¹⁄350

Building HMS Cloepatra

The project...

Since there is no plastic kit of a Dido class cruiser, in 350th, so I decided to try and scratch-build one. I had previously built a 350th Ajax using this method, and it was reasonably effective.

The references I used were the following books:
HMS Argonaut, Profile Morskie,
British Cruisers of WW2, Raven & Roberts,
RN Cruisers in Focus, Maritime Books,
Dido Class , Ensign series
RN Camouflage Vol 1 , Warship Perspectives.
I made a box-like structure for the hull, having made templates from balsa wood. I needed to scale up the PM plans, as they are 400th.The most difficult part of the hull, was the pronounced "knuckle" at the bow. The rest of the structure was made from Plastic sheeting; the main decks were from Ever-greens scribed plastic.

After much thought, I decided to build the Cleopatra as she was when first completed in 1941.She wore an interesting Camouflage pattern, consisting of four colors,MS1,MS4A,B6,and B5.As I had no information of her deck colors at this time, I went for natural wood decks and steel decks painted dark gray.

The main armament of 5.25" guns are from the Tamiya KGV, along with the AA directors, and main DCT. The rest (boats etc) were from my spares locker. Stretched sprue was used for the rigging and PE came from left-overs from various sets, apart from the main deck-railings which came from Tom’s Modelworks.

The model took seven weeks to build, and cost in the region of £20!! I must say that I toughly enjoyed this project, and I am planning many others.