Well, living in a three horse town(Which are my horses) has its draw backs, a once a week paper is one fo them. Then waiting until after work to get a US Today is another one.

So, I tried to use CNN to date my pictures, but they did not work all that well either. SO, if you notice the ticker showing the note about the Red Wings going for the win tonight, 6/2/08.

I will get a paper in the morning, so I can post a proper picture tomorrow, but I wanted to get this up today.

My project is the USS The Sullivans, DD537 with the L'Arsenal upgrade set.







Updated pics tomorrow.

Hello stranger! Had me worried there, good to see you aboard.

Frank

Two Sullivans!!

That's good (one OOB and one Full Built)
Go guys!!

Looking forward for more updates


Rui

I was torn between this ship or the ISE. So, I seriously flipped a coin, Sully won.


Next I need to clean off my bench and get into the the fun.

Looking forward to your build Jim.

Gator

I actually did get some work on the Sullivans over the weekend. So, here is a quick run down on what was done, pictures to follow. I worked on the ships main guns, cleaning them up and adding the brass barrels, assembled one of the quad 40mm guns, which was a first, and worked on smoothing out a nasty seam line on the hull. It is so funny I had such trouble working with PE on a 1/35 tank, but yet I can assembly a 1/350 quad 40mm mount with little or no problem.

I am using two different sets of AM PE for the build, Toms and the set provided in the L’Arsenal package. What one is missing the other has, so I am pretty much covered.
What is strange is neither set has instructions for railings on the upper decks of the ship. Good thing there are so many photos of Fletcher class ships around. The bad thing is it seems no two ships in the class were built alike!

This looks like it is going to be a nice fun build with plenty of room to add details.

Look forward to your pics!

Here are a few quick pictures. I will probably spend the next week cleaning up some of the seams and other trouble spots.

Looking Good Jim!!

The brass barrels really make a difference... did it includes the blast bags or you have to make them yourself?

One little tip on the PE attaching points:
- Try to use a new blade when removing it from the sheet;
- Use a dedicated Photo-Etch scissors to remove the extra bit (check the available one here, but buy them where you want )
- If needed, use a Diamond file to clean the PE

Hope this helps


Rui

Nice sub assembly work on this build, and yet again Rui is right, those brass barrels do make all the difference - its a shame all the extra parts are so expensive though.

Keeeeeep building!

Cheers,

Peter F

The guns can be made either way. The barrels with blast bags are resin and some Fletchers did not have any. It all depends when and where the ship was. I wanted to use the brass parts and will more than likely add some white glue blast bags.

I had thought I had cut the PE clean until I blew up my pictures. So, that will need to be cleaned up. Already have some diamond files for that. That stuff is tricky.

I have been busy cleaning up the seams and hope to start putting some railings on the upper sections. I am going to cheat a little and use some of the Cyber-Hobby PE that came with the USS Buchanan kit.

Nice work Jim.

Good work Jim,... great thing about shooting your model along the way, it gives you different perspectives, and catches little flaws. I find shooting and going through pictures of my models to be an essential step in the build.

Frank

I agree totally. The camera can bring out all sorts of things you would never see with the naked eye. I have been fixing some fo the flaws I caught on the camera.

That is a big tip. So make sure to take a few along the way just to give them a once over.

Got back into construction mode last night. One thing I can say is my darn camera sure does bring out my defects.

Looking good! I feel your pain with the camera-- thanks to my photos, I noticed a bunch of my PE props were bent the other day...

I am sad to report that I was unable to finish off my ship. I made a valiant try, but alas, I have fallen short in my work. Most of this was because I put off starting as early as I should have. And then things in real life were hectic along with work here on the site, so the end result was a 75% finished kit and a 75% finished base.

But to everyone, thank you so much for your hard work and dedication to the projects. It was both enjoyable and a learning experience. Now if I can sneak in some time I have a ship to finish.

I feel your pain Jim. "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry."