WIP: 1/350 Pre-War USS Honolulu (CL-48)

[Dave Hill]

Hard to believe that this is 4 hours of work.
port side.........
starboard side.
Tony

Hey thats only 8hrs for both stacks!!!!! ..took me a good day to finish the stacks for my "Nawlins"!

That looks awesome...your bends in that tubing are flawless !!!!!

Dave

[Gilbert]

Ditto with what Dave said

cheers

Gilbert

[Cadman]

Nice work Tony, the funnel piping will look great on the finished model.

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
The resin cast funnels were'nt bad, but the flash build up in the external plumbing areas was more than I could bare. As it was, I left on the single piece of piping common to both the funnels, but the fwd funnel is not the same as the rear one.
The fwd funnel has much more plumbing on its' fwd end, that lead up to an elaborate whistle platform. Now that will be fun! This whistle is entirely missing on this kit, as were the funnel caps!!!
I called the guy I'm building this model for and told him my, "200 hours to completion", was right out the window!
I asked for nothing more than originally planned, jut to tell him that this project has become meaningful to me, (and others), and that will do.
Note:
Dave Hill has sent to me his scratch built Mk33 directors to copy. They are very nice! Thanks Dave!
What goes around comes around my friend!
Tony

[Devin]

Tony,

Love the new plumbing on the stacks. I was looking at those very pieces on the Wichita last night and trying to decide if I should replace them or not. Did you use a bending tool on that tubing/rod, or just pliers and eyesight?

Am I mistaken in thinking that L'Arsenal makes a Mk 33 director? I thought I had an aftermarket one in the stash somewhere.

-Devin

[Gilbert]

Not Tony but I can answer you that unfortunately, L'Arsenal is not making in 1/350 a Mk 33 director but a Mk 37.

Cheers

Gilbert

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Devin,
Gilbert is correct; L'Arsenal does not currently offer the Mk33 director. This is not out of the realm of possibility as a future project though. Some of the Pre-War weapons are L'Arsenal's top sellers. Mk34 and Mk33 both would complement the L'Arsenal 1/350 accessories line right fine!
Dave,
The brass tube bending was fun but I used up 3 or 4 inches of it before I got it right. Perfect the first time?? No!
Devin,
I held the brass tubing in a pin-vise and bent this way. I actually had the ends of the brass tubing in two pin-vises at the beginning; first bend.
Segway..........
Deck color! I was using what I thought to be Standard Deck Grey 20, but I actually used this...see pic...

See on the bottle where it says, "#20"? That's all it took to tell me this was the correct color. The "Flight deck grey #250N" was not enough to prove this was the wrong color..... !!!
The blue tint is what made me second guess myself. So, I called Randy Short, woke him up with the most important question ever.......is 250N the same as #20?????? He said NO, and don't call me at 0300 any more! Just kidding, Randy has been a good friend and is a great ship modeler's friend always.
I'll be doing some re-painting soon. Randy suggested FS36118 Gunship Grey as a close alternate to the Standard Deck Grey 20. He knows I prefer the Acryl paints, and apparently Testors Acryl Marine colors never included this color. The hobby shop I work for one day a week, still has the entire Marine Colors product line in stock except for 5N and 20B. These have been off the market for a while now. Shows where ship modeling rates! That's okay, it's like a little gold mine to the few ship modeler's here in SoCal.
Happy Easter!
Tony

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Here lies two months of work. The repetitious study of images and drawings is something else! How many times did I say to myself, "is this ship really Honolulu"?, and, "how similar were other ships of the class?"
The most recent deck house is the boat deck house. The images studied showed some differences, so the differences shown reflect the images studied.
Boat deckhouse shown............

A stbd quarter view of the bridge deckhouse and fore funnel. The decks have been re-painted with FS36118 as recommended...

Two months of work.............

