Battleship Row in 1/700

[mconnelley]

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

First, I used my sprue cutter to cut the raised wall around the edge of the gun tub. I then found that the floor of the tub was a bit above the rest of the deck, yet cast into the deck. I used my Dremel and a grinding burr to grind down most of the floor. The last step was to use a chisel blade to smooth out the deck to be flat and flush with the surrounding deck. Next I'll do a little scribing of the planks.

Mike

[mconnelley]

I'm pretty happy that I *FINALLY* figured out how to make a nested pair of rafts. I haven't been able to find this among aftermarket parts. As an example, I include a picture of Maryland showing the rafts on the two forward turrets.

This is my third attempt. I took a 3D printed raft, and wrapped 0.5 mm copper wire around it. I was able to eventually get a good fit. Here it is with a first coat of primer, resting on the side of a turret. I like how it turned out. I'm not so fond of how long it took me to make this one, and that I have a lot more to make.

Mike

[FFG-7]

is the wire on the outside or inside? I would use either a scribe or a pointed blade to be used as a scribe to scribe between the outer raft & inner raft to give more detail depth between the 2 rafts

[mconnelley]

Hello:

Regarding the nested rafts, I'm going to try to make a CAD model and 3D print a bunch of them at once. Making one wasn't too bad, but I need almost 30 of them. More on that if I can get the parts made.

In other news, Arizona is getting closer to paint. I've got the deck edge railings on, which includes the parts that support the awnings. I took this from the Tom's set for Oklahoma and Nevada, since their Arizona set didn't have the awning supports. However, on Dec 7th Arizona had awnings up but Nevada and Oklahoma didn't. I mocked up some awnings by just cutting out approximate shapes from paper. I haven't decided how I want to implement the awnings on the model...either sheet plastic, sheet brass, or something else.

I also haven't figured out how the amidships awning was rigged. It might have been one piece, spanning from one side of the ship to the other, passing between the main mast and turret 3. Or maybe it was two pieces, with a gap on the centerline of the ship.

There are a few things to add to the main mast of Oklahoma and Nevada, and then *I think* we'd be ready for primer.

Cheers
Mike

[FFG-7]

this shows a gap so 2 pieces. http://navsource.net/archives/01/043/014303a.jpg

[Jeff Sharp]

Sometimes photographs can be deceiving. What’s causing the appearance of two awnings is the overhang of the back of turret #3 along with its aircraft catapult and also the rangefinder platform from the mainmast hanging over as well.

[mconnelley]

Hello:

Here's a zoom in on another famous photo, and to me it looks more like one piece where it passes aft of the main mast. It's a bit tricky with the overhang from the turret catapult.

It also looks like there are a number of cut-outs along the perimeter of the awning. I can't tell if that's because there were cut-outs along the perimeter of the awning of if there is something in the foreground that doesn't show well in the photos but blocks part of the edge of the awning in the photo.

Here's another view from Oct 1941. It doesn't help to address the question of whether the awning was split in the middle, but it is a different perspective.

Cheers
Mike

[MartinJQuinn]

My guess is that it would be a minimum of two pieces, that meet in the middle.

Nice work, BTW.