been a change for me, I've lived in the same house my entire life until now. Still not used to the house being so quiet and empty haha.

I kept going on the main mast last night since I already had the PE out for it. I replaced the molded on braces on the 1st platform with the replacements from Eduard, I think they look much nicer. Just need a little clean up.

IMG_6018_zpsol8bb55w by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


As promised here is the picture of the mast I forgot to post the other day. I found a size of Evergreen rod in my box that fits perfectly inside of the mast leg, so that was used to stiffen the mast and for the mast house to center on. You can see in this picture where I had to cut away portions of the top of the leg to fit around the Eduard PE on the mast house.

IMG_6019_zpsk0zypc5t by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


Here's another view of the mast house. You can kinda see how the mast fits around the PE now.

IMG_6020_zpsjztrzvyx by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


And here's where its at now. The 1st platform is ready to have the railings added and the 2nd platform (not shown) is ready to have the support braces replaced with the PE parts. And yes I know in the picture the 1st platform is out of position, I just put it there for the picture! haha

IMG_6021_zps3nbtys49 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I plan to keep going on the mast tonight, I'll see how much I get done.

Hello everybody,

I finally took the step and made the ship whole last night! I got the hull halves glued together and taped in place. For good measure I also used the 4 screws at the bow and stern so I'm confident they will not come apart.

IMG_6022_zpskt2lxg62 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


Overall the halves fit together pretty well, but there's always room for improvement. I applied putty to the seam and wet sanded it smooth. Need one more pass with finer sand paper and it's ready for primer.

IMG_6024_zpstgvihbiy by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


To pass the time while putty was curing I started to dry fit the front superstructure and gluing some of the sub-assemblies together. I also got the conning tower PE cover in place.

IMG_6025_zpspdmn5e63 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


For now the plan is to get the hull prepped for primer. After that I want to get the main mast finished and prepped for paint since it is mostly assembled. After that the forward superstructure will follow since I've now started on that as well. She should start to look like a complete ship pretty soon!

Well, I'm back!

Sorry to all of you who have followed my build for the lack of updates these past few months. I've been travelling a lot lately and distracted by my Mustang project. Unlike most of the country, in Arizona winter is the nice time of the year to be outside doing things, so I've been out there a lot lately. Now that I'm back I am motivated to get going on the Arizona again.

For those of you who didn't know, I was able to travel to Hawaii to be at Pearl Harbor for some of the 75th Anniversary events last week. It was very humbling to be walking around to visit the memorials and to speak to some WWII vets & Pearl Harbor Survivors. I was able to travel out to the Memorial on the 6th, but was unable to get out there again after the 7th. On the 7th the memorial is not open to the public to allow survivors to visit in peace and for the internment ceremonies. I've posted a couple of my pictures I took below for you to view.

Even on a cloudy day the memorial is stunning.

IMG_6151_zpsed8plxic by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

IMG_6160_zps38kgrmge by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

IMG_6163_zpscuwj0rb3 by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

IMG_6166_zpsmjmvvsvd by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

Truly a sobering experience.

IMG_6169_zpsxm6urmai by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr

IMG_6173_zps5sux3fdd by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I was also able to capture this picture while I was there. 4 of the 5 remaining Arizona survivors that could make the trip were gathered for a press conference. Unfortunately, I was not able to talk to any of them personally like I wanted to, but I was glad to see them still getting around and in good spirits. I wish them the best in life and thank them for their sacrifices.

IMG_6123_zpsn8vkm6hw by Nelson Wallace, on Flickr


I will make another post in regards to my Arizona build shortly.

Cheers!

Hi Nelson:

Welcome back. We are here in San Tan in our house. I made repairs to the AZ, see my post in completed models under Arizona Encore. Thanks for posting the pictures of the memorial and the survivors. I am working at Superstition Harley if you want to stop by and say hello.
Looking forward to your updates.