Battleship Row in 1/700

[Dan K]

Love the eye candy.

[mconnelley]

Hello:

I've started working on the boat deck area of Arizona. As they'll be depicted as they were in Pearl Harbor, the boats will be off the ship and in the water, and so there won't be the usual stack of boats behind the funnel. I got the Tom's detail set that has the boat racks so that this area wouldn't look empty. The kit has resin parts for this, but they're much heavier than the photo-etch.

On one side of Arizona, I've painted the casemate guns in their final color. The photo came out a bit dark, and the color is quite dark, but the last photo shows what it looks like.

I've also primed and started to paint the turrets. I've assigned each turret to its final location, and labeled them all on the bottom of the turret. At the point, the tops are all white so that there's a light background for the red or blue later. Turret 2 of Nevada will stay white.

Mike

[FFG-7]

no turret 3 for the Nevada class? shame of you.

[mconnelley]

Hello:

Turret 3 had the catapults on them, and were dark gray on top. Since the tops weren't painted white, red, or blue, there isn't a need to a white base layer. The same goes for Nevada's turret 1, which appears to have not been painted red on top. So don't worry about the three turret 3s...they're just set aside and not in the picture.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

One thing that was bothering me is that the profile of the bow for Oklahoma and Nevada (tan resin) compared to the Hi-Mold Arizona (green resin). The bow profiles look quite different, since the Oklahoma and Nevada being very straight, and Arizona quite curved.

For comparison, I found pictures of the bows of Oklahoma and Arizona. Oklahoma is the top picture, Arizona is the lower picture.

My conclusion is that the bow of Nevada and Oklahoma are not curved enough. The bow of Arizona is too curved, and the point where the bow meets the waterline is aft of where it should be.

Mike

[FFG-7]

can you post sideview pictures from the anchors & aft to show both bow casements while still posting the 2 photos of the real ships as I see a possible issue with Oklahoma.

[Jeff Sharp]

Hello:
My conclusion is that the bow of Nevada and Oklahoma are not curved enough. The bow of Arizona is too curved, and the point where the bow meets the waterline is aft of where it should be.
Mike

Agreed! Also, remove that degaussing line from the side of Oklahoma's hull. That was a short lived temporary deguassing line that was replaced with the permanent line at the deck edge.

[mconnelley]

Hello:

Here are pictures of the Oklahoma kit and the real ship, from the bow to turret 1. The thing I noticed is that the casemates are too tall, and the lower edge could be brought up to increase the downwards slope of the hull line forward of the casemates.

Mike

[mconnelley]

Hello:

I've finished adjusting the bow profiles for Arizona, Nevada, and Oklahoma.

For Nevada (or maybe it's Oklahoma) there was either a casting flaw or the tip of the bow broke off, so I filed the area flat and glued on a bit of sheet plastic with a liberal amount of superglue. Once that set, I filed it down, using drill bits like pin gauges to get the right depth to the curve.

Arizona needed a lot more help. I glued on bits of sheet plastic, slathered it in superglue, then slathered that in putty. A bunch of filing later and we have the final bow as seen here. I similarly used drill bits to get the right depth to the curve.

Mike

[mconnelley]

And now for something completely different:

I've painted the tops of the turrets. From top to bottom we have Arizona, Nevada, and Oklahoma.

To the right is my Arizona paint mule (using the Dragon kit). The hull around the quarter deck is in Vallejo 70.900 French Mirage Blue, which is a close match to 5-S sea blue, which Arizona (and Tennessee, Maryland, and West Virginia) apparently had at the time of the attack. The turrets and superstructure are painted in Vallejo 70.836 London Gray which is a close match to 5-D but a bit lighter for scale effect. I like the look of the French Mirage Blue as 5-S, so I think I'll go with that.

Mike

[mconnelley]

One more thing:

Just got an order in from Blackcat Models. First, I'm quite jealous of the name, as I have a wonderful black cat myself. Second, their 5"/25 guns are fantastic. I dared to remove one of them from the print raft, to compare with the resin part. I suspect that the resin part was near the limit of what could be cast at the time. Technology has come a long way since then.

Mike

[Jeff Sharp]

To the right is my Arizona paint mule (using the Dragon kit). The hull around the quarter deck is in Vallejo 70.900 French Mirage Blue, which is a close match to 5-S sea blue, which Arizona (and Tennessee, Maryland, and West Virginia) apparently had at the time of the attack.

Please don't! You're doing so good so far.

[mconnelley]

Hello:

This project was on the back burner for a bit, while I started working on the 1/350 Yamashiro, finished an 1/32 F-8, and started a 1/32 Tomcat. But I've brought them back onto the work bench.

The immediate goal is to get them into paint, and to do that I need to add a lot of the fine details that I'd like to have on before paint. Here's Oklahoma, and I've added the railing around the edge of the deck, and the yardarms on the fighting tops. I also gave the fore and main masts a shot of primer to get a better idea of what it'll look like.

Mike

[FFG-7]

Mike, were the gun tubs for the not installed quad 1.1" gun glued on the main deck or part of the original cast of the model as those 2 tubs are supposed to be slightly raised from the deck not flat on the deck?

[mconnelley]

Dang, you're right about the AA gun tub. I can't slip anything past you guys. On the kit, the tub is molded with the hull. I wish I'd noticed that before I put the railing on.

Here's a photo I found during the salvage, that clearly shows that the AA tub is a bit off of the deck. The quad 1.1" was never installed, so a 3" (?) gun is there instead.

Cheers
Mike

[FFG-7]

did you download the plans off the Ship Design Drawings that I might have linked before & if so then look at Sheet 3 - Outboard Profile as you can just see it there & maybe calculate the height to see if worthwhile at 1/700 scale.

[mconnelley]

I've installed the yardarms on Nevada and Arizona. I first airbrushed them with a light gray primer before folding them, so that we wouldn't see shiny brass on the inside after it's folded. Folding was kind of tricky, to keep the sides flat and the edges sharp and not end up with some weird tube.

There is also the problem of alignment. The goal is to keep the narrow side down (i.e. get the roll angle right), get the two of them level with the fight top, and with the right 'V' angle, and have the yardarms on Nevada and Arizona identical. So I made a simple jig, that's just a piece of plastic card with a notch cut out that allows the foremast to hang on the bottom of the foretop. I drew two lines on the card where I want the yardarms to be. When the foremast is hanging in the jig, the jig gets the position (x,y,z) of the yardarm correct, helps to get the root right, and get the angle between the two correct.

Cheers
Mike

[mconnelley]

And here's the result:

[mconnelley]

I've been working on new gun tubs for the quarter deck of Nevada and Oklahoma.

The first picture shows my initial attempt. Overall it's ok, but the rib detail is from a 1/350 PE set and is a bit clunkier than I'd like.

The second picture shows what I've settled on doing. From left to right:
1) Just bare brass wall on a plastic disk, and a short pedestal.
2) As in the above photo, with the PE rib that looks too thick.
3) Used 0.2 mm copper wire for the top rib, and then 0.2 mm sheet plastic for the sides that wrap around the bottom. with a first coat of primer to see what it all looks like together.
4) With just the 0.2 mm copper wire in place, before the ribs go on.

I like the look with the 0.2 mm details. It's thicker than it should be if it were true to scale, but gets the point across without looking too clunky.

Mike

[FFG-7]

did you use a chisel blade to remove the old gun tubs?