I still have some more detail to add to the funnel bases, and I still need to paint some Standard Navy Grey 5 again.
Also, I saw the decal artwork for the SOC floatplanes; complete with a/c numbers and serial numbers.....in 1/350 scale!!
Wayne Tevlin of Yellow Wing Decals gets the credit for the artwork. Thanks Wanye.
I will see Wayne at the IPMS National convention in August.
More soon, Tony

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
I've been burning out at work! Too tired to muster any true modeler's spirit to work in the eve's.
So, I did this stuff at work when it was'nt busy.
I was intending to do the external plumbing on the fwd funnel, but turned towards the already, "put off", 6"47 main battery gun turrets.
Here you see the YMW kit turret with most of the detail sanded away...thanks for the suggestion Chris...........!
The kit cast metal barrels came molded with the blast bags, so I detached the barrels and discarded them; 15 times............or more!
Then, I drilled through the center of the barrels, "go through here", surface and did the best I could. I ended up using more than 15 blast bags before arriving at 15 decent ones. Luckily, I have the parts for two Brooklyn's to use.


Here is turret with the blast bags and barrels in place.

Lets see how they look with a coat of paint on them..........later....I've got 12 more barrels and blast bags to do!!
Tony

[NukeMM]

Ooooo Boy! PAINT! That's my favorite part! (Not doing it, but seeing it.)

Just awesome, Tony! Just awesome!

[Dave Hill]

Ooooo Boy! PAINT! That's my favorite part! (Not doing it, but seeing it.)

What he said!!!!!!!!!...great job Tony

Dave

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Been a little while!
I am not really finished with the main gun turrets, but here is 5 mostly finished, (no paint yet..........sorry Carl), so here yo go........anyway.
Great image of 1942 Honolulu..still has stripes atop t-2, but I don't know if they were still willow green and if the Honolulu was still CruDiv9's flagship in WWII.........


Five 6"47 gun turrets........almost finished........


one more......

More sooner!
Tony

[gtb -red]

nice work Tony! now if I can get off my lazy azz and do something about my classic warship 1/350 Washington.

[Dave Hill]

nice work Tony! now if I can get off my lazy azz and do something about my classic warship 1/350 Washington.

Lookin' good man!!!...now if I can get off MY lazy ass and finish my New Orleans

Dave

[Devin]

Great to see more photos, Tony. Reminds me, I need to get in touch and order parts for Wichita. I've been distracted by wingy things as of late, ships are suffering from lack of attention...

[MartinJQuinn]

Very nice work, Tony. Looking forward to seeing more.

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the input guys! Greatly appreciated. Sounds like we all need to self motivate and become more productive; except for Martin!
Can't wait to see you guys in Ohio! I still need to make sure that this model can be boxed up and carried aboard a commercial a/c. AA said 45" all L + W + H added together; sounds doable.
The main guns have me beat! I still need to figure out how much more $%*(^&#@&*'n time I should spend on these. Ridiculous!
I picked up the hull last night; first time in months. I spent two hours sanding down the twin bits to make room for replacements of better quality...to be scratch built; easy to do. L'Arsenal makes 20" twin bits for carriers and BB's, but they're monstrous and too big for this CL. Too bad. Some things are better left to be added on separately; bits and chocks both fall into this category I'd wager. Interestingly, the deck mounted vents are all add-ons........a plus.
The forecastle needed some manicuring; done.
I still have to plan out the addition of some 300 port holes to the hull sides....yikes!
There are also a set of 8 5"25's to be made, all of the boats, ( a lot of them), the masts, the gun directors and more; so I still have plenty of side work.
Painting too.
More soon, Tony

[Dave Hill]

Sounds like we all need to self motivate and become more productive

Roger that!!!!...We're finally getting some nice weather here in Michigan so the urge to be outside has been overwhelming!

...take things one step at a time Tony..you've got a gem in the rough there my friend

Dave

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
I was going to primer the hull last night, but it just got too late.
I have made a decision about the turrets. The kit supplied optical range finding, "ears", will not be used after all. I was filing and sanding them down after being attached to the turrets and kept repeatedly coming up with marginal results and inconsistent angles and dimensions. Scrxx it!
I'll make new ones from strip styrene and I figured this will only add a day to the time to build table. I am still hoping to take Honolulu to the IPMS Nats, but now I'm not so sure; which means I may choose another unfinished model that may be easier to get to the finish line.
Not decided yet, but for the turrets.
Tony

[Devin]

Tony,

While it may delay the kit, it's better an extra day or two now to get it right than a lifetime of looking at a model and saying "I should have done it THIS way!". Believe me, I know!

-Devin