Trashy Fleets - When Life Gives You Lemnos...

I started working on the USS Mississippi-class pre-dreadnought battleship that later became the RHN Lemnos a while before the Hood and I managed to complete both at about the same time.

My main concern with US-made warships was, of course, modelling the lattice masts. This is not a problem at smaller scales as I just make a tapered conical rod and paint on the detail. However, in 1/1000 scale this was not feasible.

Delving into the internet somebody on some forum mentioned plastic nets in which they stored fruit in supermarkets as lattice mast material, so I first got some oranges and tried to use the net they were stored in, but it proved too big. Next I bought some garlic in a similar package albeit with smaller gaps in the netting, and it worked just fine!

So I know technically the Lemnos had her main mast switched to a traditional battle mast later, but for experimental purposes (and to make the pun in the title) I had mine retain both.

USS Arizona '36 Edition - Completed

Long time no see, dear blog readers, but that does not mean I'm completely lost or forgot about the hobby. In actual fact, I have been rather busy these past few weeks, I just focused more on producing stuff and less about taking photos and writing about them.

Among other things, I managed to wrap up the Arizona kit, with a lot of swearing re photoetch related misadventures. Lesson learned: I bought a professional PE bender. It's a hefty piece and produced locally. 

The kit could still be improved, for example I tried to replicate the bilge keels but failed, however, it was a learning experience from the beginning, and I think it turned out fine, especially compared to the original material.

Here follows a showcase of the few worthwhile pictures I could manage:

USS Arizona '36 Edition WIP #3 - Life Signs Edition

 

First of all, a Happy New Year to everyone.

It just occurred to me that although blog posting is sparse, I actually did a lot more hobby-related things during the past year - more available free time I guess, because of less commuting. I hope that in time I'll be able to catch up with my painting output and post on this blog more frequently.

Among other things, some progress had been made on the Arizona. The bottom of the hull was painted red, and some sub-assemblies completed. After repositioning all the barrels, I painted and varnished the turrets. My homemade PE bender turned out to be faulty, but two scalpel blades helped me out in completing the first larger (1/700 scale so ther term is up to debate) PE part I ever did, the turret-mounted catapult in these images. I'm really proud of the result. The catapult is five or six pieces and includes multiple 90° bends. The good-lookin Seagull mounted on it is made out of another five pieces. It was not frustrating at all to put together.

I could bore you further with details about how horrible everything is on the Hobby Boss kit, but let's just be happy for a little while.

USS Arizona '36 Edition WIP #2

 

Some progress was made during the long weekend with the Arizona build. I sanded the hull to a better shape and corrected the torpedo bulge at the bow. The gun shields were trimmed off the deck above the secondary casemates. And finally, the metal barrels were glued to the turrets which were more or less corrected.

There are obvious mould lines and marks all across, which makes the process, erm, interesting. I'm glad I don't have to work with the plastic barrels. I'll salvage those for another project.

Next up is sanding the second deck tier to a smooth finish, and doing something about those nasty porthole-looking things. I'll probably fill them up, add some card on the outside and drill proper holes.

USS Arizona '36 Edition WIP #1

 

I might have mentioned previously that I'm on the lookout for the Takom 1/700 scale Derfflinger kit. Well it was made available in local model stores recently, so, to clear the queue and do some practice, I started working on the 1/700 scale Hobby Boss USS Arizona.

Revell 1/1200 USS Missouri Restoration

As I've mentioned earlier, I have a stash of 1/1200 scale WW2 era ships that I should be refurbishing. These include a diecast Yamato, and a Revell Missouri, Bismarck and Enterprise. I started with this one for no particular reason.

First I cleaned all the dust off the upper part, then sanded the bottom because it was glued to a paper painting stand and thus the flat bottom was not level with the base all the way. Then I took off the secondary turrets, cut their barrels and replaced them with broom bristles. They were also turned outwards, which is a hazard when handling the ship as they are quite brittle, so I turned the turrets facing the direction of travel. I did not bother doing the same with the main armament, it looks cool as it is. 

The base will entirely be made of wood this time, no fussing about with toilet paper. You can see the beginnings on the image. 

The next step is to shape the base and start painting the ship properly. I'll need to do something about the broken seaplane catapult though.

Dreadnoughts

I present you the twin ships of the US Navy's Wyoming class and a Tegetthoff-class Austro-Hungarian battleship. They are part of the 1/2000 scratchbuilding project.

USS St Louis (C-20) / OIS Debilitación

As I've said in the previous post, I'm back to building 1/600 scale warships (and might have a ruleset that suits them in mind, too): this is the protected cruiser St Louis, not so great, but very white.

Let me explain my prejudice against this particular model: while building and painting her, she fell off the table and was knocked over multiple times, and I had to reinstall the masts at least three or four times before the final coat of varnish was added. 

So the lore behind all of it is that after the class ceased its service in the US Navy, this particular ship was sold to Ortosilia, and became the flagship of the fleet. She was to be renamed OIS Debilitador, but during the ceremony, Prince Arturo of the House of Ortosilia made a mistake, and to cover it up, the ship became Debilitación.

Because I have also built a ship that was designed much later on (and has a strong relation to Hungarian history; people guessing right in the comments below will receive an online pat in the back), I have changed the dates a little, and instead of the late 1890s, the South American naval war would be set after the end of the Great War, so the belligerents could lay their hands on various vessels of the age at a discount. It is a much more glorious fate than being sold and scrapped.