The Ship Model Forum

I've been working on a couple versions of HMS Invincible in 1/144 scale and a USS Fletcher in 1/96 scale so, I haven't spent much time on the as built version of USS Arizona.
I was thinking about how to tackle that recently and I'm still contemplating using this kit as the basis for other US ships, as you are doing, @Davidp. I'd love to see your progress.
I was kind of hung up on how to remove the torpedo bulges but, after looking at how much polystyrene you had to add to make scale bulges, it seems they are just about non-existent on the molded parts and some sanding to remove their outlines may be good enough?
I'm definitely too lazy to fix the concave stern the same way you did so, I'm looking at how to do that with 3D printed parts.

Thanks. Yeah. I found some good drawings of the Pensy's cage masts and the frame offsets for Arizona. I haven't picked a scale yet. Maybe I'll start small and work my way up?
I should probably finish up my 3D Printed 1/144 HMS Invincible first though.

I'm calling it done and chalking it up to a learning experience. It fought me every step of the way. As I was working on it, the night before Noreastcon, I had a big spring clamp compressing the hull halves to fit the deck parts and, of course, the clamp slipped. It explosively disassembled the model and bounced off of my forehead with a fair amount of force. My son thought that was hilarious... I did bring it to the competition but, it really wasn't up to par with glue blobs everywhere and a horrible paint job. Ironically, I won a bronze medal in the Out of the Box category but, that was because there were only 3 entries.

Anyway, here is a picture of it.

'xanthar', 'Goose' is correct.......Have FUN, think of it as a "test article" redefining your skills, asking for tips, applying those tips, Making Your OWN tips on how to conquer your "Ultimate Goal!!"

Believe Me......MANY of us have been there, some, if not many of us get frustrated and leave the project, perfectly Normal. If you do leave, leave for the moment, re-eval, and get back to it 'Sir'!!

We look forward to your build(s)!!



Mario

I found some time to work on this a bit. I decided to add a pair of outer docking keels to the hull. I tried strips of polystyrene but, it was a more complicated shape than I felt like carving with a blade so, of course, I 3d printed them instead.
Here's it being test fit. Once the other one is done printing, I'll use some CA to fix them in place and take a stab at spraying the bottom red.

Nice!

Have popcorn.

Got the base with the keel blocks test fit and it doesn't look too bad.
It definitely hides the hull seam : )
I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that the model doesn't match up to the scale docking plan?
Even with some excessive clamping, not all the blocks touch the hull.
The next iteration should probably have the outer rows of blocks be a mm or two taller.
I trimmed the semicircular ends down so that it didn't stick out from under the hull obnoxiously.

The ones that davidp sent you and I are use-able. There are some higher resolution copies on the NARA website too.

It's roughly 1.5 mm thick, 350mm long, and 60 mm wide. It printed pretty well on my filament printer. The center hole is to clamp down on a wooden cross beam that will make sure that the hull touches down on the outer rows of blocks.

My question is "Where did you find an ARIZONA docking plan?" I've been looking for one for YEARS !!!!

I got sidetracked for a a while because I decided that I didn't want to use the display legs that came with the kit. I didn't feel like turning finials out of brass and the only wooden square stock I had was way too big to suggest blocks. So what to do?
Spend hours tracking down the docking plan and designing a nearly scale 3DP model of the keel block arrangement, of course : P So.. that's done and printing now. I'll have to spot the holes in the hull and test fit it later.

Out of the box is always fun! Just enjoy it. And how could you not being enjoying it with all those clamps on the model I’ve done the belt sander trick before lol some of these old box scale kits are terrible in the fit and finish department but still can be built up nice with alot of attention no less. Looking forward to seeing it fitted out.

They weren't helping and, yeah, I cleaned things up after that first pic : )

I think it's good enough now that I'm just gonna paint it.

On the first picture if I follow the center seam there might have been 2 small burrs present causing this trouble. Old models sometimes have protruding pin ejector marks or simply overly long locator pins on the glue surface.

I've been toying with the idea of making custom 3DP parts for this kit and I was going to jump right into customizing one to represent the USS Arizona as constructed but, I realized that it's been decades since I've actually built a plastic model and I never really built them well ; (

So.. I figured I should try to build one out of the box, for practice.

This particular kit has been on "the shelf" for a couple of years because the seam down the center of the hull looked pretty awful and I'd read that the pressure from some rubber bands would fix that, given enough time. It did not, and I'd seen some other build threads where people had glued in bits of sprue to bridge and strengthen hull seams. I figured I'd see if that'd work. I found a pistol grip clamp at hobby lobby that seemed like a good size and while it closed up the gap, the bottom was no where near flat.

I decided that I'd hold it flat with some lengths of 1/2" square dowels, some small C-clamps, and glue in plates of 1mm styrene to keep it that way. It was pretty awkward as I didn't really have enough small clamps but, I think I've gotten the job done.

I'm guessing that I'll still need to fill the seam on the bottom though. I guess I'll see what it looks like when it's dry and all the clamps are off.