¹⁄700

USS Iowa BB-61 (1986)

"MSW crew-mate Carl Musselman (carlomaha) sends us his latest build story, of the USS Iowa BB-61 (1986)!"



With the help of the Iowa Class BB photo CD from Ray D. Bean, the wonderful walk-around photos of the USS Iowa by Peter Bakels and Stef Willems posted here on Kitmaker.net, and several photos given me by a few model building friends, I have attempted, here, to add as much detail as I am able to notice from these references and as much as I think is possible in this small scale to the rather bare-of-detail and anatomically inaccurate Skywave/Pit-Road model kit. Mind you that some creative license may have been taken with some areas of the build.

This is my second attempt at a 1/700 modern USS Iowa model. The first one was the Trumpeter kit (which is about 99% the same kit as the Skywave/Pit-Road kit). I was dissatisfied with how this first model turned out, especially the inaccurate wooden deck pattern on the aft end and the incorrect fighting top area of the kit; so I just had to do it again.

The first step in this "do-over" was to scratch build the fighting top area of the forward superstructure.





The second was to putty, sand, and scribe the correct wooden deck pattern around the aft 16" gun turret.





I replaced the aviation shack near the helo deck with a scratch built one. I also cut off the larger deck vent stacks and drilled holes and inserted styrene rod stock in their places.





Throughout the model, I added photo-etched doors, hatches, vertical ladders, fire hose racks and reels, and life rings (Gold Medal Models and Tom's Modelworks); along with brass wire stowed davits, vents, scuppers, and fire hose applicators. I added portholes throughout the model by drilling little holes.





I cut off all of the molded-in inclined ladders and replaced them with photo-etched ones and modified various areas of the superstructure with styrene stock.