¹⁄350

USS Massachusetts, July 1944 Refit

"MSW Crew-mate Dave Hill (DaveHill) send us his first MSW submission, a fantastic build of the USS Massachusetts after her refit in July 1944 at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, in this MSW Build Story!"

the build...

This is my Trumpeter 1/350 scale USS Massachusetts as she looked after her refit in July 1944 at the Puget Sound Navy Yard; the kit has the ship in a post war configuration which meant some scratch building would be needed to backdate her to a wartime fit.

Here is list of my scratch built and/or modified parts.

Scratch built parts:

40mm gun tubs
20mm splinter shields
Spare anchor cut out in deck/hull
Fore and Mainmasts
20mm platform on starboard base of funnel
Mk.51 director tubs... (To resemble their wartime appearance)
Stereoscopic rangefinder on conning tower
Details under #2 Main Turret
4 pipes at rear of funnel made from .050" styrene rod drilled out



Modified parts:

The L' Arsenal twin 5" mounts (PE hatches and .010" styrene rod)
Three pulleys added to aircraft crane to more resemble Massachusetts'
All molded on W/T doors sanded off and replaced with PE doors.
16" gun blast bags covered with facial tissue.
Mk.51 gun directors



Aftermarket parts:

GMM USS Massachusetts PE set
Tom's USS Massachusetts PE set
WEM USN doors and hatches PE set
WEM 40mm ammo racks (for Tamiya Missouri)
L'Arsenal Mk.37 directors
L'Arsenal 40 and 20mm AA gun sets
L'Arsenal 5"/38 brass barrels
L'Arsenal Twin 5" mounts
BMK 16" brass barrels
Anchor chain made from costume jewelry chain



Reference material:

USS Massachusetts Tech. Reference 2 by Randall Shoker
USS Massachusetts Ship's data book
1/500 scale drawing from Ship's data book enlarged to 1/350 scale
Walk around photo tours by Sean Hert, Dave Lockhart, Rob Mackie and Robert Theriaque
NavSource website



While Trumpeter's Massachusetts had some problems: the hull halves needed a lot of filler and sanding to get the hull smooth..the weapons were horrible and need replacement with aftermarket ones, and the same bad main turrets found on North Carolina... I found that the overall fit of the kit was pretty good!

WEM colourcoat enamels was used on the model which was almost entirely painted by airbrush, and I used UNI-Caenis thread and Halloween mask hair for the model's rigging, the display case was built by me and small oak spindles were painted gold and finished off with 3 coats of automotive clear.

I really liked this kit and had a lot of fun building her, I would buy this kit again maybe modeling an early war Mass. or a late war South Dakota.