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HMS Quality

"Crew-mate Andrew Ayling (jester_ara) shares his second MSW contribution with us, a fine build feature of the HMS Quality!"

Vessel History

HMS Quality (G62) was a Q class destroyer of the Royal Navy laid down by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Limited at Wallsend-on-Tyne on 10 October 1940, launched on 6 October 1941 and commissioned on 4th August 1942. She served in the Mediterranean in the North African Landings and in 1944 in the Far East.

She and Nepal were the first British warships to go up river and berth in Tokyo on 17 September 1945, when she took a party of 300 Royal Navy and Royal Marines from HMS King George V and HMS Newfoundland for the re-opening of the British Embassy. She transferred to the Royal Australian Navy at 9:00 on 8 October 1945. The British crew of Quality brought home to England HMAS Napier.

The model...

On re-reading the Whitley’s Destroyers of WW2 book, I worked out that the design of the Q and R flotillas were pretty close to the J, K, & N's. The main differences being armament and stern shape. The later Emergency Flotillas gradually changed further from the original design so will wait for another day.

All the pieces came together when I bought the Resin Shipyard Haida and Kootenay kits. I used the guns from Kootenay to build the Quality, and Kelly’s mounts to back date Haida to Eskimo, and­ for a change, I built both the ships at the same time. I’d previously bought a card model of HMS Saumarez, which was useful for some of the major shapes and positions.

Hull Changes

Before I joined the upper and lower hull together, I drew around the stern sections to get the original shape... this was transferred to plasti-card, and the Saumarez plan, and Mk1 eyeball, were used to get the new shape at deck and waterline. A bit of milliput and sanding finished the job. The remainder of the hull mods were straight forward:
Removed approx 50% of the scuttles, based on plans.
Removed overhangs on B gun deck, removed and replaced ready use ammunition
Re-shaped blast shield

As I’d started with Kelly who had a 4” AA gun replacing the aft torpedo tubes I replaced the deck insert and fared everything together, the aft deck house locating socket was also filled at this point ­ one of the other J class kits has the original 2 torpedo mount deck.



Additions

New deck house from plasti-card based upon the dimensions from Saumarez, 20mm tubs were eyeballed from an overhead shot of one of the class in Ensign 6 and built from plasti-card, Searchlight moved to a raised platform built from scrap.

Radar office added on top of the galley ­ in the centre of the mast tripod - from scrap resin... the bridge required a few changes...­ Bulkheads below the signalling platforms were cut away, and replaced with plastic strip pillars, similar added under the 20mm platforms. Lookouts (abeam range finder) cut away and re-built from plasti-card.

There’s a great tool for this kind of job- if you take a single sided razor blade, place it blade upwards on your bench and then tap it along the length of the blade with a scalpel, the razor will get tiny chips and dents and can be used as a very fine razor saw... I’ve used mine in the past to saw individual elements from fitted brass railings with no problems,­ and of course it can be re sharpened by tapping with the scalpel again.

Various hatches and details were added from spare etched brass sets, wire and blocks of evergreen based on observation of photos etc.

Armament

The 4 main gun mounts are extras that I ordered from Resin Shipyard, however I chose to replace the barrels with brass US 5” barrels cut down to the correct length. I also clad the fronts and tops of the gun shields with thin plasti-card to reduce the size of the apertures, which I felt are a bit too big on the original. Details again came from etched brass sets and plastic strip. The locations for X and Y guns were worked out from the Saumarez plans again.

At the same time I’d ordered some quad torpedo mounts, but in the end I got impatient and built them from rod and strip. The 20mm mounts are from L’Arsenal. Everything else is from the original kit.

Finishing

I’ve always built my ships as subassemblies, complete with all the etched brass fitted prior to painting...it adds to the masking, but I’m pretty messy with Super-glue, and this build was no exception. All paints were WEM Colourcoats, and airbrushed on, masking was with Tamiya tape and blue-tack for the dazzle patterns. Washes and weathering was a combination of oils and Humbrol enamels. Final assembly and rigging with invisible mending thread were carried out bit by bit, in the most logical order, followed by a good blast of matte varnish.